Noteshelf vs Penbook

Noteshelf

• Students and teachers taking handwritten notes with a stylus
• Marking up PDFs, slides and scanned documents
• Planners and journals built from ready-made templates

Penbook

• People who keep planners, journals or bullet journals on an iPad
• Students who want subject paper such as Cornell, graph or chemistry
• Annotating PDF planners and worksheets with Apple Pencil

Noteshelf

• The Free tier is limited to 3 notebooks, and handwriting recognition and search require Premium.
• Pricing differs by platform: $7.99 on the Microsoft Store, a $9.99 one-time upgrade on Android, and subscriptions or a lifetime purchase on the App Store.
• The App Store shows several yearly Premium prices between $19.99 and $49.99, so the price offered inside the app may vary.
• Sync uses iCloud on Apple devices and Google Drive on Android; the listings do not describe syncing between the two.

Penbook

• The free version is limited to a single notebook; unlimited notebooks and exports need Penbook Premium.
• The US App Store lists Penbook Premium at several amounts from $4.99 to $39.99 without stating the billing period for each.
• Penbook is built for iPhone and iPad. There is no Android, Windows or web version, and the App Store marks the Mac build as not verified for macOS.
• The Penbook 8 Live Paper engine appears only on iOS 27 or iPadOS 27, and only in newly created books.

Noteshelf

Handwritten notes

Write with pens and highlighters modeled on real ones, turn rough strokes into clean shapes, and use a zoom box for precise writing.

Handwriting recognition

Converts handwriting to text and searches handwritten notes in 65 languages. Recognition and search are part of Premium.

PDF and document annotation

Import PDFs, documents, slides and images, then highlight, underline and write on them. A built-in scanner digitizes paper documents.

Audio recording

Record lectures or meetings while taking notes and replay them later. The Apple version can also record from an Apple Watch.

Noteshelf AI

Generates handwritten notes on a topic, summarizes pages, translates text and explains terms, drawing on a monthly allowance of AI credits.

Sync and backup

iCloud sync across iPhone, iPad and Mac, Google Drive sync between Android devices, and automatic backup to Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or WebDAV.

Penbook

Live Paper planners

Stationery that updates itself: a day planner with a live timeline, a weekly planner that shows connected calendars, and monthly and yearly planners that track the current date.

Over 400 stationery types

Ruled, graph, dot, Cornell, music staff, chemistry, storyboard and engineering paper among others, with adjustable density, margins and layout. Each page of a notebook can differ.

Apple Pencil inking

Writing with Apple Pencil, a stylus or a finger, with shape recognition and a lasso that resizes, recolors, reflows and straightens ink or copies handwriting out as text.

PDF import and export

PDFs import as notebooks or as custom stationery, selected pages can be dropped into notes, and a notebook or the whole library exports as vector PDF.

Handwriting search and Siri

Handwritten notes can be searched for words or phrases. Siri can find something in a notebook or take a note that lands in the Inbox notebook.

On-device AI and page history

With Apple Intelligence, to-dos written on a page become Reminders without notes leaving the device, and each page keeps a local history that can be rewound.

Noteshelf

• Free$0

  3 notebooks with unlimited pages, hundreds of templates and Noteshelf AI for text with 30 monthly credits.

• Noteshelf for Windows$7.99

  one-time purchase on the Microsoft Store

  The Windows app for stylus devices, with handwritten and typed notes, audio recording, PDF annotation and handwriting search.

• Premium (Android)$9.99

  one-time purchase; local pricing may apply

  Unlimited notebooks, configurable digital diaries, handwriting recognition and search, and 100 monthly AI credits.

• Premium (iPhone, iPad and Mac)$7.99 to $49.99

  in-app purchase: weekly, monthly, yearly or lifetime

  The US App Store lists Weekly at $7.99, Monthly at $9.99, Yearly at prices from $19.99 to $49.99, and a Lifetime purchase at $14.99.

Penbook

• Free$0

  Every stationery type and writing feature in one notebook, with no time limit.

• Penbook Premium$4.99 - $39.99

  per item on the US App Store; billing basis not shown

  Unlimited notebooks and exports plus new stationery and covers. Described as a yearly subscription, but the listing shows several amounts without periods.

• Penbook Premium Lifetime$49.99

  one-time in-app purchase on the US App Store

  The same Premium features as a single purchase with no renewal.

Noteshelf

• Lifetime license

  One-time Premium purchase

  Premium is a one-time $9.99 fee on Android, and the US App Store lists a Lifetime Premium in-app purchase at $14.99 next to its subscriptions.

• Education

  Reduced prices for schools and businesses

  Noteshelf 3 is offered to schools and businesses at reduced prices through Apple School Manager and Apple Business Manager.

• Other savings

  30% off Premium for Samsung Galaxy users

  The Android page advertises 30% off the Premium upgrade as an offer exclusive to Samsung Galaxy users.

Penbook

• Lifetime license

  Penbook Premium as a lifetime purchase

  Penbook Premium can be bought as a one-time in-app purchase in place of the yearly subscription. The US App Store lists Penbook Premium Lifetime at $49.99.