OneNote used to be the rare Microsoft app users actually loved. Two notebooks, infinite canvas, real handwriting, and a free tier that kept up with Evernote when Evernote tripled its prices. Then Microsoft started carving it up. The Windows 10 version got killed. The remaining version pushes Loop and Copilot upsells. Sync on Android stalls for hours on big notebooks, and Microsoft has stopped pretending it cares about non-Microsoft 365 users.
We tested seven OneNote alternatives that pick up what OneNote dropped. Some are free, some are paid, one is fully encrypted, and one runs entirely offline on your own device. Pick the one that matches how you actually work, not how OneNote wishes you would.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Free plan | Starting price/mo | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Obsidian | Power users, local-first | Personal use, unlimited notes | $5 (Sync) | Markdown files you own on disk |
| Notion | Hybrid notes plus databases | 1,000 blocks, 5MB uploads | $10 (Plus) | Linked databases and AI |
| Evernote | Legacy OneNote refugees | 50 notes, 1 notebook | $14.99 (Personal) | Web clipper and OCR search |
| Joplin | Free open source | Everything, forever | $2.99 (Joplin Cloud) | Self-hostable sync, end-to-end encryption |
| Google Keep | Quick capture | All features | Free | Tight Google Workspace integration |
| Samsung Notes | Galaxy users with S Pen | All features on Samsung devices | Free | S Pen handwriting and PDF import |
| Notesnook | Privacy-first | 100 notes, 10MB attachments | $4.49 (Pro) | End-to-end encryption by default |
Why people leave OneNote
OneNote on Android is not the OneNote of 2018. Read the r/OneNote threads from the past year and a few complaints come up again and again.
Sync that quietly stalls
Notebooks over a few hundred pages stop syncing reliably. Pages added on the phone show up on the desktop hours later, or not until you force-close and reopen the app. Microsoft has acknowledged the issue in support threads without shipping a fix.
Copilot upsell on every screen
The Android app keeps showing Copilot prompts at the top of notebooks. Most users do not pay for Copilot, so the banner is permanent. Section labels and toolbar icons shifted to make room for it.
Loop replacing what users actually wanted
Microsoft is moving collaborative features into Loop, which is a separate app with a different sync model. OneNote users who shared notebooks with family or a small team are being pushed toward Loop pages they did not ask for.
No clean local export
You cannot export a notebook to plain markdown or HTML. OneNote exports to PDF or its own .one format only. People who want a backup they can actually open in another app are out of luck.
Container layout breaks on phones
The infinite canvas works on tablets. On phones, text boxes overflow, pinch-to-zoom misfires, and ink strokes drift after the page rotates. The team has not shipped a layout overhaul in three years.
The alternatives
Obsidian, best for power users who want their notes as files
Obsidian stores every note as a plain markdown file in a folder on your device. That folder is your notebook. You can edit it from any other app, back it up to any cloud, or never put it online at all. The Android app reads and writes the same vault as the desktop client, with the same plugin ecosystem.
Where it falls short: there is no rich-text mode. If you want WYSIWYG note-taking with images that float and resize like OneNote, Obsidian will feel raw. The mobile editor is solid for markdown but slower than OneNote for handwriting (there is a plugin, but it is rudimentary).
Pricing:
- Free for personal use, unlimited notes, all core features
- Sync: $5/mo for end-to-end-encrypted multi-device sync
- Publish: $10/mo if you want to publish a vault as a public site
- vs OneNote: Free tier is broader than OneNote’s, and your notes are not locked inside Microsoft’s ecosystem
Migrating from OneNote: There is no one-click importer. The community-maintained joplin-onenote-converter and convert-onenote-to-markdown scripts work, but expect to clean up tables and embedded images by hand. Plan a weekend for a medium notebook.
Bottom line: Pick Obsidian if you want notes you can still read in twenty years. Skip it if “infinite canvas with stickers” is the part of OneNote you actually miss.
Notion, best for hybrid notes plus databases
Notion is what happens when a note-taking app meets a project tracker meets a wiki. Pages can hold databases. Databases can filter into views. AI can summarize a meeting note or generate a draft. It is the closest direct replacement if your OneNote notebooks were already mostly tables, checklists, and meeting agendas.
Where it falls short: Notion is online-first. The Android app caches recent pages, but real offline editing remains weak, and large workspaces are slow to load on entry-level phones. It is also overkill if all you want is to jot a quick thought.
Pricing:
- Free: unlimited pages for personal use, 1,000-block sharing limit, 5MB file uploads
- Plus: around $10/user/mo for unlimited blocks, 5GB uploads, and 30-day version history
- Business and AI tiers go higher
- vs OneNote: Comparable cost at the paid tier, more flexible for structured notes, weaker for ink
Migrating from OneNote: Notion’s official importer accepts .docx exports per page. The export-then-import flow is tedious for a big notebook, but it preserves text and basic formatting. Tables come across cleanly. Embedded handwriting does not.
Bottom line: Notion suits OneNote users whose notebooks doubled as project hubs. Stay on OneNote if you mostly hand-write or draw.
Evernote, best for legacy OneNote refugees who want polish
Evernote is the original web-clipper note app. After Bending Spoons took over, the apps were rewritten and the long-standing bugs got fixed. Search is fast again, the web clipper still pulls in cleaner pages than anyone else, and OCR on photos works across handwritten and printed text.
Where it falls short: the free tier is now severely limited (50 notes total, one notebook). The paid tier is also pricier than OneNote, and the design pushes daily-task and calendar features that not everyone wants.
Pricing:
- Free: 50 notes, 1 notebook, 60MB of monthly upload
- Personal: about $14.99/mo for 10GB monthly upload, offline access, and unlimited notes
- Professional: about $17.99/mo, adds shared spaces and tasks
- vs OneNote: More expensive than OneNote with Microsoft 365, but with better web clipping and search
Migrating from OneNote: Evernote does not import .one files directly. The usual route is OneNote to PDF or .docx, then Evernote’s per-file importer. Tags do not transfer. Allow a few hours for a notebook of a few hundred pages.
Bottom line: Evernote is for people who liked OneNote’s web clipper and search and accept paying for the upgrade. The free tier is no longer worth setting up.
Joplin, best free open-source option
Joplin is the open-source note app that grew up. It supports markdown, attachments, voice notes, end-to-end encryption, and sync via your own Nextcloud, WebDAV, Dropbox, or the team’s hosted Joplin Cloud. There are no ads, no upsells, and the Android app does not require an account.
Where it falls short: the UI is functional, not pretty. There is no infinite canvas, no real handwriting layer, and the rich-text editor in Joplin 2.x is still rougher than Notion’s. Performance on huge notebooks (10,000+ notes) is noticeably slower than Obsidian.
Pricing:
- Free: everything, forever, on your own sync backend
- Joplin Cloud Basic: about $2.99/mo for 1GB hosted sync
- Pro: $6.69/mo for 10GB and sharing
- vs OneNote: Genuinely free with self-hosted sync, cheaper than OneNote with Microsoft 365 even on the paid Cloud tier
Migrating from OneNote: Joplin ships an .enex importer (Evernote’s format), so the chain is OneNote to Evernote to Joplin. The community also maintains a onenote-to-joplin Python script that imports .one files directly. Both work but neither is one-click.
Bottom line: Joplin is the no-compromise free pick if you can host your own sync. The Cloud tier is the cheapest paid note app in this list.
Google Keep, best for quick capture and minimalist users
Google Keep is the opposite of OneNote: tiny, fast, and content with being a digital sticky-note pad. Notes sync to Google Drive instantly, voice memos transcribe in seconds, and the integration with Docs, Gmail, and Assistant is the smoothest of anything here.
Where it falls short: it does not pretend to organize big notebooks. There are no sections, no nested folders, and no formatting beyond bullet lists and checkboxes. Anything past a few hundred notes becomes hard to browse, and search relies entirely on free-form labels.
Pricing:
- Free for everyone with a Google account
- Storage counts against your Google Workspace or personal Drive quota
- vs OneNote: Free where OneNote is free, much simpler, no Microsoft 365 bait
Migrating from OneNote: There is no importer. Keep is built for a different scale of note. Either copy short notes by hand or keep OneNote around for archives and use Keep for new captures.
Bottom line: Use Keep if your OneNote pages were really just stickies. Pair it with Obsidian or Notion for anything longer.
Samsung Notes, best Galaxy-user replacement with S Pen
Samsung Notes is the closest mobile feel to OneNote on a tablet, but free, on every recent Samsung phone, fold, and tab. Handwriting recognition is genuinely accurate, you can mix ink with typed text on the same page, and you can import a PDF and annotate it directly. The Sync to Microsoft OneNote feature even still works for now.
Where it falls short: it is Samsung-only on Android. You can sync notes across Samsung devices through Samsung Cloud, but there is no app for other manufacturers. The web viewer is limited and the export options are thinner than Obsidian’s.
Pricing:
- Free on Samsung Galaxy devices
- Samsung Cloud sync is included up to your account’s storage limit
- vs OneNote: Free for the matching use case (ink plus typed notes), no Copilot upsells
Migrating from OneNote: Samsung Notes has a built-in OneNote import that pulls notebooks straight out of your Microsoft account. It is the only app in this list with a one-tap OneNote importer.
Bottom line: Samsung Notes is the answer if you own a Galaxy device with an S Pen. It is not a real option for anyone else.
Notesnook, best for privacy-first encrypted notes
Notesnook is end-to-end encrypted by default. The free tier already includes the encryption, the open-source clients, and unlimited sync between devices. The paid tier lifts the size limits and adds web clipping, monographs, and notebooks beyond the free cap. The code is on GitHub and the company publishes its threat model.
Where it falls short: the editor is closer to a polished markdown app than OneNote’s free-form canvas. You can attach images and PDFs, but tables and complex layouts are not its strength. The web clipper is newer and less battle-tested than Evernote’s.
Pricing:
- Free: 100 notes, 10MB attachments per file, sync, end-to-end encryption
- Pro: about $4.49/mo (or roughly $50/year), unlimited notes, 500MB attachments, web clipper
- vs OneNote: Comparable to OneNote’s paid tier in features, far ahead on privacy
Migrating from OneNote: Notesnook accepts .zip, .html, .md, and Evernote .enex files. The recommended path is OneNote to HTML (via the desktop export) then drag-drop into Notesnook. Tags transfer if you label notes consistently before the export.
Bottom line: Notesnook is for users who never quite trusted having their notes inside Microsoft’s cloud. The free tier is enough to migrate a small notebook.
How to choose
We have lived with each of these for at least a few weeks. Some quick guidance.
- Pick Obsidian if you want notes you fully own, on disk, in markdown, and you do not mind learning a new editor. It is the right answer for anyone who has been burned by an app shutting down.
- Pick Notion if your OneNote notebooks were really project trackers with note-shaped pages. Notion’s databases pay for themselves once you have a few of them.
- Pick Evernote if you used OneNote’s web clipper every day and refuse to break that habit. The paid tier is expensive but the search remains best-in-class.
- Pick Joplin if you want a free Evernote with a self-hosted sync and you can spell “Nextcloud”. It is the best price-to-feature ratio in this list.
- Pick Google Keep if your OneNote pages were really sticky notes that grew. Pair it with something heavier for archives.
- Pick Samsung Notes if you have a Galaxy device with an S Pen and you mostly want to keep writing by hand. The OneNote importer alone saves a weekend.
- Pick Notesnook if you put confidential notes in OneNote and that always bothered you. Privacy is the only reason to choose it, but it is a strong reason.
Stay on OneNote only if you live inside a Microsoft 365 family plan, your notebooks are mostly hand-drawn on a Surface, and the Copilot banners do not push you over the edge.
FAQ
Is there a free OneNote alternative that imports OneNote notebooks?
Samsung Notes is the only app with a one-tap OneNote import on Android, and it is free on Galaxy devices. Joplin and Notesnook accept Evernote .enex files, so a OneNote-to-Evernote-to-Joplin chain works for non-Samsung users.
What is the closest free OneNote replacement for handwriting?
Samsung Notes if you own a Galaxy with an S Pen. Otherwise, Obsidian with the Excalidraw plugin handles light drawing well, though it is not a one-for-one substitute for OneNote’s ink layer.
Can I import OneNote notebooks into Notion?
Yes, with extra steps. Export each OneNote page to .docx, then use Notion’s official .docx importer. Tables, lists, and inline images come across. Embedded handwriting, audio, and PDF annotations do not.
Is OneNote being discontinued?
The free Windows 10 version was retired in 2025. The OneNote app for Microsoft 365 is still actively developed, but Microsoft is putting more new features into Loop. The Android app remains available and is not announced for sunset.
What is the best OneNote alternative for students?
Samsung Notes on a Galaxy tablet, or Obsidian if you want a notebook that will still be readable after graduation. Both are free for the matching use case.
Are there OneNote alternatives that work fully offline?
Obsidian and Joplin work entirely offline by default. Notesnook works offline with periodic sync. Notion and Evernote require a network connection for most operations.
