Best AI Note Taking Apps in 2026: 9 Compared

Best AI note taking apps in 2026: 9 tools, prices checked

The short answer

Notion AI is the widest pick if your notes already sit next to tasks, databases and projects. Gemini Notebook is the one to try first if you mainly read sources and want answers that quote them, because the base tier costs nothing. Obsidian is the pick if you want your notes to stay as files on your own disk and you want to choose the AI yourself.

Every price on this page was read on the vendor's own pricing page on 14 September 2026. Three things had moved since our last pass, and each one matters if you are comparing older reviews:

NotebookLM is now Gemini Notebook. notebooklm.google redirects to notebook.google, and the product is named Gemini Notebook throughout.
Mem changed its plans. It now runs Free, Plus at $9, Pro at $29 and Pro 2x at $49 a month. Older articles, including our own earlier version of this page, quoted about $12 for Mem Pro. That number is gone.
Tana is now two products. tana.inc is Tana, an agentic meeting platform. The outliner people mean when they say Tana lives at outliner.tana.inc and is called Tana Outliner. Its own page says so. This list uses the outliner, because that is the note-taking one.

How we picked

The price comes from the vendor's own pricing page, read on 14 September 2026, with the currency and the billing period written out. Where a vendor shows one price for annual billing and another for monthly, both are here.
The app has to do something with AI that a plain notes app does not.
One person has to be able to get value from it without a team around them.
Every entry says where the tool falls short, including ours.

dEssence is our product, and it is number 6 on this list. It sits there because it covers one job the other eight do not, and it fails at several jobs most of them handle. Both halves are written out in its entry.

The nine apps at a glance: price and platforms

#	App	Price on 14 Sep 2026	Runs on
1	Notion AI	Free $0; Plus $12 monthly, $10 yearly; Business $24 monthly, $20 yearly, per member	Web, Mac, Windows, iOS, Android
2	Gemini Notebook	Base tier free; higher limits come with Google AI Plus, Pro or Ultra, priced by region	Web, mobile app
3	Obsidian	Free, no sign-up; Sync $4 per user a month, Publish $8 per site a month, billed annually	Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, browser clipper
4	Craft	Free €0, 1,500 block limit; Plus €8 monthly, €6.40 yearly; Family €15 or €12; Team €50	Mac, Windows, web, iOS, iPadOS, Android, visionOS
5	Mem	Free $0; Plus $9, Pro $29, Pro 2x $49 a month	Mac, Windows, plus WhatsApp and email as channels
6	dEssence	Free $0, no card; Pro $10 a month	Chrome extension, Telegram, web
7	Reflect	One plan, $10 a month billed annually, 14 day trial	Web, desktop, iOS, Chrome and Safari clipper
8	Tana Outliner	Free $0, 500 AI credits; Plus $8, Pro $14 a month billed yearly; $10 and $18 monthly	Mac, Windows, Linux, web, mobile apps
9	Saner.AI	Free $0; Starter $8, Standard $16 a month billed yearly; Standard is $20 monthly	Web, Chrome extension, mobile app

The same nine: what the AI does and who it suits

#	App	What the AI does	Best for
1	Notion AI	Writes, searches the workspace, and on Business runs agents and meeting notes	People whose notes already live beside tasks and projects
2	Gemini Notebook	Answers from the sources you upload and shows the quote it used	A fixed pile of sources you need to read and question
3	Obsidian	Nothing built in. AI arrives through community plugins	Keeping notes as plain files you own
4	Craft	Writes and edits inside the document	Notes that someone else is going to read
5	Mem	Reads your notes, finds tasks in them, follows up on a schedule	People who think out loud and want the follow-up handled
6	dEssence	Answers questions about what you saved and cites the saved items	The material that never became a note
7	Reflect	Transcribes voice, improves writing, works inside linked notes	One price, encryption, notes tied to people
8	Tana Outliner	A knowledge graph on supertags, with AI chat and meeting transcription on credits	People whose unit of thought is a bullet, not a page
9	Saner.AI	Answers across notes, tasks and connected sources in one chat	Notes, tasks and email context in the same answer

1. Notion AI

Notion is a workspace first. The AI sits inside pages, databases and projects you already keep there, which is why it wins on breadth: you are not adding a second place for notes.

Price on 14 September 2026. Free $0 per member per month. Plus $12 per member per month billed monthly, or $10 billed yearly. Business $24 monthly, or $20 yearly. Enterprise is custom. Agents are free to try, then $10 per 1,000 monthly Notion credits. Source: notion.com/pricing, prices shown after switching the currency selector to USD.

Runs on. Web, Mac and Windows desktop, iOS and Android.

What the AI does. Free and Plus list a trial of Notion AI. Notion Agent, AI Meeting Notes and Enterprise Search are listed on Business.

Best for: people whose notes already live beside tasks, databases and shared docs, and who want the AI in that same place.

Where it falls short. The features most people mean when they say Notion AI are on the Business tier, at $20 to $24 per member per month. The structure is still yours to maintain: pages need homes and databases need properties. If your Notion has already grown past the point where you can find things, read why Notion gets hard to search at scale before you add AI on top.

2. Gemini Notebook (formerly NotebookLM)

Google renamed NotebookLM to Gemini Notebook. Going to notebooklm.google now lands on notebook.google. If you are comparing reviews written earlier, they are describing this product under the old name.

You upload sources, then ask questions about them. Answers come back with the quote they were drawn from, which is the part people keep it for.

Price on 14 September 2026. The base tier is free. Higher usage limits, better models and earlier features come with a Google AI Plus, Pro or Ultra subscription. Google states those plans are available only in certain regions and prices them per region, so we are not printing one number here. Check notebook.google/plans for your country.

Limits by tier, from the same page. Up to 50 sources per notebook on the free tier, 100 on AI Plus, 300 on AI Pro, 600 on AI Ultra.

Runs on. Web, plus a mobile app.

What the AI does. Reads PDFs, websites, YouTube videos, audio files, Google Docs and Slides. Summarises them, answers questions with citations, and turns a set of sources into an Audio Overview you can listen to.

Best for: a defined pile of sources you need to get through, such as a course, a set of contracts, or the reading behind one decision.

Where it falls short. It works on what you put into a notebook. It is not the place your whole life goes, and material you never upload is invisible to it.

3. Obsidian

Obsidian keeps your notes as plain Markdown files on your own disk. It is on this list because of what you can attach to it, not because of what it ships with.

Price on 14 September 2026. The app is free with no sign-up. Sync is $4 per user per month billed annually. Publish is $8 per site per month billed annually. Catalyst is a $25 one time payment. A Commercial licence is $50 per user per year, and Obsidian's own FAQ says you are not required to buy one. Source: obsidian.md/pricing.

Runs on. Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, and a Web Clipper for Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Edge, Brave, Arc, Orion and Vivaldi.

What the AI does. Nothing on its own. Obsidian ships no first-party AI. You add it through community plugins and usually your own API key.

Best for: people who want the files to stay theirs, and who would rather pick the AI than be given one.

Where it falls short. The setup is yours. Plugin quality, model cost and upkeep are your problem, and the thing you built stops working when a plugin stops being maintained. If that sounds like more than you want, read Obsidian alternatives.

4. Craft

Craft is for notes that end up in front of someone else. Documents look finished without work, and the AI is writing help inside the page rather than a search layer over your archive.

Price on 14 September 2026. Free starts at €0 with a 1,500 block content limit. Plus is €8 a month billed monthly, or €6.40 a month billed yearly. Family is €15 a month, or €12 yearly, and covers 2 to 6 Plus accounts. Team is €50 a month for up to 10 accounts. Craft shows these in euros. Source: craft.do/pricing.

Runs on. Mac, Windows, web, iOS, iPadOS, Android and visionOS.

What the AI does. Write with AI drafts and edits inside the document.

Best for: notes that have to look right when you send them, and people who write in public more than they search their own archive.

Where it falls short. The free tier is capped by content, not by time, so it runs out rather than expires. The AI helps you write; it does not help you find the thing you saved eight months ago. For nearby options see Craft alternatives.

5. Mem

Mem is no longer described as a notes app that files itself. Its own site calls it an AI chief of staff: the agent reads what you capture, works out the tasks and projects inside it, and comes back to you on a schedule.

Price on 14 September 2026. Free $0 with 25 messages, 25 new notes a month, task tracking across 25 notes, 15 open tasks and projects, and 3 hours of Voice Mode. Plus is $9 a month. Pro is $29 a month and adds one Custom Routine, one Connection to an outside source such as Gmail, Slack or Todoist, and 25 hours of Voice Mode. Pro 2x is $49 a month. Source: get.mem.ai/pricing.

Runs on. Mac and Windows. You can also send things in through an outside channel such as WhatsApp or email.

What the AI does. Reviews the notes you create or edit, detects tasks and projects, tracks open ones, listens to meetings without joining as a participant, and runs routines you define on a schedule.

Best for: people who talk their thinking out and want someone to carry the follow-up.

Where it falls short. Almost everything is metered per month, including new notes. Twenty-five notes a month on the free plan is enough to try it and not enough to move an archive into it. The plan names and prices also changed this year, so older comparisons are unreliable. Related: when Mem becomes another inbox.

6. dEssence

This is our product, so here is the boundary first. dEssence is not a notes app. There is no page to write on, no outline, no local vault. It holds the things you saved and gives them back when you ask.

Price on 14 September 2026. Free is $0 with no card: 20 saves a day, 20 messages a day, and 100 watched items checked daily. Pro is $10 a month: 150 saves a day, 200 messages a day, and 100 watched items checked hourly. Source: the pricing block on dessence.ai.

Runs on. A Chrome extension, a Telegram bot, and the web app.

What it does. You save links, products, PDFs, screenshots, videos and voice notes from any of those three places, with no folders and no tags. Later you describe the thing in your own words and ask for it, and the answer names the saved items it came from. Saved YouTube videos come back with a short text summary. A saved product page keeps the price and availability that were on it, and you can ask for a watch on one item so you hear when the price moves or it comes back in stock.

Best for: the material that never became a note. Screenshots, forwarded links, a PDF from school, a product page you meant to come back to.

Where it falls short. There is no offline mode, no native iOS or Android app, and no team workspace. It does not read your inbox, so anything from email has to be forwarded in. It will not draft a document, hold a wiki, or replace a vault of linked notes. If writing is the job, one of the eight above is the better buy.

7. Reflect

Reflect sells one plan and keeps the product small: linked notes, your calendar, encryption, and an assistant on top.

Price on 14 September 2026. One plan at $10 a month, billed annually, with a 14 day trial. Source: reflect.app.

Runs on. Web and desktop, an iOS app that works offline, and a clipper for Chrome and Safari. It syncs Kindle highlights and connects to Google and Outlook calendars and contacts, and to Readwise and Zapier.

What the AI does. Reflect's own page says it uses GPT-4 and Whisper from OpenAI to transcribe voice notes, improve writing and act as a thought partner inside your notes.

Best for: one price, end to end encryption, and notes tied to the people and meetings already in your calendar.

Where it falls short. One plan means no free tier, only a trial. The AI is help with writing and transcription rather than a way to search a large mixed archive.

8. Tana Outliner

Tana split into two products, and the split matters here. tana.inc is now Tana, an agentic meeting platform. The outliner that people mean when they say Tana lives at outliner.tana.inc and is called Tana Outliner. Its own home page states the separation in plain terms. This entry is about the outliner.

Everything is a node, and supertags give those nodes a type, so a bullet can be a person, a task or a meeting and still sit in the same flow of thought.

Price on 14 September 2026. Free is $0 with 500 AI credits, supertags, task management, live searches, up to 3 workspaces and 0.5GB of uploads. Plus is $8 a month billed yearly, or $10 monthly. Pro is $14 a month billed yearly, or $18 monthly, and adds deeper AI, voice and automation. Source: outliner.tana.inc/pricing.

Runs on. Mac, Windows, Linux and the web, with mobile apps listed on the site.

What the AI does. Chat with your notes inline, meeting transcription up to 100 minutes on the free tier, and voice transcription in 60 languages. It is metered in credits, so heavy use moves you up a tier.

Best for: people whose natural unit of thought is a bullet rather than a page, and who want that bullet to carry a type.

Where it falls short. Supertags are a schema, and a schema is upkeep you have to keep doing. The AI runs on credits, so the real monthly cost depends on usage. And the naming is genuinely confusing right now: search results, and older reviews, mix the two products up.

9. Saner.AI

Saner puts notes, tasks and connected sources behind one chat, and leans toward people who describe their own workflow as messy.

Price on 14 September 2026. Free $0 with 30 AI messages a month, 100 notes, 1MB per PDF and 100MB of storage. On annual billing, Starter is $8 a month and Standard is $16 a month. Switching to monthly billing puts Standard at $20. Source: saner.ai/pricing.

Runs on. Web, a Chrome extension and a mobile app.

What the AI does. Answers across your notes and tasks, syncs from Google Drive, email, Slack and Calendar, and reads text inside images and PDFs.

Best for: people who want notes, tasks and connected sources to come back in the same answer instead of in four apps.

Where it falls short. Thirty AI messages a month on the free plan is a short trial. It is also the smallest company here, which matters if you are moving several years of notes. Nearby options: Saner.AI alternatives.

How to choose in ten minutes

Answer three questions in this order, and the list gets short fast.

Do you need to write, or to find? Writing means Notion, Craft, Reflect or Obsidian. Finding things you already collected means Gemini Notebook for a fixed set of sources, or dEssence for a mixed pile.
Where does the material arrive? If it arrives as documents you upload, Gemini Notebook. If it arrives as web pages, screenshots and forwarded links, you need something with a clipper or a chat channel. If it arrives in meetings, Tana or Mem.
What happens if you stop opening the app for three weeks? Auto-organising tools quietly become tidier piles. Ask whether the tool still works when you come back cold and remember only what the thing was about.

Then run the same five minute test in your two finalists. Save one web page, one screenshot and one PDF. Wait a day. Ask for each of them using only the words you would naturally use. The better tool is the one that returns the right item.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best free AI note taking app in 2026?

Gemini Notebook, if your material is documents you can upload. The base tier costs nothing and allows up to 50 sources per notebook, and answers come back with the quote they were taken from. Obsidian is free too, with no sign-up, but it ships no AI of its own.

Did NotebookLM change its name?

Yes. It is now Gemini Notebook. The address notebooklm.google redirects to notebook.google, and Google's own pages use the new name throughout, including the plans page.

How much does Mem cost in 2026?

Free $0, Plus $9 a month, Pro $29 a month, and Pro 2x $49 a month, read from get.mem.ai/pricing on 14 September 2026. Reviews that still quote around $12 for Mem Pro are out of date, including an earlier version of this page.

Which of these work without an internet connection?

Obsidian, because the files are on your disk. Reflect lists offline capture in its iOS app. dEssence needs a connection and has no offline mode.

Do I need an AI note app at all?

Only if the failure you have is retrieval. If your notes app works and you simply write a lot, AI adds cost and not much else. The apps here earn their price when you have more material than you can hold in your head and you keep failing to get it back.

Can I use more than one?

Yes, and most people here do. A writing workspace and a recall layer solve different jobs, which is why moving everything into one app so often ends with a second pile. Our fuller take on that split is in the best knowledge management apps for 2026.