Milanote
A studio wall for people who think by moving things around.
By Milanote · since 2016 · milanote.com
B- · out of 10
Milanote is a freeform board where notes, images, links, files and to-do lists sit wherever you drag them. Boards nest inside boards, so a campaign, a script or a house renovation gets a hierarchy without ever becoming an outline. It came out of a design agency, and it still behaves like one: mood boards, columns and comments rather than markdown, backlinks or a database schema.
How it scores
Features25% of score
7.0Depth and breadth of what the app can do.
Ease of use20% of score
8.8Speed, polish and how long it takes to feel at home.
AI15% of score
2.0Quality and usefulness of the built-in AI, not just its presence.
Sync & reliability15% of score
8.0How dependably notes move between devices.
Value15% of score
7.0What you get for what you pay.
Platform coverage10% of score
8.6How many places you can actually use it.
Pricing
$12.50/month · $119.88/year
Free tier: 100 notes, images or links and 10 file uploads, with unlimited shared boards and no time limit.
Pro is $9.99/month billed annually, or $12.50 month to month, and lifts every limit. Team plans start at $49/month for up to ten people.
Platforms
- Windows
- macOS
- iOS
- Android
- Linux
- Web
25 tracked features supported
What it does well
- The canvas genuinely helps when a project has no obvious order yet
- Nested boards keep a big project from turning into one enormous wall
- Sharing, commenting and view-only links are frictionless
- The free plan is generous enough to finish a real project on
Where it falls short
- No markdown, and the text editor stays deliberately basic
- No AI at all, which is either the point or a dealbreaker
- The Android app trails the web version badly
- Not a place to keep a searchable archive of everything you write
Our take
A beautiful visual scratchpad that earns its place next to a note app rather than replacing one.
Best for: Designers, writers and planners in the messy early half of a project.
Feature by feature
Capture & input
How notes get into the app in the first place.
- Voice recording
- Audio transcription
- Speaker identification
- Meeting recording
- Handwriting / stylus
- Drawing canvas
- OCR / handwriting search
- Web clipper
- Share extension
- Quick capture
- Images
- PDF & documentsPartly
- Document scanning
Organization
How notes are structured, linked and found again.
- TagsPartly
- Folders / notebooks
- Multi-level folders
- Internal links
- Backlinks
- Graph view
- Databases / boardsPartly
- Daily notes / journal
- Note templates
- Saved searches
- Pins / favorites
- Merge notes
AI
Assistants, generators and meaning-based search.
- AI chat / writing assistant
- AI agent with tools
- Custom AI agents
- Semantic search
- AI web search
- Connected apps for AI
- Prompt templates
- Custom AI instructions
- AI memory
- Scheduled AI tasks
- Flashcard generator
- Spaced repetition
- Quiz generator
- Fill in the blank
- Mind maps
- AI image generation
- Infographic generator
- Slide deck generator
- AI mini apps
- Brainrot video generator
- AI audio overview
- Bring your own model
- AI job notifications
Writing & editing
What the editor itself can actually do.
- Markdown
- Rich text
- Code blocks
- Math / LaTeX
- Tables
- Find and replace
- Version historyPartly
- Note infoPartly
Sync & data ownership
Where your notes live and how easily they leave.
- Cloud sync
- Sync through your own cloud
- Offline supportPartly
- Offline-first / own your data
- Self-hosting
- End-to-end encryption
- Locked notes
- Daily backup
- ImportPartly
- Export
- Public API
- Command line tool
- Remote MCP server
- Plugins / extensions
Sharing & collaboration
Working with other people inside your notes.
- Share with people
- Real-time collaboration
- Comments
- Public sharing
Experience
The everyday polish around the writing surface.
- Dark modePartly
- Custom themes
- Multi-language
- Command palette
- Split view
- Focus mode
- Home screen widgets
- Apple Shortcuts
