Apple Notes vs Craft
Which is better in 2026? Five scores, side by side.
Apple Notes is the better app overall, scoring 9.0 to 8.4. Apple Notes wins on 3 of the 5 scores, Craft on 1, with 1 tied.
iPhone, iPad and Mac owners who want a fast, free place for everyday notes
Writers and Apple users who want beautiful notes and docs with little effort
Score by score
The details
| Feature | Apple Notes | Craft |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Productivity & Notes | Productivity & Notes |
| Category rank | #5 of 17 | #12 of 17 |
| Developer | Apple | Craft Docs Limited |
| Pricing | Free | Free + paid plans |
| Usable for free | Yes | Yes |
| iPhone & iPad | ✓ | ✓ |
| Android | — | ✓ |
| Mac | ✓ | ✓ |
| Windows | — | ✓ |
| Web | ✓ | ✓ |
Common questions
Is Apple Notes better than Craft?
Apple Notes is the better app overall, scoring 9.0 to 8.4. Apple Notes wins on 3 of the 5 scores, Craft on 1, with 1 tied.
Which is cheaper, Apple Notes or Craft?
Apple Notes: Free; syncs with 5 GB of free iCloud storage, and iCloud+ starts at $0.99 a month. Craft: Free Starter plan; Plus $8/month billed yearly, or $10 monthly. On value for money, Apple Notes scores higher.
Do Apple Notes and Craft work on the same devices?
Only Craft runs on Android, Windows.
Which is more private, Apple Notes or Craft?
Apple Notes scores higher on privacy (9.0/10). App Store label: no tracking. Your note content and an ID are linked to you; usage data is not. Turn on Advanced Data Protection and your iCloud notes are end-to-end encrypted.
Strengths and weaknesses
Apple Notes
- Free and built into every iPhone, iPad and Mac
- Handwriting, scans, tables and transcripts in one app
- No tracking, according to the App Store label
- No Android or Windows app, only iCloud.com in a browser
- Free iCloud storage is just 5 GB
- Not end-to-end encrypted unless you turn on Advanced Data Protection
Apple Notes is free, already on your iPhone, iPad and Mac, and a lot better than most people think. You get checklists, tables, document scanning, handwriting, Math Notes and audio recordings with written transcripts. Share notes with family, lock private ones and export to Markdown. Everything syncs through iCloud. The catch is that it lives in Apple's world, with only a web version for Windows and Android.
Full Apple Notes review
Craft
- Beautiful documents with almost no formatting work
- Fast, native apps on Mac, iPhone and iPad
- Easy sharing of polished pages on the web
- Database and team features trail Notion
- Free plan caps you at 1,500 blocks
- Offline use needs setup on Windows, Android and web
Craft makes writing and organizing notes feel good. Pages nest inside each other as cards, documents look polished with no effort, and you can share any doc as a clean web page. Daily notes, tasks, whiteboards, kanban collections and an AI assistant round it out. It now runs on Android too, though the Apple apps are still the best. The catch: databases trail Notion, and the free plan's block limit fills up fast.
Full Craft review
