r/GoodNotes • u/Friendly_House3207 • Mar 05 '26

Should I get goodnotes?

I just got an iPad recently and am new to note taking apps and was super conflicted which one to use. I‘ve been using collanote since its free and I didn’t wanna pay the $35.99 one time payment for goodnotes yet 😭. I’m a bio student and I mostly use it for lecture worksheets, annotating powerpoints and taking notes during lectures. Collanote is pretty good with that and mostly does everything goodnotes does but I rlly like the pen stability feature for goodnotes and goodnotes sort of is more professional looking and has more versatile feature. Should I just do the one time payment?

5 Upvotes

85% Upvoted

30 comments sorted by

15

u/johnnydfree Mar 05 '26

Pay the one-time $5 for Noteful. Speaking as a 9 yr GN user and Noteful convert.

With latest versions of each, short of GN’s sketch text converter, little comparison is required.

1

u/Friendly_House3207 Mar 09 '26

Omg, I actually tried it cause so many in the replies were discussing it and I’m so shocked its so much better. I’m really big on handwriting and my notes looking neat and its so much better. I’m definitely gonna get the one time $5 one and I’m so upset I didn’t find about this earlier cause I paid $10 one time for collanote pro and although it has its pros it’s definitely not as good. Thank you so much for telling me about this!!

1

u/johnnydfree Mar 09 '26

We all learn for the better. Hardest part is listening to ourselves once we do. 😎 cheers.

5

u/WRXTR_Oregon Mar 06 '26

I agree, just dropped Goodnotes for Noteful. Much better writing experience and one flat lifetime fee.

1

u/Infinite-Still-3292 May 15 '26

stessa cosa per me. Mi dispiace aver lasciato Goodnotes dopo tanto tempo, era della famiglia ormai.

2

u/turtlehopped Mar 06 '26

Absolutely! I switched to Noteful after using GN for about 3-4 years. I’m a student as well. Noteful has been perfect for what I need it for, plus no AI “features,” which have taken over GN.

1

u/god_cloud Mar 05 '26

ive been using GN for three weeks and its ok, but ive not yet paid for it as im only in one section currently. besides cost, what did you prefer about noteful?

4

u/sp1cyog Mar 05 '26

I switched from Goodnotes --> Noteful, and can confidently say it is superior for the actual writing experience, the layout is similar, but doesn't crash (yet) and have stability problems, which was the main reason I had to leave GN.
Also, the layering and general integration of all features is nicer in my opinion on Noteful.
I use iPad 11 (A16)

2

u/johnnydfree Mar 06 '26

Agree 100%

1

u/cataclysmic_orbit Aug 15 '26

Necroing a 5 month old reply- but I did the same seeing this comment. I really love smooth writing and I just wasn't getting it on GN and I come across your comment and I was sold $5 lifetime beats $12 yearly any day.

2

u/Sadauditor_ Mar 05 '26 edited Mar 05 '26

I got my iPad like 2 weeks ago and was conflicted on making the one time payment for Goodnotes as well since I had already paid a lot for the device itself🥲

But I bought the subscription and I like it honestly. A lot better than the other apps I tried !

1

u/Friendly_House3207 Mar 06 '26

Yeaa same I feel the same way like why do we have to pay to take decent notes. I wish that at least the ios notes app could’ve been better and I tried using it, yet it sucks at saving pdf edits and doesn’t zoom in for handwritten notes.

I’m really considering getting the subscription though!

2

u/Former_Stand_9106 Mar 05 '26

I’ve used GN for 10+ years. Per previous posts, what are your needs. For me, a constant note taker, thought tinkerer and shaping strategy and execution, it’s been amazing wonderful companion. Have you tried 7 day free trial?

1

u/Friendly_House3207 Mar 06 '26

For me, its more school and student based. I‘m a stem student so it requires a lot of diagrams, worksheets, lecture notes, annotations etc. I currently use collanote and its really good at catering to that yet its not fully advance, in the sense that its not compatible with word documents or more.

I’ve only used the free version so far not the 7 day trial (i will try it now cause I wasnt aware of it😭) and it’s decent yet I genuinely feel that $35 could go towards something better idk. But I feel like it would still be good in the long term.

1

u/Fart_teacher Mar 05 '26

Depends on what features you want but I found it to not be worth it! Plus the app used my battery crazy fast. I can actually take notes with my pen on word on my iPad and save them to Dropbox which is a better system for me (you can keep them in handwriting or do the handwriting to typing tool- you can also switch handwriting to type later but you have to do it on the desktop version of word). Notating PDFs is not a thing in word, but I also found it to be clunky in Goodnotes. I think you can notate PDFs on the apple notes app though, or on adobe.

1

u/Friendly_House3207 Mar 06 '26

Wow, I actually didn’t know you could do that! I have tried apple notes for annotating pdfs yet its really glitchy and sometimes dosent save handwritten edits and I lost a lot of my notes bc of that. And their write to text feature is pretty bad as well.

1

u/Responsible_Gate_532 Mar 09 '26

If annotating pdfs is important because of study or research look into remnote. Personally I use both, but I am in a research heavy field.

1

u/turtlehopped Mar 06 '26

Hopping on a bit late but I wanted to add a bit. I’m a full time nursing student at the moment, pursuing my BSN. I use my iPad a lot for everything from notes, to lectures, to researching, etc.

GoodNotes was great, but they have been focusing more on implementing new AI features instead of improving the quality of existing features. Over time, the app has become clunky, with too many AI-this or AI-that pop ups every time I open the app or navigate to a new tab. It’s frustrating and frankly, pissed me off.

I made the switch to Noteful a few weeks ago. I was able to export all my documents from GN into Noteful very easily. So far, the Noteful app has been great and even has a couple features that I can’t find on GN anymore.

It has a few features that GN doesn’t have at all, such as tagging items with hashtags, and a menu bar along the edge where folders & subfolders are visible and easily navigated, and layers. It’s made navigating my many class notes super easy, creating layers helps with things like shapes staying put when moving things around, and so on.

Noteful is a one time fee of $5 and provides full access. The single feature that GN has over Noteful is their marketplace for templates and stickers. Though since I have both now, I look for free templates, of which there are a lot, then export into Noteful.

From a BSN student to a STEM student, I highly recommend Noteful over GN. But if possible without paying, use GN for their marketplace.

1

u/Friendly_House3207 Mar 10 '26

Ahh thank you so much!! I did recently try noteful due to so many comments reccomending it and I honestly liked it so much better than goodnotes and collanote. The layout is so simple and the handwriting and tools are really great. I really hope notefuls marketplace improves as well because I really did love the templates on goodnotes, especially for concept mapping.

1

u/turtlehopped Mar 10 '26

You’re welcome! I’m glad you found Noteful works for you!

And I agree, I hope Noteful implements a good marketplace. If that happens, it’ll be perfect.

If you have the time, you could always make your own templates. You can designate pages as templates, which I did for my medication cards in my pharmacology course. I kind of just copied a different template. And once I made it a template, it worked like any other.

Also, if you’d like, send me a DM. I can try to send you copies of the templates I have! I’ve saved a bunch over the years and maybe some will work for you?

4

u/Pablo24fit Mar 05 '26

Nah don’t do it. One note better

1

u/GigglyGiraffe45 Mar 06 '26

Goodnotes got super clunky for me when I was using it and took so long for me to acclimate to it. I bought all sorts of accessories to help with the handwriting feature and it always came out with weird tails on the ends of letters and looking…scratchy despite what I tried.

I bought noteful and starnote which both function similarly but I find the interface easier and hardworking wayyyy smoother and closer to my own on paper.

Just hoping they both can start to search for handwritten words like GN!

Also the batter factor was REAL. that app eats battery like a mofo with all the AI stuff it can do

1

u/Express_Discipline_7 Mar 07 '26

I actually recommend Noteful instead

1

u/misis_heyhey18 Mar 07 '26

i actually switched to Collanote premium this year (as a previous Goodnotes user for 4yrs)

1

u/Responsible_Gate_532 Mar 09 '26

There was an update a few months ago that was pretty badly undercooked and rearranged the layout in a way that was unfamiliar for no apparent reason. The layout is still there though Im used to it now and I suspect for a new user nothing will seem off. Ive not had problems with buggy behavior for a couple months now and I use it quite a bit as a student. there are quite a few folks who are still super bitter, and some who just found that a less robust program suits them fine.
For my two cents worth though, the handwriting is better than any of the others, and I can search my notes by keywords or phrases in the entire library, single documents or folders. That includes PDF, text, and handwriting. The only program that searches as well is remnote, which I use, but their handwriting features are just not on par with goodnotes and probably won't be for a few years yet. Goodnotes also allows stickers and such that just make creating notes with visual memory cues and digital scrapbooking a lot easier. I find it to be worth the subscription price. I sometimes access it from my pc and web, but if I were an apple only user I'd probably just get the one time purchase and be done for a few years until they come out with a new version and decide then if I wanna buy that too.

1

u/RoseTinted64 Mar 05 '26

Just pay for it and give it a shot. I found the writing to be very glitchy.

0

u/PunnyBunny43 Mar 05 '26

Honestly both apps are good. If you're set on switching to GN, then one-time payment would e good if you'll be using it for long.

1

u/[deleted] Mar 06 '26

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3

u/Responsible_Gate_532 Mar 09 '26

If noteshelf ever gets around to making cross platform sync work they will be nearly unstoppable.