Best Free AI Note-Taking Apps in 2026
Note-taking is the one software category where switching costs are almost entirely emotional until they suddenly are not. You accumulate two years of notes, then discover the export produces a folder of files that no longer link to each other, and the tool you were mildly annoyed by becomes the tool you cannot leave.
So the question worth asking of a free AI note app is not which one has the best summarisation. It is where your notes live and what happens when you leave. On that axis these six differ more than on any feature.
Here is what each free tier gives you, checked August 2026.
Quick comparison
| App | Free plan | Paid entry | Where notes live | Rating | Reviews |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Obsidian | Free core | Sync $4/user/mo | Your disk, plain files | 4.7 | 58 |
| Otter.ai | Free | $8.33/mo (annual) | Vendor cloud | 4.5 | 1,655 |
| Capacities | Free | $9.99/mo (annual) | Vendor cloud | not rated | - |
| Notion | Free | $10/user/mo | Vendor cloud | 3.5 | 407 |
| Mem | Free | $12/mo | Vendor cloud | not rated | - |
| Granola | Free | $14/user/mo (Business) | Vendor cloud | not rated | - |
Ratings aggregated by Toolradar. Notion's figure needs the explanation below.
One of these keeps your notes as files on your own machine. That is the column that matters in three years.
About that Notion score
Notion aggregates to 3.5 across 407 reviews, which will look wrong to anyone who uses it, and the breakdown explains why: 2.5 on Trustpilot across 287 reviews, 4.4 on TrustRadius across 85, and 4.1 on PeerSpot across 35.
There is no large G2 or Capterra population in our data for Notion, so the aggregate is dominated by the one platform where people mostly arrive to complain. That is a limitation of our sample rather than a verdict on the product, and we are saying so rather than quietly dropping the number.
It is also a useful illustration of the thing worth taking from this whole series: a rating is a measurement of a population, not of a product. Change the population and the number moves by two points without anything about the software changing.
Obsidian's 4.7 across 58 reviews has the opposite problem, a small and self-selected sample of people who chose an unusual tool deliberately. Otter's 4.5 across 1,655 is the only figure here with real weight, and it describes a transcription service rather than a notes app.
Judge these on where your notes live and what happens when you leave, which the table above states plainly and which no rating captures.
Obsidian: free forever, and yours
Aggregated rating 4.7 across 58 reviews. Obsidian's core app is free, with optional Sync at $4 per user per month and Publish at $8 per site.
Your notes are markdown files in a folder on your computer. That sentence is the entire product argument. No export needed, no migration project, no vendor deciding your pricing tier in 2029. If Obsidian disappeared tomorrow your notes would open in any text editor.
The AI is not built in; it arrives through community plugins, which means you choose the model and it can run locally. For anyone who does not want their private notes going to a vendor's model, this is the only comfortable option here.
The cost is that you assemble it. Obsidian out of the box is a good markdown editor, and it becomes a system only after you configure it. People either love that or bounce off it in a week.
Notion: free for one, priced for teams
Aggregated rating 3.5 across 407 reviews, explained above. Notion is free for personal use, with Plus at about $10 per user per month and full AI in Business at about $20.
Notion is a database pretending to be a notes app, which makes it extraordinary for structured knowledge and heavier than necessary for jotting something down. If your notes want to become a project tracker and a wiki, this is the right shape.
The free plan is genuinely usable alone. Collaboration is where it ends, and the pricing detail worth noting is that full AI sits in Business at $20, not in the $10 tier where most people assume it lives.
Export produces markdown, which is better than nothing and loses the databases that made it useful.
Granola: notes plus what was actually said
Granola is free, with Business at $14 per user per month.
Granola's premise is that you already take notes in meetings and they are fragmentary because you were also listening. It listens too, then merges your fragments with the transcript into something coherent.
Crucially it does not join the call as a bot. Nothing announces itself, nobody performs for the recording, and external meetings stay normal. For anyone whose notes are mostly meeting notes, that combination is the strongest argument on this list.
It is narrow by design. This is not the place for research notes or a personal wiki.
Otter.ai: transcription first, notes second
Aggregated rating 4.5 across 1,655 reviews (4.4 on G2, 4.6 on Capterra), the only robust sample here. Otter is free, with Pro at about $8.33 a month billed annually and Business at $20.
Otter is a transcription service that grew note features, which is the correct order for some people and the wrong one for others. If most of what you want to capture is spoken, in meetings, lectures or interviews, its accuracy is the best here.
The free tier gives a monthly minute allowance, a limit that is easy to reason about.
If your notes are mostly typed, this is the wrong tool. It will produce excellent records of things you said and a poor place to think.
Capacities: an object-based middle ground
Capacities is free, with Pro at $9.99 a month billed annually.
Capacities organises around objects rather than pages: a person, a book, a meeting, each with its own type and properties. In practice that means less time deciding where a note goes, because the structure comes from what the note is about.
It sits between Obsidian's build-it-yourself and Notion's build-a-database. For people who found Obsidian too bare and Notion too much, it is often the answer.
Smaller company, smaller ecosystem, and your notes are in their cloud. Weigh that against the ergonomics.
Mem: the one that files things for you
Mem is free, with Pro at $12 a month.
Mem's bet is that organising notes is wasted work, so it uses AI to surface related notes instead of asking you to file them. When it works it feels like the tool is reading your mind; when it does not, you are searching a pile.
It suits people who capture constantly and organise never. If you already have a system you like, Mem is solving a problem you do not have.
The question to answer first
Before comparing features, decide whether your notes are a record or a workspace.
A record is meeting notes, interviews, lectures: things that happened, captured accurately, searched later. Granola and Otter are built for this and their free tiers are enough for most people.
A workspace is thinking: half-formed ideas, connected over years, revisited. Obsidian, Capacities and Notion serve that, and the choice among them is about how much structure you want handed to you.
Tools that try to be both usually do one well. Choosing the wrong category is the mistake that leads to the two-year migration.
How to choose
If you want to still own your notes in a decade, Obsidian, free, with Sync at $4 if you want it across devices.
If your notes are meetings, Granola, and its free plan covers a lot before the $14 Business tier.
If you want structure and a team, Notion, remembering that full AI is the $20 Business tier rather than the $10 one.
If most of your input is spoken, Otter, at $8.33 the cheapest paid tier here.
If you capture constantly and file never, Mem.
Whatever you choose, export a month in and look at what comes out. The tool that produces a clean folder of markdown is the tool you can leave, and being able to leave is the feature you will care about longest.
Related: our guide to AI meeting assistants covers the recording layer, and the Dupple reviews directory has current pricing.
FAQ
Which free AI note app is best for privacy?
Obsidian, clearly. Notes are plain markdown files on your own machine, and because AI arrives through plugins you can point it at a local model so nothing leaves your computer. Every other app here stores your notes in a vendor cloud.
How much do AI note-taking apps cost?
Entry paid tiers run from $4 a month for Obsidian Sync, through $8.33 on Otter Pro, $9.99 on Capacities, $10 on Notion Plus and $12 on Mem, to $14 per user on Granola Business. Note that Notion's full AI sits in Business at about $20 rather than in Plus. Checked August 2026.
Can I use these to take notes in meetings automatically?
Granola and Otter are built for it. Granola is unusual in not joining the call as a visible bot, merging what you type with what it hears instead, which keeps external meetings feeling normal. Otter joins and transcribes, with the better accuracy of the two.
Is Obsidian's free version limited?
Not for personal use. The core app is free and complete; you pay only for optional Sync at $4 a month or Publish at $8 a site. Commercial use has its own licence, so check that if you are deploying it across a company.
Why is Notion rated so low here?
Because our aggregate for it is dominated by Trustpilot, where it scores 2.5 across 287 reviews, with no large G2 or Capterra population to balance it. On TrustRadius it scores 4.4. That two-point spread is about which population is reviewing, not about the software, and it is the clearest reason to read a rating alongside its sources rather than on its own.
Which note-taking app has the most reviews?
Otter.ai, at 1,655 aggregated reviews and 4.5, though it is really a transcription service that grew note features. Among the tools built as note apps, none here has a sample large enough to rank on, which is why this comparison is built around where your notes live instead.
