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Updated July 2026 · real, multi-region App Store reviews
Head-to-head

Notability vs Notion

Notability 4.8★ · Free + IAP 75
Winner Tie
Notion 4.8★ · Free + IAP 70

Notability is the stronger choice for dedicated handwriting and PDF annotation, especially for students, while Notion excels as a versatile organizational tool for complex projects and team collaboration, despite its mobile app issues.

Full reviews: Notability · Notion

Notability is praised for its intuitive handwriting and PDF annotation features, making it ideal for students, but faces recent criticism for stability issues and forced cloud syncing. Notion is a powerful all-in-one workspace for organizing projects and information, though its mobile app struggles with performance and an overemphasis on AI features.

Head to head

Features & Use Cases tieR2R11R15R23
Notability Notability is highly valued by students for its excellent handwriting experience, PDF annotation, and ability to mark up lectures and create quizzes with AI R2R11R23. Users appreciate its intuitive simplicity and lack of unnecessary features . However, some users find its typing features buggy R15 and wish for more advanced organizational tools like digital notebooks . There are also requests for features like hiding the control bar R2, better text wrap around images , and custom templates .
Notion Notion is celebrated as a versatile 'second brain' for planning, organizing projects, and managing personal and business affairs, with strong flexibility and sharing capabilities . Its AI features are seen as a productivity booster by some, helping create lists, pages, and quizzes R62. However, many users are frustrated by the pervasive and often buggy AI integration, feeling it's 'shoved down their throat' and slows down the app R63R66R69. Users also desire features like mind maps and password protection for pages .
Ease of Use & Interface edge: NotabilityR2R8R12R22
Notability Notability is generally praised for its intuitive simplicity and ease of use, especially for handwriting R8. However, recent updates have introduced frustration, particularly with changes to Apple Pencil gestures R12R22 and a perceived increase in complexity R42. Some users find the control bar obstructive R2 and struggle with printing templates .
Notion Notion's interface is described as flexible and customizable , but many users find it confusing and not mobile-friendly . The prominent AI button is seen as an inconvenience R63, and the inability to change font size, especially in tables, is a deal-breaker for some . The mobile view often auto-adjusts poorly when typing .
Reliability & Performance tieR1R3R6R9
Notability Notability's reliability has significantly declined for many users, with frequent reports of crashes R3R6, freezing R6, notes disappearing or being blank R1R21, and lag R21. Syncing issues between devices and with cloud services are also common R10R25. Some users note the app causes their iPad to overheat R6R9.
Notion Notion also suffers from significant reliability and performance issues, particularly on mobile. Users report the app being 'SLOOWWWW' R66, lagging R66, freezing , and crashing frequently . Long documents are often unusable on iPhones, blacking out and resetting . Bugs are reported in various features like AI chatbot loading R69, adding comments , opening marketplace items , and sub-page creation . Apple Pencil support is described as 'terrible' and glitchy R96.
Price & Value tieR7R13R24R35
Notability Notability offers a free tier with limitations, which many users find quickly makes the app 'useless' without paying R7R24. The subscription model is a point of contention, especially for long-time users who previously made a one-time purchase R35R37. Some feel the annual subscription is 'so worth it' for students , while others are upset by immediate charges for free trials R13. There are complaints about family sharing not extending to subscriptions .
Notion Notion offers a free tier that some users find sufficient , while others appreciate the value of paid plans, especially for education . However, there are complaints about unexpected subscription price increases and the model of paying per member, even for view-only access .
Privacy & Support edge: NotabilityR4R19R21R34
Notability Notability users express significant concerns about privacy and data control. Many are upset about being forced to use Notability's cloud service instead of iCloud, with fears about personal information and AI training R4R19R37R42. There are reports of notes being lost or inaccessible, and tech support being unhelpful or relying on AI R21. Constant log-in requirements are also a source of frustration R34.
Notion Notion users report difficulties contacting customer service, with issues submitting support requests and problems with password recovery . There are no specific privacy concerns highlighted in the reviews, but the general frustration with AI integration could imply a lack of user control over data processing for AI purposes R19R42.
Pick Notability if

You are a student or professional who primarily takes handwritten notes, annotates PDFs, and values a simple, intuitive interface for these tasks R2R11R23. You are comfortable with a subscription model and are willing to overlook recent stability and cloud syncing issues for its core handwriting strengths R8.

Pick Notion if

You need a highly versatile, all-in-one workspace for organizing complex projects, managing information, and collaborating with others . You are primarily a desktop user or are willing to tolerate significant mobile app performance and UI issues for its powerful organizational capabilities R96.

Evidence note: Both apps have a high lifetime rating, but recent reviews for both show a significant increase in negative feedback, particularly concerning stability, performance, and recent updates. Notability's free tier friction is evident in complaints about note limits and paywalls. Notion's free tier is less discussed, but its mobile app issues are a consistent theme across both free and paid users.

Frequently asked

Is Notability reliable for storing important notes?
Notability's reliability for storing notes has become a significant concern, with multiple users reporting lost notes, blank notes, or notes becoming inaccessible after updates R1R21. Syncing issues with cloud services also contribute to data loss fears R10R25.
Does Notion offer good Apple Pencil support?
Notion's Apple Pencil support is widely criticized as 'terrible' and glitchy, with users reporting issues where the pencil tries to type instead of scroll or simply doesn't write R96. This makes the iPad app particularly frustrating for handwriting R96R111.
Are the AI features in Notion beneficial?
The AI features in Notion are a divisive topic; some users find them beneficial for quickly generating lists, pages, and quizzes, acting like a 'personal assistant' R62. However, many users are frustrated by the AI being 'shoved down your throat,' finding it buggy, slow, and an unnecessary clutter that detracts from the core app experience R63R66R69.
Why are Notability users concerned about cloud syncing?
Notability users are concerned about cloud syncing because recent updates have reportedly forced them to use Notability's proprietary cloud service instead of iCloud, with some fearing this allows the company access to their notes for AI training and raises privacy issues R4R19R37R42.

What reviewers actually said

Built only from these 120 real reviews (foreign ones translated). Superscripts jump to the quote here. Apple has no per-review links, so [ref] opens that app's reviews on the App Store.

  1. [R2] Notability 4/5 · US Please develop a way to hide the control bar (tools like pencil, scissors, etc.)!!!: I absolutely love Notability, it is very useful for me as a college music student. I take a lot of notes there, and I load music into it as pdfs to read and play off of. So far the experience has been wonderful, EXCEPT that there is no way to hide the controls at the top, which sometimes blocks some of the music.
  2. [R11] Notability 5/5 · US Nursing School: This has been the best thing ever for note taking and lectures
  3. [R15] Notability 3/5 · US Great for writing notes; but terrible for typing: I love and hate this app at the same time. I love using this app when taking notes with my apple pencil. However, to use it like Microsoft Word, it is absolutely buggy and frustrating. There are just way too many bugs to type with this app. (on the MacBook Pro and on the iPad both have many bugs for typing. If you want the best handwriting app, the
  4. [R23] Notability 5/5 · US Use it if you’re in school!: This is one of the coolest apps if you’re in undergrad or graduate school. I’m able to download professors slides right into the app, mark it up, take notes that AI will use to create a quiz, etc. just a very cool app that bridges the traditional note taking for me-pen to paper, which is how I retain information-but also adds really cool technology features in a mindfu
  5. [R8] Notability 5/5 · US Excellent: I’ve been using it for years, and I love it. Much easier to study.
  6. [R12] Notability 3/5 · US bad update: reverse the apple pencil update PLEASE or give a option to change it back. it’s not more convenient it’s actually quite annoying
  7. [R22] Notability 1/5 · US Fix squeeze gesture!: Recent update ruined the squeeze gesture by forcing you to interact with a palette to switch to the eraser tool instead of allowing you to auto-switch to eraser. This makes you do an odd movement with your wrist to reach and select the eraser tool, which SIGNIFICANTLY slows down your work progress. I’m seriously questioning why the palette was introduced as a mandatory featur
  8. [R1] Notability 1/5 · US Lost all my notes: Literally lost everything and all my notes r blank
  9. [R3] Notability 3/5 · US This app crashes all the time: This app makes annotating very easy and has a great interface but I’ve been using it regularly for over a year and it crashes A LOT, especially when inserting a text box. It happens several times in an hour sometimes and is very frustrating because it is a paid subscription service…
  10. [R6] Notability 3/5 · US App always freezing and M4 iPad overheating: I used to love this app and used it through my masters program with every class. Now, after the update, it is completely nonfunctional on both of my iPads. The app freezes almost instantly and will not let me do anything until I close and reopen it. Even then, it freezes again within seconds. I can’t work on new notes and all my old notes are inaccessib
  11. [R9] Notability 3/5 · US Handwriting leaves something to be desired: Has a lot of great tools for handwriting, but a couple of very painful issues are deal breakers for me. 1. Exporting your handwritten notes as a PDF do NOT retain the OCR data (aka you can't search for words any more). So they try and trap you into keeping your subscription forever. 2. Notability's automatic backups and OCR handwriting recognition is
  12. [R7] Notability 1/5 · US AWFUL: I used to use this often during school and I decided to get it on my iPad just because I wanted to use it, but I can’t even use the text box. I have to do random stuff you can only make like six or five notes before you have to pay like $15 which I wasted so much time trying to curate notes when I literally didn’t even realize I had to pay so that sucks you guys are literally just money dea
  13. [R13] Notability 1/5 · US Free trial charges $100 immediately- no warning !!!!: Wanted to try the new feature to see if it was worth upgrading - instead of getting to try it I was changed immediately and I have no idea if I can get it refunded. DO NOT TRUST THIS APP!!!!!!!!!
  14. [R24] Notability 3/5 · US It’s alright: It’s nice but only with the paid features. My school uses it with subscriptions but at home I use it without subscription and it’s pretty bad without paying for subscription. With subscriptions it’s pretty good tho. Unless you’re planning to pay for an app, I would just use the basic Apple notes app.
  15. [R35] Notability 4/5 · US Great, but…: I use this app all the time and love it. I bought it back when it was a one-time purchase, and when they moved to a subscription model I was grandfathered in with the ‘classic’ license. That’s excellent. However, the app continually tries to upsell me on the subscription, which I refuse to buy as I’ve already got too many media and storage subscriptions. I wish I could turn off that a
  16. [R4] Notability 1/5 · US DO NOT USE THIS APP: I do not understand why I need a notability account to use this app. If you do care the personal information, not using this app. I just want an app to write the notes and keep my notes only on my device.
  17. [R19] Notability 1/5 · US Stealing our notes for their cloud service: They're now forcing us to move to their garbage cloud service that has carve outs in their privacy policy allowing them access to notes and use for ai training. There's no opt out. Previously you could use encrypted storage on iCloud for cloud storage. Notability didn't like that. Now they're forcing everyone over to their own cloud to steal our document
  18. [R21] Notability 3/5 · US It needs fixes: The app is good, but it has many issues. It becomes very laggy at Times. Any gesture regarding images, writing with the apple pencil, dragging stickers, typing in text boxes etc. has a delay of 4-5 seconds at times despite having enough device storage available. It the past, it has deleted my notes without consent and there is nothing the tech support can do to recover them. There
  19. [R34] Notability 1/5 · US Constant log-ins delay the note taking activity for too long to be useful: Have been using Notability on iPhone and iPad for years, have been recommending it to so many people. With some recent update, it requires me to log-in every time, instead of just opening. Mail with code takes way too long to be delivered. When I want to take a note, the app needs to be ready immeaditely, not take minutes o
  20. [R10] Notability 1/5 · US Cloud Service Not Working: As of Tuesday, July 7 2026 at about 12:30pm Atlantic Standard Time, the web version of the app has stopped working. This is not only affecting myself, but it's affected the rest of the users at my school. It is not a connectivity issue because it has persisted even when peers have gone home and tried accessing the service (it is now 5:42pm at the time of writing). On to
  21. [R25] Notability 1/5 · US Uploading and Saving Notes: I would love to to rate this 5 stars, but until now, I have never experienced the lack of having to reupload my notes, and having to figure out each one. I made the mistake of syncing the app to my iCloud. I normally use Google Drive, and so when I went to open my Notability app, the notes were gone. I figured, I can reupload them, but lo and behold: you have to upload
  22. [R96] Notion 3/5 · GB Terrible pencil support: Great app but I tend to use it on my laptop. But Apple Pencil support is sooooo bad. Try and scroll? It tries to type. Try to write something? It just doesn’t write. Don’t use the iPad app, use the actual website.
  23. [R111] Notion 3/5 · GB Drawing compatible with apple pencil: Amazing app, would love to be able to draw with the apple pencil
  24. [R62] Notion 5/5 · US Appreciation: Game changer app, especially with tech background and base AI knowledge
  25. [R63] Notion 3/5 · US I Miss the Old Notion: The button for AI is large and centered on the bottom of your screen instead of a search bar like it used to be. There was also a way to turn it off prior and now there isn't. Like yes, it's an inevitable future but can the interface be less inconvenient.
  26. [R66] Notion 3/5 · US SLOOWWWW: Please fix the app, it lags about and the writing is bad, we dont need AI so relax with it because its slowing up the app, please dont ruin the appppppp!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
  27. [R69] Notion 3/5 · US AI chatbot feature is very buggy: Takes long to load, especially on long threads, to the point where i have to quit the app and download again.
  28. [R37] Notability 1/5 · US For over a Decade: I have been using Notability forever. I paid for the full version and then I started subscribing. As a subscriber I decided to use Notability Cloud syncing. I was surprised that I could not also use Apple iCloud sync and backup. This is a deal breaker. And now, I cannot revert back to Apple iCloud sync and backup. WHY? Please allow me to do both or at least allow me to go back t
  29. [R42] Notability 3/5 · GB Worse with every update: Too many added layers of confusion impair the usability of what should be a simple process: compose a note, file it, back up to iCloud I don’t want or need 50 laters of confusion and AI “slop” I don’t want to be forced to use Notability cloud, I’m happy with iCloud I’m still furious that previous updates fscked all my legacy notability docs !!!!! ,,

Synthesized from 120 recent App Store reviews · updated July 2026 · View on the App Store