⚡ Quick Verdict:
- Pricing: Craft runs Free at $0 per month, Personal at $4.79 per month, and Friends & Family at $8.99 per month. Microsoft lists OneNote as contact for the exact pricing.
- Best for: Craft suits writers who want beautiful documents and daily notes. OneNote suits students and teams already inside Microsoft Office.
- Key difference: Craft ships backlinks, templates and presentation mode. OneNote ships OCR technology, a web clipper and free-form canvas pages.
- Our pick: Craft, rated 4.3 against 4.2, for its cleaner user interface and cheap paid plan.
Two note taking apps. Two very different ideas about what a note should look like.
Craft treats every page like a small published document.
OneNote treats every page like an infinite sheet of paper.
That single choice shapes how you create notes in each one.
It also shapes which team, which company and which workflow each app fits.
Overview
This Craft vs Microsoft OneNote comparison covers pricing, core features and ease of use.
Our writers use both apps for meeting notes and drafting.
Those observations sit in the “What Our Team Noticed” sections below.
Everything else comes from published documentation, pricing pages and Microsoft support articles.
By the end you will know which app fits your notes.
What is Craft?
Craft is a note taking app built around beautiful documents.
You write in blocks, then style the page to match your vision.
Every document can be shared as a clean web page.
The app adds daily notes, backlinks and a calendar view.
Most people pick it because writing in it simply feels good.
🏆 Winner: Craft
Craft turns rough notes into documents you are happy to send. The free plan is enough to test the whole writing flow.
Craft Pricing
Here is what Craft costs in 2026. Three tiers, no hidden math.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 per month | Testing the editor and daily notes |
| Personal | $4.79 per month | Solo writers who need unlimited documents |
| Friends & Family | $8.99 per month | Shared notebooks for a small group |
Pricing verified July 2026.
Free trial: The Free plan acts as the trial. No card needed to create an account.
Money-back guarantee: Craft bills monthly, so you can cancel before the next charge.
📌 Note: The Personal plan at $4.79 per month is the cheapest paid plan across both apps in this comparison. Friends & Family at $8.99 per month covers a shared workspace rather than one seat.
⚠️ Warning: Verify the current tier before proceeding to checkout. Craft moves features between Free and Personal from time to time, so the free limits you read about last year may not match today.
Key Benefits of Craft
Here is what makes Craft worth a look:
- Document-first editor: Pages look finished the moment you stop typing. Style, spacing and typography are handled for you.
- Backlinks and connection: Link one page to another and Craft records the reverse link. Your notes build a map instead of a pile of files.
- Daily notes and calendar: Each day gets its own page automatically. Good for tracking progress across a long project.
- Custom templates: Save any page as a starting point. Meeting agendas and briefs stop being retyped.
- Built-in AI assistant: Summarise, rewrite or translate a block without leaving the page.
- Presentation mode: Turn a document into slides with one click. No export, no second app.
- Shareable web links: Publish a page as a public URL and control who can respond with comments.
The home screen keeps every space, folder and recent document in one column.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer used Craft for client briefs and weekly planning over several months. Here is what stood out from that hands-on time:
Craft Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Documents look polished without any formatting work
- Paid plan starts at $4.79 per month
- Backlinks connect related notes automatically
- Presentation mode turns any page into slides
- Fast, quiet user interface on Mac and iOS
❌ Cons
- No free-form canvas for handwritten notes
- Windows and Android versions trail the Mac app
- Smaller template library than older rivals
- Name is easily confused with Craft.io
What is Microsoft OneNote?
Microsoft OneNote is a note taking app developed by Microsoft.
It is built for free-form information gathering and multi-user collaboration.
You can create multiple notebooks, then split them into sections and pages.
Click anywhere on a page and a text box appears.
That canvas holds typed text, drawings, screen clippings and audio commentaries.
It ships free as a stand-alone app on the official website and app stores.
Microsoft OneNote
OneNote gives you an endless canvas and 5GB of cloud storage at no cost. It fits anyone already living inside Microsoft Office.
Microsoft OneNote Pricing
How much does OneNote cost? Our database lists a single entry.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Microsoft OneNote | Contact for the exact pricing | Anyone with a Microsoft account |
Pricing verified July 2026.
Free trial: Not needed. The free version works without a paid subscription.
Money-back guarantee: Handled by Microsoft billing, not by the app itself.
📌 Note: Microsoft offers the app itself at no charge. What you pay for is storage and premium features across other Microsoft apps.
⚠️ Pricing conflict flagged: Our database records OneNote as “contact for the exact pricing”, and that figure is what we use in every table here. Microsoft support pages describe something different: a free version with 5GB of OneDrive cloud storage, plus a Microsoft 365 paid plan that raises this to 1TB. Check the Microsoft 365 page for today’s figure.
Key Benefits of Microsoft OneNote
Here is what keeps OneNote users loyal:
- Truly free: No cap on the number of notes per notebook. Sync across multiple devices carries no size limit or monthly uploads limit.
- OCR technology: Optical character recognition finds text inside images and handwritten notes. Search features reach into scanned pages.
- Web clipper: The browser extension saves a whole page, part of a page, or just the article body.
- Office integration: Works alongside Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint. Data moves between Microsoft Office applications without an export dance.
- Audio and video capture: Record audio straight into a page during a lecture or meeting.
- Real-time co-authoring: Multiple users can edit one notebook at the same time. You choose edit or view-only access when sharing notes.
- Runs everywhere: Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and the web through OneDrive.
The notebook, section and page layout is what most new users see first.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer keeps OneNote open for lecture-style capture and messy first drafts. Here is what stood out during that everyday use:
Microsoft OneNote Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Free version includes 5GB of OneDrive storage
- OCR technology searches images and handwritten notes
- Drawing tools and a true free-form canvas
- Works across Windows, Mac, iOS and Android
❌ Cons
- Steep learning curve for new users
- Limited functionality on mobile devices
- Few export options for moving notes out
- Formatting shifts across different platforms
Feature Comparison
Here is where the two apps split apart. We walk through ten categories that decide most purchases.
| Feature | Craft | Microsoft OneNote |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $0 per month | Contact for the exact pricing |
| Free Plan | ✅ | ✅ |
| Backlinks | ✅ | ❌ |
| Free-form Canvas | ❌ | ✅ |
| OCR Technology | ❌ | ✅ |
| Web Clipper | ❌ | ✅ |
| Presentation Mode | ✅ | ❌ |
| AI Assistant | ✅ | ✅ |
| Record Audio | ❌ | ✅ |
| Best For | Polished documents | Messy capture and study notes |
1. Note Taking and Page Structure
Craft: Every page is a stack of blocks. You drag blocks to reorder, nest them, or fold them away. The structure keeps long documents readable, but you cannot drop a text box wherever you like.
Microsoft OneNote: The hierarchy runs notebooks, then sections, then pages, and sections can be colour-coded. On the page itself there is no grid at all. Click anywhere and start taking notes, which suits lectures and scattered ideas.
2. Templates and Customization Options
Craft: Any document you like can be saved as a reusable start point. Style controls cover fonts, page width, cover images and accent colour, so a template carries your whole look.
Microsoft OneNote: A set of pre-designed templates ships in the box, covering meeting notes and project plans. You can build custom templates too, though the customization options lean toward page furniture rather than typography.
3. Calendar and Daily Notes
Craft: A calendar view sits beside your documents and opens a fresh page for each day. Meetings from your linked calendar appear as entries you can write straight into.
Microsoft OneNote: There is no built-in calendar. You create notes for a meeting by hand, or pull the details in from Outlook. Date-based work needs a section per month and some discipline.
💡 Pro Tip: If your work is driven by dates rather than topics, Craft’s daily page will save you more time than any other feature in this comparison.
4. Backlinks and Organizing Information
Craft: Mention one document inside another and the link records itself in both directions. Over a few months this turns loose notes into a connected web you can walk backwards through.
Microsoft OneNote: No backlinks. You organize information with multiple notebooks, colour-coded sections and custom tags. Tagging is the main way to group related pages, and it works well once you keep the tag list short.
5. Collaboration and Sharing Notes
Craft: Share a document as a public web link or invite people into a space. Comments keep feedback tied to a block. Sharing feels closer to publishing than to a shared drive.
Microsoft OneNote: Co-authoring lets multiple users edit one file at once, and you set edit or view-only access per person. Changes from other OneNote users appear live, which is why study groups and project teams stay on it.
6. AI Assistant and Copilot
Craft: The assistant lives in the page. Highlight a block to summarise, rewrite, translate or extend it. It is aimed at writing rather than at searching your archive.
Microsoft OneNote: Copilot summarises notes and pulls out key points across a notebook. It reaches further than Craft’s assistant, though the strongest behaviour is tied to a Microsoft 365 licence rather than the free tier.
7. Style, Drawing Tools and Handwritten Notes
Craft: Style is where Craft spends its budget. Typography, cards, cover art and colour themes are all adjustable. There is no inking layer, so you cannot handwrite notes with a stylus.
Microsoft OneNote: Drawing tools cover pens, highlighters, shapes and a math assistant that solves equations you write by hand. Optical character recognition then makes that ink searchable, which no rival here matches.
8. Cross-Device Access
Craft: The Mac and iOS apps are the flagship builds. Windows and the Android version work, but they arrive later and feel a step behind the desktop version on Apple hardware.
Microsoft OneNote: You can access OneNote on Windows, Mac, iOS, Android and any browser. Depth varies depending on the device. The Windows version holds the most features, while mobile apps are a simplified version of it.
⚠️ Warning: Neither app has a native Linux build. OneNote’s web version of OneNote runs on Linux through a browser, and Craft’s web app does the same.
9. Presentation Mode and Record Audio
Craft: Presentation mode reads your headings and turns the document into slides. No export to PowerPoint, no second file to keep in sync. Audio capture is not part of the app.
Microsoft OneNote: You can record audio and video directly into a page while you type. Voice transcription turns that recording into searchable text. There is no slide mode, so ideas move to PowerPoint instead.
10. Pricing & Cost
Let us put the plans side by side.
| Plan | Craft | Microsoft OneNote |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 per month | Contact for the exact pricing |
| Personal | $4.79 per month | Contact for the exact pricing |
| Friends & Family | $8.99 per month | Contact for the exact pricing |
Craft: At $4.79 per month the Personal plan is cheap for a polished editor. The $8.99 per month Friends & Family tier covers a shared space, so a household or small team splits one bill.
Microsoft OneNote: Our database records contact for the exact pricing, so we cannot quote a number. What we can say is that the app is free to install, and that any bill you pay buys more storage and premium features across other Microsoft apps.
Different Scenarios
| If You Need… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Tight budget | Microsoft OneNote | Free version needs no paid plan |
| Documents you send to clients | Craft | Pages look published by default |
| Handwritten notes on a tablet | Microsoft OneNote | Inking plus OCR technology |
| Linked personal knowledge base | Craft | Backlinks record both directions |
| Deep Microsoft Office use | Microsoft OneNote | Sits beside Word and Excel |
| Beginner-friendly writing | Craft | Cleaner user interface, fewer menus |
💰 Your Budget
OneNote asks for nothing up front, which is hard to argue with. Craft’s Personal tier at $4.79 per month is the cheapest paid plan here.
🔌 Your Tech Stack
If your company already runs on Microsoft, OneNote needs no new account and no new login. Craft sits better next to Apple hardware, Google Docs and other apps you open in a browser.
📝 Your Writing Style
Craft rewards people who think in sentences and want word processing that looks good. OneNote rewards people who sketch, clip and scribble before any structure exists.
🎓 Your Experience Level
OneNote has a steep learning curve and can overwhelm anyone new to it. Craft hides fewer controls, so the first hour is calmer.
🆓 Free Trials and Demos
Both apps let you start without paying, so test them on the same real project. Give each one a week before completing your decision.
🛟 Support Options
OneNote support runs through Microsoft’s documentation library and community forums, which is a real advantage at enterprise scale. Craft leans on email and a smaller help centre.
🔐 Data Privacy and Security
OneNote stores your files on Microsoft servers, which some people flag as a security and privacy concern. Craft keeps documents in its own cloud, so review both policies before you trust either with sensitive material.
Switching Guide
Already on one of these? Here is what changes if you move.
🔄 Switching from Craft to Microsoft OneNote?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- A free-form canvas plus stylus support for handwritten notes
- OCR technology and a web clipper browser extension
- The ability to record audio inside a page
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Backlinks between documents
- Presentation mode and the daily calendar page
- Publishing a page as a styled public link
📋 How to switch:
- Export your Craft documents as Markdown or PDF files
- Sign in with a Microsoft account and create your notebooks
- Paste each document into a page, then rebuild your tags
🔄 Switching from Microsoft OneNote to Craft?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- Documents that look finished with no formatting work
- Backlinks that map how your notes connect
- Presentation mode and a daily notes calendar
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Inking, drawing tools and the math assistant
- Optical character recognition across images
- Tight links to Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint
📋 How to switch:
- Print or export each OneNote section, since export options are limited
- Create a Craft account and set up one space per notebook
- Rebuild your most-used pages as Craft templates first
What Our Review Didn’t Cover
This comparison focused on solo writers, students and small teams. We did not test large-scale rollouts, admin consoles or single sign-on, so anyone planning an enterprise deployment should verify those details directly. We also could not confirm a numeric price for OneNote, because our database records contact for the exact pricing. If your work depends on stylus input all day, or on a strict data residency practice, your experience may differ from what we describe here.
Final Verdict
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| 💰 Pricing | Microsoft OneNote |
| 🚀 Note Taking | Craft |
| 🔗 Linking and Structure | Craft |
| ✍️ Handwriting and Drawing | Microsoft OneNote |
| 👶 Ease of Use | Craft |
| 🔌 Integrations | Microsoft OneNote |
| 🎨 Output Quality | Craft |
| 🏆 Overall Winner | Craft |
🏆 WINNER: CRAFT
Craft wins 4 out of 7 categories and holds a 4.3 rating against 4.2.
Best for: Client-facing documents, linked personal notes, daily planning
These two apps are not really chasing the same person. Craft is a writing tool that happens to store notes, and its strategy is polish over raw capture.
OneNote is a capture tool that happens to store documents. Its focus is getting a human thought onto a page fast, in whatever form it arrives.
OneNote is excellent if you study, sketch or live inside Microsoft Office. The free version alone beats what most rivals charge for.
If you write things other people read, Craft is the better buy. It costs $4.79 per month and you can manage a whole year of notes for the price of two lunches.
More of Craft Compared
Here is how Craft lands against the rivals people shortlist alongside it:
Craft wins on: Typography that needs no tweaking, native Mac and iOS speed, presentation mode built in
Notion wins on: Relational databases, a far larger template gallery, deeper permission controls for a growing company
Craft wins on: Sharing a page as a styled link, a calendar view out of the box, zero setup before your first note
Obsidian wins on: Plain Markdown files you own on disk, a graph view of every connection, hundreds of community plugins
Craft vs Coda
Craft wins on: Reading comfort on long documents, offline editing on mobile, a lower entry price at $4.79 per month
Coda wins on: Formulas across tables, automation packs that talk to other tools, doc-as-app building for a whole team
Craft vs Capacities
Craft wins on: Finished-looking output, presentation mode, a more familiar folder structure for new users
Capacities wins on: Object-based notes that align by type, a stronger daily journal habit loop, richer tagging practices for research
More of Microsoft OneNote Compared
And here is how OneNote holds up against its own closest rivals:
OneNote offers: Unlimited notes on the free tier, syncing across devices with no paid gate, more free storage
Evernote wins on: A more accurate web clipper, sharper optical character recognition, a more polished paid experience
OneNote wins on: Handwriting and inking, offline reliability on Windows, no cost for personal use
Notion wins on: Structured databases, cleaner shared wikis, a modern block editor that beginners pick up faster
Microsoft OneNote vs Taskade
OneNote wins on: Free-form page canvas, audio capture during lectures, search inside handwritten notes
Taskade wins on: Task lists that track progress, multiple project views, real-time chat next to the work
Microsoft OneNote vs Notejoy
OneNote wins on: Depth of formatting, tight ties to Microsoft apps, an OCR engine no small rival matches
Notejoy wins on: Faster team search, lighter onboarding, a simpler read on who changed what
Frequently Asked Questions
Is OneNote actually free?
Yes. The app installs at no cost and includes 5GB of OneDrive storage. A Microsoft 365 subscription raises that to 1TB and unlocks extras in other Microsoft apps.
Can you use Craft for free?
Yes. The Free tier costs $0 per month and covers the editor, daily notes and sharing. Paid tiers run $4.79 and $8.99 per month.
Why is Craft so expensive?
It is not, relative to rivals. At $4.79 per month the Personal tier undercuts most note apps. The cost buys design work you would otherwise do yourself.
What are the disadvantages of Microsoft OneNote?
A steep learning curve, thin mobile functionality, few export options, and formatting that shifts between devices. Notes also sit on Microsoft servers, which some people treat as a privacy concern.
Which one is better, Evernote or OneNote?
OneNote suits anyone who wants a genuinely free app with unlimited notes. Evernote suits people happy to pay for sharper clipping and search. Both need a paid upgrade for extra storage.
Pick with confidence: test both on one real project, then keep whichever one you open without thinking.
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