Top 10 Best Student Note Taking Apps for 2025

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These top 10 best note taking apps for students in 2025 have made it easier to take notes anytime and on any device!

Gone are the days when anyone would like to use paper. It’s a sustainable world where no one wants to contribute to chopping off trees for scraps of paper to write down notes and dump them into waste after a few months.

These latest note-taking apps for students are going viral, and every student has them! So, if you haven’t downloaded these note-taking apps, then you should do it right away after we give you a list of these paid and free note-taking apps for 2025!

Best Note Taking App For Students

Apple Notes (iOS, macOS, Web)

Free Plan: Up to 5 GB of notes

Price: Starts $0.99/month for 50GB

The best feature of this app for note-taking is that you can click anywhere on the screen to add text, images, documents, etc. You can even ask Siri for help!

How to use: If you do not have the app, go to icloud.com/notes and sync all your notes.

Pros	Cons
It can be integrated seamlessly between any of the Apple devices. The app is basic, user-friendly and one of the best student note-taking app.	The app cannot sync with any other operating system.

Microsoft OneNote (all operating system)

Free Plan: For Windows, Android, Mac and iOS

It is one of the best note taking apps for students with the Windows operating system. The standout features are its organisational tool, placement of text, etc., and a perfect web clipper. With this app, you can jot down all the notes, organised them and even sync it with any other!

Pros	Cons
Free plan to take note on any type of platform.	Owned and run as a Microsoft app.

Google Keep (Chrome, Web, Android, iOS)

Free Plan: 15 GB across Google apps

Price: Starts at $1.99/month for 100GB

If you use up to 15 GB, this is the best note-taking app for students, free of charge. The best features are connected to Google apps and are perfect for Google users.

Pros	Cons
The app can be integrated with Google Docs and Gmail It’s free for regular Google Count users.	It’s basic; there is not much to explore.

Joplin (Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, macOS)

Free Plan: It will have no storage

Price: Start at €2.99/month (available to sync)

If you’ve ever used Evernote, then this is the best alternative note-taking app for iPad. You can actually import all your notes from Evernote to Joplin!

Pros	Cons
It is free and applicable on all platforms. It is open-source, has a great interface, and has a tool for importing documents.	Doesn’t have advanced features like mobile scanning, sketching, etc.

Notion (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Web)

Free Plan: For personal use and team users with a 1,000 limit

Price: Starts at $10/user/month

Notion has been one of the best note-taking apps for Android, and other operating systems. The stand-out feature of this app is that with basic blocks, you get basic block elements, while a paid version lets you embrace the AI!

Pros	Cons
Packed with top features like databases, task managements and a lot of others.	This is not an app for personal note taking app.

Obsidian (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux)

Free Plan: For personal users

Price: For commercial use-$50/user/year

This is the only note-taking app on Android that allows you to create folders and subfolders. It is a very popular app among students as it also gives the option of referencing notes.

Pros	Cons
New note taking app with features like interlinked digital database. Customizable and extensible.	Requires time to learn and understand the app.

UpNote (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows)

Free Plan: Up to Notes

Price: Starts at $0.99/user

It is an extremely good-for-value note-taking app that’s popular among the student community. It is available offline and always in sync across all your devices.

Pros	Cons
User-friendly interface. Cross-platform and rich text formatting with markdown support.	Limited upload to only 20 MB of files No collaboration and sketching.

Bear (Mac, iOS, OCR)

Price: $0.99 at apple.com; starts at $2.99/month

If you are an Apple user, then this is the best alternative to the Apple note-taking apps for the iPad. It has a very simple user interface and has advanced tools like web clipper and OCR which limits its appeal.

Pros	Cons
OCR for PDFs and images. Easy to import and export notes.	Available only for apple devices.

Simplenote (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows)

Free Plan: Completely free

If you only want to take text notes, then this is an ideal app to use! It‘s not suitable for those of you who want to add attachments like images and other files. Simplenote is a very simple app and it works on all platforms.

Pros	Cons
Supports collaboration and public notes.	Available only for text and no advance features.

Evernote (Android, iOS, macOS, Windows)

Free Plan: Upto 60Mb/month

Price: $3.99/month

This note-taking app is great for existing users. Nevertheless, if you are a new user, you will get a free trial of the app for seven days. It is a very powerful tool for taking notes and it is known to be one of the best apps for note-taking for students.

Pros	Cons
Easy search. OCR for images. Ai enable search.	Expensive for students Unclear documentation.

Conclusion:

These are some of the best apps for taking notes. While some come for free and others are paid; pick one that meets your budget. By the end of the day, you need to only jot down notes right? But one thing is for sure- these note-taking apps are worth the download as they will ease your life as a student because you will find all your notes on one device. With paper notes, there’s always the problem with not understanding your handwriting or either a page goes missing! We all have been there! So, take leverage of these note-taking apps today!

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