When it comes to choosing the best note-taking app, there are two clear winners: Microsoft OneNote and Evernote.
OneNote is much better if you want a free app to use that has great features.
Evernote has a different structure that makes it easier to organize, tag, find, and share information, as long as you're willing to pay a high price.
While the following OneNote review isn't a direct comparison to Evernote, it's hard not to compare them in at least some ways.
Overall, and compared to everything else on the market, OneNote is clearly one of the best note-taking apps out there.
Whether you prefer Evernote depends on what you value in an app and how you use it.
What I need to know about OneNote
To use OneNote, you need some sort of Microsoft account, but it doesn't have to be paid for. All you need is a free Outlook.com login.
OneNote is available as a free download on Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows.
There is also a web app. You can use it for free with almost no resource restrictions.
You get a handful of extra features – like Sticker and Math – if you have a paid Microsoft account.
Free OneNote users get 5GB of space. There is also a free education edition that includes 1TB of online storage.
For everyone else, Microsoft 365 Personal also includes 1TB of storage, although you share that space with other apps.
application interface
OneNote shares a family resemblance with other Microsoft Office apps.
As mentioned, you can download OneNote for Windows and macOS, as well as Apple and Android mobile devices.
There is also a web app. Advanced features vary slightly depending on where you're using it.
The Windows app is the strongest of the bunch, unsurprisingly.
The basic structure and terminology used in OneNote is Notebook > Section > Page. Pages can also have subpages.
In other applications, a page is often referred to as a Note, and we use the terms interchangeably here.
Let's say we have a notebook called Recipes. There are sections for sweet, savory and cocktail recipes.
In the Cocktails section, we have pages for Negroni, Gin Fizz and so on.
We can make subpages under Negroni for Grapefruit Negroni and Sparkling Negroni. Effectively, there are four levels for your categorizing and organizing needs.
Unlike other note-taking apps, however, a OneNote page has more in common with a desktop than a word processing document.
Each piece of content added to a page comes in its own field or box. You can resize any box or drag and drop it to change its position on the page.
For some types of content this works well, but it can also lead to confusing and ugly pages.
Leveraging the OneNote App
OneNote has a familiar three-pane layout. On the far left, you have a collapsible menu with three options: Notebooks, Search, and Recent Notes.
When you click on the first option, a list of notebooks appears, and whichever one you select, its pages appear on the right. (A notebook and its pages are treated as a panel.)
It is similar to a standard tree folder structure. When you select a specific page, its content appears in the main window.
When setting up OneNote for the first time on a new device, you probably won't see all of your notebooks by default, because the app only shows recently used notebooks.
To open a notebook you haven't seen in a while, you need to search for it in OneDrive and load it back into the app.
Finding and selecting them doesn't take long, but loading them can, depending on their size.
It can be frustrating and slow down your productivity, depending on how many notes you have and how you need to organize them.
When you choose a notebook, the rest of the window reloads to display that notebook's sections and pages.
All other notebooks disappear. To see them again, you need to go back and wait for it to reload.
If you jump between notebooks often, you'll find that this structure also slows you down.
But hey, what did you think of One Note? Do you think you can enjoy it on your cell phone? Learn more about other apps here.