Software Alternatives & Reviews

Notability VS Xournal++

Compare Notability VS Xournal++ and see what are their differences

Notability logo Notability

Combine handwriting, photos and typing in a single note to bring your projects to life. Use a wide range of note-taking and sketching tools to capture every detail. You can even add and annotate PDFs in Notability.

Xournal++ logo Xournal++

Xournal++ is a handwriting notetaking software with PDF annotation support. Written in C++ with GTK3, supporting Linux (e.g. Ubuntu, Debian, Arch, SUSE), macOS and Windows 10. Supports pen input fr...
  • Notability Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-02
  • Xournal++ Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-20

Notability videos

Notability on the iPad | Walkthrough & Review ✏️

More videos:

  • Review - NOTABILITY VS. GOODNOTES 5 - Best iPad Note-Taking App (2021)
  • Review - The ULTIMATE Notability vs GoodNotes 5 Comparison Video! (2022)

Xournal++ videos

Xournal++ Digital Inking & PDFs on Linux - IG App Picks

More videos:

  • Review - XOURNAL++ PDF ANNOTATOR: BEST FOR ONLINE PAPER CHECKING

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Notability and Xournal++)
Note Taking
43 43%
57% 57
Task Management
49 49%
51% 51
Todos
31 31%
69% 69
Project Management
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Notability and Xournal++

Notability Reviews

15 Best Notability Alternatives 2022
Notability is one of the most popular and reliable apps when it comes to creating handwritten, typed, or visual notes. Despite its notoriety, Notability is not without its shortcomings and may not be the best note-taking app for everyone.
Which App is Best for Taking Notes?
Notability also offers a unique audio recording option. You won’t find it in Good Notes. When using the app, users can record audio files while taking notes. When playing back audio, Notability will animate when the text was added to the page during the recording so that it’s easy to know what prompted you to write something down.
Source: medium.com

Xournal++ Reviews

  1. Go-to solution for easy paper replacement

    Used my laptop, a small wacom tablet, and this program to replace all my engineering notes this semester. No more scanning to upload, re-drawing plots, re-writing equations, printing assignments, or heavy binder to carry around.

    🏁 Competitors: OneNote
    👍 Pros:    Export in pdf|Import pdf

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Xournal++ seems to be a lot more popular than Notability. While we know about 54 links to Xournal++, we've tracked only 5 mentions of Notability. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Notability mentions (5)

  • Why do they make it so complicated?
    You are using a third party app (https://notability.com) for notes. It’s very likely it has it set to sync with iCloud as a default - in order for you to be able to access said notes from other devices as well. Source: 11 months ago
  • Anyone else dislikes studying with soft copy notes?
    When I used ipad in sec school I found Notability to do wonders in making/editing notes, bonus if you have an apple pencil to go with it. Editing PDF, adding pics, arranging texts and diagrams, exporting, importing etc. Source: about 1 year ago
  • GoodNotes 5 is Now the Better Option than Notability
    If you were looking for a great writing option in the past, you often would have been recommended Goodnotes 5 or Notability, as often times it simply came down to personal preference. Both offered similar feature and worked great on the iPad with the Apple Pencil, so it was easy to see why both were pretty evenly matched with only a couple features or abilities to seperated them. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Pen down some thoughts in my journal after catching up with a designer friend.
    Oh nice! I think IPads have digital journals you can use so you can still doodle, draw maps, etc. Here’s one I found that’s highly rated: Notability. Source: about 1 year ago
  • What are your most used tools/products for essay writing?
    Notability - allows me to take notes on my iPad during lectures. Source: over 1 year ago

Xournal++ mentions (54)

  • Book list for streetfighting computer scientists
    I've been using Xournalpp[1] for many years, highlighting books as I read them, adding in text/hand drawn annotations in whitespaces if necessary. Unlike other PDF readers/annotators, it saves a separate file, so the original PDF is untouched. It can also export the annotated PDF as a new PDF with highlights and annotations. Obsidian[2] also has PDF support, where you can open a markdown document side by side with... - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Combined metric for finding and decoding (digitally) handwritten text on a page?
    Currently, I am trying to build a small open source NLP project for which I first find text on a page and then translate it; see the current project state here: https://github.com/PellelNitram/xournalpp_htr. The purpose of this project is to make handwritten text in Xournal++ searchable for all users. Source: 8 months ago
  • Alternative to MS OneNote that’s truly as good? Flair is limited but more precisely is I’d like cross-platform.
    On Linux, Xournal++ is the best thing that can do inking. https://github.com/xournalpp/xournalpp. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Need help installing Latex on Linux
    First of all, I don't want to install Latex, but since my note taking app requires it, I feel like I don't have any alternative. I was wondering if I needed to download TexLive or if there were any other options for me. I am taking physics notes and I don't want anything other than basic text editing (superscript, subscript, symbols for physics equations and basic math stuff), is there a way I don't have to... Source: about 1 year ago
  • Need an app like xournalpp which can take help me edit and insert Latex into Pdfs
    I recently was looking for a note making app for editing, marking, drawing over a pdf file and a helpful person suggested me xournalpp, though this is very helpful, I have to install 7GB s of Latex app to even start inserting Latex text on my pdf, is there an app which doesn't need me to install Latex app(7GB) and can still let me put in Latex text on my pdf like Obsidian does? Source: about 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Notability and Xournal++, you can also consider the following products

Evernote - Bring your life's work together in one digital workspace. Evernote is the place to collect inspirational ideas, write meaningful words, and move your important projects forward.

xournal - Lightweight notetaking and sketching app.

OneNote - Get the OneNote app for free on your tablet, phone, and computer, so you can capture your ideas and to-do lists in one place wherever you are. Or try OneNote with Office for free.

Workflowy - A better way to organize your mind.

Stylus Labs Write - Write is a word processor for handwriting, designed primarily for tablets with an active stylus.

Simplenote - The simplest way to keep notes. Light, clean, and free. Simplenote is now available for iOS, Android, Mac, and the web.