Craft vs Microsoft OneNote: Which Note-Taking App Wins in 2025?

Do you struggle to keep your thoughts, ideas, and notes organized?

You want a tool that helps, not hinders, your productivity.

Perhaps you’ve heard of Craft and Microsoft OneNote.

Both are popular, but they offer different experiences.

In this article, we’ll break down Craft vs Microsoft OneNote.

Let’s dive in and simplify your decision!

Overview

We put Craft and OneNote through their paces.

We used them daily for notes, ideas, and projects.

This hands-on testing helped us see how each app really works.

Now, let’s compare them closely.

What is Craft?

Let’s talk about Craft.

Have you heard of it? It’s a really neat tool.

Many people use it for notes and documents.

It helps you organize your thoughts. You can create beautiful pages. 

It’s like a digital notebook.

Also, explore our favorite Craft alternatives…

What is Microsoft OneNote?

So, what about Microsoft OneNote? It’s like a digital notebook.

You can jot down ideas anywhere on the page. It’s very freeform.

You can draw, type, and even record audio.

Also, explore our favorite Microsoft OneNote alternatives…

Feature Comparison

Craft is a comprehensive product management platform, whereas Microsoft OneNote is a flexible digital notebook.

While you can use OneNote for project-like tasks, Craft is specifically designed to manage the entire product lifecycle from ideation to launch.

1. Core Purpose

• Craft.io: A platform for product management that helps a company build a compelling product story and make smart product decisions. It is used by product teams to manage the entire product lifecycle from vision to execution.
• Microsoft OneNote: A flexible digital notebook. Its core purpose is to help onenote users create notes, sketch, and attach files to one location.

2. Note Taking and Organization

• Craft.io: This platform is not for general note-taking. Its focus is on organizing product data and strategy to help you with prioritization.
• Microsoft OneNote: A powerful tool for taking notes. It gives you a free-form canvas to place a text box, handwrite notes using drawing tools, and add any other information. You can use custom tags to organize information and make it searchable.

3. Collaboration and Sharing

• Craft.io: Provides a platform for team collaboration by centralizing all product data to ensure alignment. It helps product teams manage and share all the information needed to build great products with confidence.
• Microsoft OneNote: A very collaborative tool. Onenote users can easily access onenote on multiple devices and invite other onenote users to share notes and notebooks for real-time collaboration.

4. Integrations and Ecosystem

• Craft.io: Designed to be the central hub for product management. It integrates with various project management and other apps to help with the execution of your company’s vision.
• Microsoft OneNote: Part of the microsoft office applications, so it integrates seamlessly with microsoft word, excel, and powerpoint. It is one of the many microsoft apps that microsoft offers to help you get work done.

5. AI and Advanced Features

• Craft.io: Its AI features are geared toward prioritization and helping you with successful execution. It helps you align your team’s work with your overall strategy.
• Microsoft OneNote: Has premium features that are powered by AI, such as a math assistant and optical character recognition (OCR) that enables users to search for text within images.

6. Search Functionality

• Craft.io: Provides a search to find specific items within your product data and backlog.
• Microsoft OneNote: The search features are very robust. Its ocr technology makes your notes searchable, even when it is a photo or a handwritten notes.

7. User Experience

• Craft.io: A user-friendly interface for product teams that helps you manage the entire product lifecycle.
• Microsoft OneNote: The user interface is familiar to microsoft office users. The onenote cost is essentially free, so it is a great app for new users to begin taking notes. It also provides customization options to make your notebooks unique.

8. Use Cases

• Craft.io: A strategic platform for product teams to define their vision and strategy, and to manage their progress to build great products with confidence.
• Microsoft OneNote: The best tool for personal and academic use. You can use it as a word processing tool, a digital notebook, and a drawing app. It is a powerful tool to create anything you want.

9. Platforms and Accessibility

• Craft.io: A comprehensive platform that works on both web and desktop. It requires an internet connection for most of its features. You may see messages like “verification successful waiting” or “ray id” as part of a login process.
• Microsoft OneNote: The android version and mobile apps are available to ensure you can access your notes on multiple devices. The app has a browser extension and a windows version.

10. Pricing

• Craft.io: Offers various paid plan options for different needs, including an enterprise plan. Its pricing varies depending on the features you want and the number of users.
• Microsoft OneNote: The onenote cost is essentially free with a microsoft account. However, getting a paid plan to microsoft 365 provides more storage for your files, premium features, and access to other microsoft apps. The pricing varies depending on the plan.

11. Support

• Craft.io: The company and its staff are very responsive and provides human support to their users. You can easily respond to them if you have any questions or concerns.
• Microsoft OneNote: The microsoft support and the onenote support is very well-documented and they have a very good connection with the community.

What to Look For When Choosing an AI Note-Taking Tool?

When picking an AI note-taking tool, think about these key things:

• When evaluating different platforms, check for a free version that you can test to see if it meets your needs.
• The best apps should have good security practices and give you the ability to verify and export your data.
• You should look for an app that allows you to manage your work from the proceeding to the completing stages of a project. A project management tool like Craft.io can help with feedback collection to get valuable feedback from users.
• Look for an app that is accessible on multiple devices and has a desktop version for mac or a simplified version for mobile devices. A web clipper is a very useful feature that allows you to capture content from the web and add it to your notes.
• The app should have robust organization features that allow you to create multiple notebooks and manage different categories of information. You should also be able to import and export to google docs or other platforms.
• A paid subscription often includes more advanced features, like more cloud storage or higher limits on monthly uploads.
• A good app for multiple users should allow for export options to ensure you can get your data if you need to switch to other apps.
• A different version of onenote may have custom templates that make it easier to start taking notes.

Final Verdict (Our Pick)

So, which app wins? After our tests, we picked OneNote for most people.

It’s free. It works on all your devices.

Craft is great if you love Apple. It has a super clean look.

But OneNote is everywhere.

It offers strong features.

And it costs nothing. It handles all kinds of notes.

From quick thoughts to big projects. We used both a lot.

Our goal is to help you decide. OneNote simply gives more value.

It is easier for everyone to use.

More of Craft

• Craft vs Notion: Craft is known for making beautiful documents with easy linking. Notion is a more all-in-one workspace for notes, projects, and databases.
• Craft vs Anytype: Craft focuses on creating structured documents with nice design. Anytype prioritizes keeping your info private and connecting ideas in a network.
• Craft vs Coda: Craft makes visually appealing documents with linking. Coda lets you build documents that act like apps with tables and interactive elements.
• Craft vs XTiles: Craft focuses on creating well-structured and linked documents. XTiles helps you organize notes and tasks while keeping them private.
• Craft vs ClickUp: Craft is good for making clear documents that you can link. ClickUp is mainly for managing projects, but it also has document features you can connect to tasks.
• Craft vs Capacities: Craft focuses on creating and linking documents with a nice design. Capacities helps you connect ideas through objects and see relationships.
• Craft vs AFFiNE pro: Craft aims for well-structured and linked documents. AFFiNE pro tries to combine the features of Notion and Obsidian for both document creation and knowledge linking.
• Craft vs Obsidian: Craft focuses on creating polished documents with easy linking. Obsidian uses plain text files to build a network of linked thoughts that you can customize a lot.

More of Microsoft OneNote

• Microsoft OneNote vs Sembly: Sembly excels at AI-powered meeting transcription and summarization.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Notion: Notion AI provides an all-in-one workspace with integrated AI.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Fireflies AI: Fireflies AI focuses on transcribing, summarizing, and analyzing meeting notes.
• Microsoft OneNote vs ClickUp: ClickUp is an all-in-one platform for project management and tasks.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Capacities: Capacities uses an object-based system to connect all your knowledge.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Taskade: Taskade is a collaborative workspace for visual notes and tasks.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Notejoy: Notejoy is built for fast, real-time team collaboration on notes.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Notta: Notta specializes in real-time voice-to-text transcription and translation.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Craft: Craft offers a visually elegant editor with powerful document linking.
• Microsoft OneNote vs MeetGeek: MeetGeek is an AI assistant for managing and summarizing meetings.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Mem AI: Mem AI automatically organizes your notes using AI-driven connections.
• Microsoft OneNote vs Evernote: Evernote is known for its powerful web clipping and search features.

Frequently Asked Questions