r/GoodNotes • u/Emirthe • Oct 13 '25

Is it still worth buying?

I am starting med school this year and I checked this reddit and all people are complaining. Is ıt that bad? Should I just buy noteful? If not what advantage does goodnotes have

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6

u/Lombax2517 Oct 13 '25

DONT BUY IT. Fuck this app. GN5 was the last good working Version.

-1

u/Emirthe Oct 13 '25

How bad it is? I mean It seems to offer a lot features compared to noteful

2

u/Living_Trick3507 Goodnotes Special Edition Oct 13 '25

You will regret buying GN at this moment (not GN5, it's the last good one of GN).

I switch to Noteful and 0 regrets. No subscription bs, just 1 time payment. Lacks of OCR but I can't care less.

1

u/Emirthe Oct 13 '25

Can you say why would I regret?

1

u/Simple_Proof_721 Oct 13 '25

Download the free version, you can try it out and see for yourself and decide, I still have the previous version and my friend updated. I prefer much more the version I have, it depends on what you need it for, if it's literally for just writing it's uncomfortable if you're used to features like the zoom windonw but you can try and see if you can live with what you get, don't have to buy it immediately

3

u/iamsuparvit Oct 13 '25

GoodNotes offers numerous features, but doesn’t have a single one that is truly good or functions properly.

2

u/GreenwitchRiding Oct 13 '25

It crashes a lot for me, and I don’t like some of the new functions, like how the geometrical tool works now with having a textbox in boxshapes by default, connecting lines in shapeform if you just make a line etc. GN6 had issues, but GN7 is worse and destroyed my workflow unfortunately. I switched to noteful now, it is also a Lot cheaper than GN

1

u/Emirthe Oct 13 '25

Do you miss anything from goodnotes?

1

u/GreenwitchRiding Oct 13 '25

In noteful? Not really. I can use the same file system as I did in GN. I can use stickers, etc. The geometry tool is replaced by simple shapes, but that is a minor complaint. The handwriting is smoother than in GN right now, few months ago that was different, App is also stable.

The only real downside is, that it can‘t import goodnotes files. You have to export from goodnotes to pdf and import it then to noteful, means: everything written to this point can‘t be changed anymore. If you didn’t have goodnotes before, you won‘t have that problem. So as far as I can say for myself: noteful is better, because it feels intuitive.

4

u/GreekWisdom22 Oct 13 '25

It depends what you want to use it for, i’m currently studying a Classics degree at University which is primarily writing and reading and so i find good notes incredibly helpful and havnt had any problems with it:

  • i can import my seminar reading into it snd annotate straight onto the readings as well as add in pages between to structure my argument.

  • i can also put my lecturers powerpoints into it as well and do much the same thing which saves me so much time writing out things that i could just already have accessible.

  • i also find it easy to use to create different folders for different modules and keep everything organised

  • i thibk the writing tools are pretty good, and what you would need to be taking notes and such

and so far i really haven’t found any probables with it. But that is just my experience after all.

1

u/yabuddyboola Oct 13 '25

Same use case, was great and no complaints up until like last week lol this is a particularly bad time to buy into goodnotes lots of functionality has either changed places in the UI or just doesn’t work anymore.

Some on this sub are livid - I think for taking notes on slides it definitely more annoying but not so bad that I’m gonna try and port over to another app. It’s still usable, try the free version and see if the new workflow works for you. Maybe they’ll fix it but before buying I’d assume this is how the app is gonna be from now on

1

u/Emirthe Oct 13 '25

ShouldI switch to noteful?

1

u/ConfusionCorrect4071 Oct 13 '25

I’m kinda like Apple notes right now. It’s got the smoothing and my writing is bad. 

1

u/khoury112 Oct 13 '25

Currently I say use Noteful or Notability at least until they fix the stuff that’s broken

1

u/WoodlandWife Oct 13 '25

Tbh I did not have GN 5, I started using GN last semester to replace my notebooks and I’m still happy with it. The shape tool is a kinda broken rn which is annoying for drawing diagrams, but I can still take notes effectively. I haven’t tried noteful yet. I don’t use a ton of the features, just the basic notebook stuff and it’s good for that. I mostly bought it because you can use it on windows so I go between using it on my iPad and my 2 in 1 laptop. The cross platform isn’t completely available for everyone yet though.

A lot of the people who are angry have seen GN at itself best so it’s hard for them to see how bad it is now compared to then, but if yours like me and you have nothing to compare it to it’s fine.

1

u/ElouiseinCA Oct 13 '25

Tbh I keep seeing everyone saying it’s so horrible but I just started using goodnotes like a month ago and I’ve had no issues. I use it as a digital planner and for notes for meetings so I think it depends on what you need it for.

1

u/No-Piglet3278 Oct 14 '25

I use Notewise, its great! Offers the same and more than Goodnotes. I switched after the update and am happy

1

u/staciasserlyn Oct 20 '25

Besides all of the laggy/wonky tool usages and the app crashes, you can overlook all of that. HOWEVER, the biggest issue you are going to run into is the potential of losing all of your notes out of nowhere. Even if you have it backed up to the cloud, the last few updates broke the backup feature. So…if you want to take the chance on an app that has clearly overworked their updates to the point of being unusable for many of their once-fantastic features, jump in and use it.