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There's no shortage of "best free note app" lists. What most of them haven't done lately is recheck their own claims — and this category moves more than it looks like it does. One long-standing default just had its free plan cut down to a number that would have sounded like a joke two years ago. Another vendor's own marketing page is years out of date relative to its own help center, for the same plan.

So on 11 November 2026 we opened each app's own pricing, help-center and license pages and read the free tier straight off them. One note up front: we could not pull current App Store ratings for this run — the lookup that normally gets us those numbers didn't resolve from this session's network this week, not because any app here was delisted. Rather than quote a number from somewhere else that might not match what Apple's own page says right now, we left ratings out. Details in the FAQ.

Pick by what you're doing

• Never want a subscription, even for commercial use — Obsidian.
• Want your notes encrypted end-to-end, for free — Standard Notes.
• Already live inside Google's apps — Google Keep.
• Want zero setup and no catch — Simplenote, with one caveat below.
• Only use Apple devices — Apple Notes.
• Already pay for Microsoft 365 storage anyway — OneNote.
• Work alone and want tags and databases — Notion — just watch what happens the moment you add a second person.
• Assumed Evernote's free plan still gives you what it used to — it doesn't; see #8.
• Want Bear's writing experience and don't need your notes anywhere but one device — Bear.

At a glance

"Free sync across devices" is about whether the free plan gets your notes from one device to another on its own — not about app quality.

The List

1. Obsidian (free, no account needed) — Not a company-run service at all: your notes are plain Markdown files on your own device, so there's nothing a subscription can gate on the app itself. Obsidian's terms were updated 20 February 2025 to make commercial use free too — before that, work use was meant to need a paid commercial license. The $50/user/year commercial license is now explicitly optional on Obsidian's own pricing page, bought to support development and stated to carry no functional benefit inside the app. What is paid: Obsidian Sync ($4/month) and Obsidian Publish ($8/month) are separate add-ons — without them, getting your notes between your own devices is on you.
2. Standard Notes (free, account required) — End-to-end encryption, unlimited device sync, tags, offline access and full data export (encrypted or plaintext) are all on the free plan, per the company's own plans page. Two-factor authentication used to have its own "why is this a paid feature" FAQ entry on Standard Notes' help site — that page is now archived, and a dedicated company blog post confirms 2FA moved to every account, free included. The $90/year Productivity plan adds the rich-text/spreadsheet-capable "Super" note type; $120/year Professional adds 100GB of encrypted file storage and sharing with up to five accounts.
3. Google Keep (free, Google account) — No pricing page, because there's no paid tier to sell: Keep draws on your account's shared 15GB Google storage, split with Gmail and Photos. One thing Google's own storage help pages state, and most "free note app" roundups skip past: Keep is one of a handful of Google products exempt from the over-quota lockout that otherwise freezes Gmail and Drive once you're over your limit.
4. Simplenote (free forever, account needed to sync) — Automattic's own site states it plainly: Simplenote is free, with syncing, sharing, backups and every app included, no premium tier to upgrade into — a stance it's held since a 2010 "letter to our users" announcement. The catch that's easy to miss: Simplenote's help page now says the app is no longer in active development, with "only its basic functionality... maintained" and no new features planned. Free forever and feature-frozen turn out to be the same decision here.
5. Apple Notes (free, Apple ID) — Bundled into every Apple ID at no extra cost, syncing through iCloud's shared 5GB free storage tier — split with backups, photos and files, not a Notes-specific allowance. The catch that doesn't show up on a pricing page because there isn't one: Apple Notes has no native Windows or Android app. Off an Apple device, you're reading your notes through a browser at iCloud.com, not a dedicated client.
6. Microsoft OneNote (free, Microsoft account) — The app itself has carried no price since Microsoft's 2015 "OneNote is now even more free" change, but notebooks live on OneDrive, and the current free allowance there is 5GB — shared across OneDrive files, Outlook.com attachments and the rest of the Microsoft 365 free tier, per Microsoft's current support pages. That's down from the 15GB a since-outdated 2015 Microsoft blog post still states — exactly the kind of number that keeps getting copied into "free storage" roundups years after it stopped being true. Separately, Microsoft's docs cap any single notebook saved to OneDrive or SharePoint at 2GB, regardless of how much total storage you have free.
7. Notion (free, account required) — Genuinely unlimited pages and blocks, per Notion's own help center — for as long as you're the only member of the workspace. The moment a second person joins, that workspace hits a 1,000-block lifetime cap, after a three-day grace period, and deleting blocks or emptying the trash does not free up room: you can read and reorganize existing content, but not add to it, until someone upgrades. File uploads are separately capped at 5MB per file on free, rising to 5GB on paid plans.
8. Evernote (free, account required) — For years the default answer to "which note app is free," and still described that way on plenty of roundups. It isn't anymore: Evernote's own help center currently states the Free plan is capped at one connected device at a time, 50 notes, 1 notebook, and 250MB of uploads a month — Evernote Web counts as a device. Content over the cap stays readable and exportable; you just can't add new notes until you're back under it. Evernote's own "compare-plans" marketing page — the page most people would actually open to check this — still shows an older, considerably more generous version, and by our check it's roughly three and a half years stale relative to the help-center articles describing the current rules.
9. Bear (free, Mac/iPhone/iPad only) — A well-reviewed native Markdown writing app with a free tier that is local-only. Bear's own FAQ states sync between devices requires Bear Pro — there is no free way to get a note from your phone to your laptop. Pro is also about to cost more: a Bear company blog post this month puts the new price at $3.99/month ($39.99/year) starting 24 November 2026, up from $2.99/$29.99, with anyone who subscribes before that date keeping the old price for as long as they stay subscribed. Bear has no Windows or Android client at all, free or paid.

Keep the list on your own board

Save all nine to your board in one go — handy the next time one of these changes its free tier again, which on this list's evidence happens more often than most "best free note app" posts get around to rechecking.

FAQ

What is the ranking based on?

How much each app's current free plan actually gives you — sync, device count, encryption, lifetime caps — read from each vendor's own current pages, with the ones that quietly changed that recently (Evernote, Bear, Notion, Obsidian) named rather than left for you to discover on your own.

Why nine?

Because nine had a free tier whose limits we could confirm from the vendor's own current pages. We didn't pad to a rounder number, and we didn't drop one just because its free tier turned out unflattering — Evernote and Bear are both on this list for exactly that reason.

Why no star ratings?

Every other entry here would normally carry its App Store rating and review count, the way our AI-chatbot and password-manager guides do. This run, the lookup that pulls those numbers from Apple's own API didn't resolve from this session's network — not because any of these apps were delisted, just an access problem on our end this week. Rather than repeat a number from a secondary site that might not match what Apple's own page currently shows, we left it out.

Evernote used to be the default free note app. What actually changed?

The free plan itself. Evernote's own help center currently states Free accounts get one connected device at a time, 50 notes, one notebook, and 250MB of monthly uploads — with a paid Starter tier next, at 3 devices, 1,000 notes, 20 notebooks and 10GB of monthly uploads. The company's own "compare-plans" page, probably the first thing you'd open to check this, still shows an older, considerably more generous version — about three and a half years out of date against the help-center articles describing the current rules.

Does Bear's free plan really not sync at all?

Correct, per Bear's own FAQ — sync between devices is a Bear Pro feature, with no partial or workaround sync on free. It's also about to cost more: a Bear blog post this month confirms Pro moves from $2.99/month ($29.99/year) to $3.99/month ($39.99/year) on 24 November 2026, with existing subscribers, and anyone who subscribes before that date, keeping their current price for as long as they stay subscribed.

How current is this?

Checked against each vendor's own pricing, help-center and license pages on 11 November 2026. Free-tier terms in this category change without much announcement — Evernote's cut and Notion's 1,000-block cap didn't come with the kind of press release a price increase gets — so check the current page before you commit to one.

What is the board?

This list exists as a real, public SaveBoard board, so reading it and keeping it are the same action. Open it as-is, or copy it into your own account and add whichever one you actually pick.