Top 10 Goodnotes Alternative for Windows (Free/Paid)

Goodnotes is basically a note-taking application for iPhone and iPad users, that helps them to take notes, may it be related to work or may it be about schooling. The users can quickly convert their handwritten notes into digital notes and even make notes digitally using stylus on their devices. It has many features, and templates that make the notes eye-catching as well as worth it to read, as we can add images, diagrams, digital handwriting text, and much more.

In this article, we are going to discuss the Top 10 Goodnotes Alternative for Windows, since everyone cannot afford to buy iOS devices.

Table of Content

1. Microsoft OneNote
2. Xournal++
3. MyScript Nebo
4. SimpleNote
5. FiiNote
6. Openboard Whiteboard
7. Butterfly
8. Rnote
9. Saber: Handwritten Notes
10. NoteLab

Top 10 Goodnotes Alternative For Windows

Notes are a great way of creating important notes related to studies, businesses, and personal works, and storing them digitally is much more significant than handwritten ones. Following are the Top 10 Goodnotes Alternative For Windows:

1. Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft offers it’s own note making application, i.e, Microsoft OneNote. This digital note making application avails people to make their notes with ease and even share them between multiple devices. This is the most popular as well as free alternative to Goodnotes that is available at web, Android and Mac as well.

Features:

We can organise our data in the form of digital notebook, by adding multiple notes into one folder.
We can add notes as text, handwritten text, videos, audios, images etc.
It offers alot of free templates that make our notes look more attractive.
We can add tags, and organise our content. It also helps for remembering text, finding content and much more.

Pros:

It is much easy to add and edit the images, videos, audios added.
It offers free plan as well as free trials.

Cons:

We cannot share our notes using email.
It doesn’t has much formatting styles.

Pricing:

Free plan
$6.99 per month (Personal)
$9.99 per month (Family)
$149.99 per month (Office and school)

Website: https://www.microsoft.com/en-in/microsoft-365/onenote/digital-note-taking-app

2. Xournal++

The best and most popular open source alternative for GoodNotes is Xournal ++ , that is used in Linux, Android and Android tablets. This software requires C++ to write the notes , they can be handwritten as well. This notes taking application also allows to generate pdfs which is a plus point, as it helps the users in alot of ways.

Features:

It supports the digital pens and stylus like Wacom, XP, Pen etc. to write notes.
It offers various paper backgrounds to it’s users as they wish it to be, simple or scratch paper etc.
One of the main features is that it lets it’s users to convert notes into PDFs or generate pdfs.
We can export our notes in variety of formats like PDF, PNG, SVG etc.
It has customisable toolbar, that the users can customise according to their needs or as they wish it to be.

Pros:

It is simple and has user friendly interface.
It works great with Wacom tablets and the note making process is too easy.

Cons:

It laggs sometimes, and the app closes on its own.
Sometimes it doesn’t detect what is being written using stylus.

Pricing:

This is a free and open source software.

Website: https://xournalpp.github.io/

3. MyScript Nebo

Another GoodNotes Alternative For Windows is MyScript Nebo that offers as the most popular notes taking application for commercial uses. It is designed by the company MyScript Interactive Ink, Nebo, mainly for iPad pro and modern windows versions. This note-taking application offers advanced writing techniques like styluses as well.

Features:

We can create notes using text as well as generate the handwritten notes using stylus.
It lets us combine various notes that are made by us into one single folder.
We can import our notes from Word, PowerPoint, and even the PDF files.
It can convert the handwritten notes into the professional documents.
It offers to choose from various ranges of background, that suites the user best for themselves.

Pros:

It allows to sync the data between variour devices easily.
It offers gestures, tools for sketching, math conversion tools etc.

Cons:

It laggs in between sometimes.
It offers many tools but all of them aren’t easy to use.

Pricing:

For Android / Windows it doesn’t offers free plan.
$9.99 per month (Windows)
$11.99 per month (Android)

Website: https://www.nebo.app/

4. SimpleNote

SimpleNote is one of the most used notes taking application that let’s it’s users to take notes, offering various useful tools and features which make it easy for them to create their notes. It is available at web as well as for platforms like Android, Linux, Windows, iOS, MacOS.

Features:

SimpleNote let’s us create the notes for free and even sell them online.
It does not offers end to end encryption and also it tracks our online activity.
This note making application is ad free.
It offers few features only and it is text only app.
We can share our notes between various devices as well.

Pros:

It has clean and easy to use interface.
It offers unlimited storage and also it supports collaborations.

Cons:

It doesn’t allows to create notebooks.
It has only few features making it limited to use.

Pricing:

Free plan
$19.99 per month (Sustainer plan)

Website: https://simplenote.com/

5. FiiNote

The most convenient to use and useful app for taking notes in Android as well as Windows is FiiNote. This app is basically designed for both phone as well as pad. Users can add text, images, videos and also make diagrams using various shape tools to make their notes more effective, so they can contain all the required information.

Features:

We can add calenders, to do lists, bullet points etc.
We can create handwritten text notes using this as it combines the keyboard inputs and handwriting of user.
We can generate PDFs as well.
It doesn’t matters where you write using stylus, it itself can create the notes arranging sentences.

Pros:

We can add tags for making our notes organised.
It acts like a hybrid device.

Cons:

It is difficult to use in mobile.
It doesn’t offers any dark mode feature.

Pricing:

Free plan
$0.5 per month (L1)
$3 per month (L2)
$8.25 per month (L3)

Website: https://www.fiinote.com/#/

6. Openboard Whiteboard

Openboard Whiteboard is another best Goodnotes Alternative For Windows that offers a variety of features that enables the users to easily and quickly take their notes. It has customisable themes and formatting styles as well.

Features:

It allows the users to write themselves as well as add normal text whatever they prefer.
It’s lightweight and easy to use.
This notes making application is ad free.
It offers dark as well as light mode.

Pros:

It uses Ubuntu server and it works flawlessly.
It contains vast library and variety of features.

Cons:

It doesn’t work with shortcuts.
The software lacks sometimes.

Pricing:

This app is open source and free.

Website: https://openboard.ch/index.en.html

7. Butterfly

Butterfly is a great note taking app where you can use your creativity and use painting tools, add texts, bullets etc. and make notes according to you. It works with Android, Linux, Windows, etc. This also allows to share and export notes on various devices easily.

Features:

It offers end to end encryption.
For using this no registration is required as well as it is free of ads.
It doesn’t offers tracking feature to the users.
We can make handwritten digital notes.
It offers dark mode feature as well.

Pros:

It has good customer support team and it is easy to use as well.
It is working on adding more features to its latest versions.

Cons:

It has unnecessary features that make it confusing.

Pricing:

This app is open source and free.

Website: https://docs.butterfly.linwood.dev/

8. Rnote

Rnote is the note making application that has simple as well as has various useful features in which users can draw, add images, add handwritten text and much more. It lets import and export PDFs.

Features:

It has many different shape tools for making the notes attractive.
It allows sensitive stylus touch input.
We can rotate, resize, modify images according to our needs.
It offers customisable background colours, patterns and styles.
The documents can be exported as PDFs, Xopp, SVG etc.

Pros:

We can asscess the notes online without having to download the app.
It is note taking tool in each and every sense may it be handwritten, typewritten or voice recording.

Cons:

Sometimes it doesn’t detect spelling errors.
Random crashes are faced by the users.

Pricing:

It starts from $15 per month (Single Plan)

Website: https://rnote.flxzt.net/

9. Saber: Handwritten Notes

Saber is basically a work in progress platform that allows it users to make notes digitally using the limited features that is offers. As it is creating it’s versions, it is updating its features making it more efficient to use. It supports stylus for all the users.

Features:

It is private and provides end to end encryption.
It offers limited but useful tools that let’s the users organise their data.
It highlightes the keywords and the important text in the notes.
We can sync and edit our data effortlessly.

Pros:

It is easy to share our notes and notes are customisable.
It analyses what is exactly being written even when you are typing fastly.

Cons:

It is quite expensive.
It lacks some essential editing capabilities.

Pricing:

It is free app.

Website: https://saber.adil.hanney.org/

10. NoteLab

NoteLab is one of the known alternatives for GoodNotes, it lets it’s users to take notes digitally with an ease. This is available at platforms like Linux, Windows, MacOS, Solaris, etc.

Features:

It is free under the GNU and GPL.
We can add graphics, text, images, videos etc.
It supports printing of notes as well.
It allows any part of note to be edited, deleted, moved, resized with further preferences.

Pros:

It shows relationships and also helps to reduce editing process.
It is easy to review our notes anytime, anywhere.

Cons:

It has complex interface.
Sometimes it lacks in between.

Pricing:

It is free and open source application.

Website: https://java-notelab.sourceforge.net/

Conclusion

Note taking is one of the essential and useful thing that one can do to be specific about something, may it be their personal routine or taking notes related to any knowledgeable thing. The best and most popular of them is GoodNotes, but due to pricing and access to iOS users, other users might not get the same interface and feeling, but the above mentioned Best GoodNotes Alternative For Windows can help them alot for making notes for themselves as they contain all the required features for creating notes.

Creating notes can help the users in several ways like- collection of information, remembering what you heard, makes studies and businesses effective, etc.