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Best note-taking apps for teachers
Teaching notes are templates in disguise. The same lesson runs again next September with three changes, so the app that wins is the one that makes copying and editing painless.
Top pick: GoodNotes, at 8.7 out of 10 on this ranking. If you write by hand, buy it and stop reading. If you type, this is the wrong category of app.
What we weighted
Templates that survive a year
Spawn this term from last term without rebuilding the structure by hand.
Write on the worksheet
Marking and annotation on a tablet, in the same place as the plan it came from.
Share without an account
A public link a parent or a student can open, no seat license to buy.
Every app keeps its site-wide score, but the order here is a separate fit reading built from those three needs, so it is not the same list you get on the home page.
GoodNotes
Handwriting on a tablet, done better than anyone else.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Handwriting / stylus.
Students and anyone whose thinking happens with a stylus.
Fit
8.0 overall
$9.99/yr
Microsoft OneNote
An infinite paper notebook that has quietly been free for twenty years.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Handwriting / stylus.
Students and Windows users who want free handwriting plus typing on one page.
Fit
7.8 overall
Free
Obsidian
Plain markdown files on your disk, with a plugin ecosystem bolted on top.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Public sharing.
Long-term thinkers who want to own the files and are willing to tinker.
Fit
8.4 overall
$4/mo
Craft
Documents that look designed before you touch anything.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Public sharing.
People who share their notes and want them to look good.
Fit
8.1 overall
$10/mo
Grape
Take the note. The AI does the filing, the studying and the searching.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Handwriting / stylus.
No: Public sharing.
Students and individual note-takers who want AI over their own notes, kept on their own device, and who now and then share a folder with a classmate or a colleague.
Fit
9.0 overall
$3/mo
RemNote
Take notes and generate the flashcards in the same keystroke.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Public sharing.
Medical, law and language students who live in spaced repetition.
Fit
7.9 overall
$8/mo
Noteshelf
Handwriting on every platform, with an AI that reads your pages.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Handwriting / stylus.
Stylus users who are not on an iPad, or not only on an iPad.
Fit
7.5 overall
$9.99/mo
Logseq
A journal-first outliner with flashcards baked in, over local files.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Public sharing.
Daily journalers and students who want linked notes plus revision.
Fit
7.4 overall
Free
Notability
Recorded audio linked to every stroke you wrote while it played.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Handwriting / stylus.
Students recording lectures on an iPad.
Fit
7.2 overall
$14.99/yr
Samsung Notes
The reason the S Pen is worth using, and it costs nothing.
For teachers: Note templates, PDF & documents, Handwriting / stylus.
Galaxy Tab owners who want free handwriting notes.
Fit
7.2 overall
Free
Questions teachers ask
- What do teachers use to plan lessons?
- OneNote runs away with this one because Class Notebook is built for it and most schools already pay for the license. Outside a Microsoft school, Notion databases do the same job with more setup.
- Can I mark student work in a note app?
- On a tablet, yes. GoodNotes and Notability both import a worksheet as a PDF and let you write on it with a stylus, then export the marked copy back out.
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