It bristles with note-creation tools for drawing, recording audio and video, scanning images, embedding spreadsheets, and reviewing the edits of others (although the abilities of those tools differ somewhat depending on the platform).

OneNote offers top-notch tools for creating notes from scratch and organizing them intelligently. It lets you create simple or complex notes from scratch, organize them into searchable, browsable notebooks, and sync them among a variety of platforms, including Windows PCs, Macs, iPads and iPhones, Android devices, and the web. OneNote is very much a full-blown application. (OneNote for Windows 10 is no longer being distributed, and it will reach end of support in October 2025.) This review is based on OneNote for Windows. Note that after several years of Microsoft confusing everyone by having three different versions of OneNote, there is now only one version that the company will continue to update, called OneNote for Windows. I spend more time on the Windows version of each, but I’ll note similarities and differences in other versions as well. This isn’t a deep-dive review, but rather a personal look at what I like and don’t much like about each - and the main points of difference between the two.

I’m a longtime user of both applications, so I’ve taken a look at the latest version of each for Windows, macOS, iPad, iPhone, and Android.

But they also have some very distinct differences. OneNote and Evernote are available for all the major desktop and mobile OSes, they can each sync your notes to all of your devices and the web, and both promise to be the only note-taking app you need.

Evernote app for laptop