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Zoho Notebook is a note-taking application offered by Zoho Corp, a company specializing in low-cost, cloud-based software. It aims to transform your productivity and creativity by providing a smart notes assistant.

Here’s a comprehensive review of Zoho Notebook, covering its features, pricing, and AI alternatives:

Zoho Notebook Features

Zoho Notebook offers a wide array of features designed to enhance note-taking, writing, and organization, with a significant recent emphasis on Artificial Intelligence (AI) capabilities.

Core Note-Taking and Organization:

  • You can create notes, referred to as “Cards,” which include various types such as Text, Checklist, Audio, Photo, Sketch, and File Cards.
  • It supports rich text formatting, allowing you to stylize your text and add background colors, tags, and reminders with date and time.
  • Notes can be organized into groups within a notebook, and you can also create nested collections for a hierarchical structure.
  • All your notes are instantly synced across devices and to the cloud. Notes are encrypted in transit and at rest, meaning only you can view and access them unless permission is granted. Individual notes can also be password-protected.
  • Zoho Notebook retains note version history, allowing you to revert to previous copies.
  • It includes a document scanning feature in the mobile app, converting physical documents into PDFs.
  • The application has offline access, allowing you to access and edit notes when not connected to the internet, with changes syncing automatically upon reconnection.
  • Features like custom sorting via drag & drop for notes, notebooks, and collections, which syncs across devices, were introduced in April 2025.
  • It supports multi-window on Mac, allowing multiple Notebook windows or opening a note card in a separate window. A multipane view also allows working on multiple notes simultaneously with tabs.

AI-Powered Capabilities (Notebook AI):

  • Notebook AI, introduced in February 2025 as a major release, is described as a powerful AI writing assistant crafted to transform productivity and spark creativity. It understands your needs, generates content, and provides support based on commands.
  • Content Generation and Enhancement: It can help draft notes, build checklists, design templates, condense and summarize content, and refine prose tailored to your tone. It also suggests relevant tags for organization.
  • Grammar Insights: Notebook AI provides advanced grammar insights, correcting errors, enhancing clarity, making content crisper, and checking tone, redundant words, non-inclusive sentences, and clichés. It also includes a Plagiarism Checker to analyze content originality.
  • Transcription and Translation: It can effortlessly convert audio recordings into accurate transcripts, turning spoken words into written text from audio notes or video clips. It also functions as a translation app, allowing content to speak any language. Mac users can auto-record and transcribe meetings in real-time.
  • Smart Recognition (Mobile): It features shape recognition, automatically identifying and perfecting shapes in visual notes. It also supports handwriting recognition.
  • Hands-free Lookup/Smarter Search: You can ask Notebook AI to search for specific notes across Notebook and filter notes in Noteboards using voice commands or smart filters. This includes finding meeting transcripts and video summaries.
  • AI Mind Maps: Notebook AI can create clean AI mind maps from long text, helping to visualize key ideas and structure thoughts, useful for revision, planning, or brainstorming.

Integration and Compatibility:

  • Zoho Notebook integrates with a multitude of apps to boost productivity. Key integrations include:
    • Samsung Devices (large-screen and Wear OS).
    • IFTTT for automating tasks like saving tweets or RSS feed links.
    • Google Workspace for saving emails, backing up File Cards, and creating calendar events.
    • Slack and Microsoft Teams for sharing thoughts, saving chats, and taking meeting notes.
    • Google Drive for backing up files.
    • Zapier and Integrately for connecting with over 1,000 other apps and automating workflows.
    • Other Zoho apps like Zoho Mail, Zoho Meeting, Zoho Connect, Zoho Cliq, Zoho Projects, Zoho Flow, and Zoho Writer.
    • Doc Scanner for saving scanned documents as File Cards.
  • It is available on all major platforms: Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux, and the web. The web clipper is available for Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and Safari browsers.

Pricing

Zoho Notebook offers different plans to cater to various user needs, from individual to business use:

  • Notebook Essential: A free plan that includes device sync, 2GB/user cloud storage (or 5GB for the entire organization for business), 100MB max file upload, document scanning, tags, reminders, smart cards, Face ID/Touch ID security, read-only sharing, and access to 10 notecard versions. Support is available through community forums and email. PCMag noted that Zoho Notebook is completely free to use with no in-app purchases or tiers of service, except for uploaded file storage limits.
  • Notebook Pro: Costs USD$4.99/month or USD$49.99/year. It includes all Essential features plus 100GB of cloud storage, 1GB max file upload, business card and table scanning, recurring reminders, Noteboards (Kanban-style), advanced search (OCR and object detection), premium covers and fonts, email-to-notecard conversion, share and edit access for notes/notebooks, access to 100 notecard versions, and priority support via call and chat. A trial for the Pro plan is available upon request.
  • Notebook for Business: This plan is tailored for teams and includes all Pro features plus 1TB cloud storage for up to 10 users (+100GB for each additional user), Teams (collaborative workspace), Whiteboards (collaborative canvas), integration with Zoho and third-party apps, audit log, advanced security/compliance, admin console for roles/permissions, access to 1000 notecard versions, a dedicated Customer Success Manager, and Notebook AI. The AI features in the Business plan include 100 minutes/user/month for AI Transcription, AI Mind Maps, and approximately 60 uses/month for AI Writing Assistant (which may vary based on usage). A free trial for the Business plan is available.
  • Zoho Notebook also offers a free plan for students using their educational institution email ID.
  • The Notebook for Business plan is included in the Zoho One bundle.

User Experience, Pros & Cons

Pros:

  • Free and widely available: Zoho Notebook is free to use and accessible on all major platforms, including Android, iOS, macOS, Windows, Linux, and the web.
  • Good range of features: It offers a comprehensive set of features for note-taking, organizing, and collaboration.
  • Password protection: Users can password-protect individual notes for enhanced privacy.
  • Evernote import tool: It provides a tool to import content from Evernote, which is a significant advantage for users migrating from other platforms. Some users have found the import process to be smooth via the mobile app, although it might change note organization.
  • Easy to use for those new to note-taking apps.
  • Cloud sync and encryption: Notes are encrypted in transit and at rest, ensuring security.
  • Regular updates: Zoho frequently releases new features and enhancements, as shown in their “What’s New” timeline.

Cons and Criticisms:

  • Graphical User Interface (GUI) and Organization: Some users find the GUI not suitable for efficiency, especially for business users, stating that it takes too many clicks for simple tasks and is not intuitive. The constant display of “booklet and cards” limits how much information can be seen at once, making it unwieldy for users with many notebooks (e.g., over 70). Unlike Evernote, it lacks a true list view for notebooks and notes in desktop or web apps. The colorful, distracting thumbnails were a “no-go” for one user, who found even the smaller size to take up too much space and cause excessive scrolling.
  • Search Functionality: The search feature has been criticized for not working effectively, often failing to find specific notes or returning many irrelevant results, making users waste time sifting through lists.
  • Bugs and Technical Issues: Users have reported numerous persistent bugs, including duplicate notes, notes being placed in default notebooks regardless of selection, hanging issues with large notes, and scrollbar problems. One user claimed Zoho’s coders were “terrible” and that reported bugs were often not fixed or would reappear.
  • Customer Service: A significant point of contention for one user was the lack of a centralized customer service department, poor response times (sometimes a month), and perceived language barriers. This user felt ignored and that direct complaints to departments were ineffective. They also noted issues with payment processing during sales, where the company failed to follow up.
  • Lack of OCR and Email Forwarding: The free version does not include Optical Character Recognition (OCR) for searching text within images or email forwarding capabilities, which are available in some competitors.
  • Web Clipper: While present, the web clipper has been described as less intuitive than competitors, with unclear options for focused area clipping.
  • Conflicting User Experiences: While some users report significant frustrations and unaddressed bugs, others have had a “very opposite experience,” finding Zoho Notebook excellent and reporting that most bugs they reported were fixed. One user who had been with Evernote since 2014 found Zoho Notebook much worse than Evernote’s legacy version.

AI Alternatives to Zoho Notebook

When considering alternatives to Zoho Notebook, especially those with AI capabilities, several prominent note-taking applications come to mind:

  • Notion: This is often cited as the best overall alternative. Notion is a unified workspace for teams, allowing creation of docs, notes, task management, and work organization in one place. Notion AI is integrated, enabling users to augment capabilities directly within notes and docs without needing a separate AI tool. Reviewers generally find Notion more expensive but easier to do business with compared to Zoho Notebook.
  • Evernote: Once a dominant player, Evernote has also integrated AI features. It focuses on capturing everything and providing access anywhere with fast search. While reviewers find it more expensive than Zoho Notebook, they also describe it as easier to do business with and easier to set up. However, one user noted that Evernote’s free plan has become very limited, and it was acquired by an “evil AI company” in Italy.
  • Microsoft OneNote: A free note-taking solution from Microsoft, often an Editors’ Choice winner. It emphasizes note capturing, file storage, and sharing. It is generally considered more expensive (if you count Microsoft 365, which provides 1TB storage), easier to do business with, and easier to set up than Zoho Notebook. OneNote includes OCR for search.
  • Bear: A note-taking tool primarily for Mac and iOS. Reviewers found it more usable and easier to set up than Zoho Notebook.
  • Notability: Offers note-taking and sketching tools. Reviewers reported it as more expensive but better at support and meeting requirements compared to Zoho Notebook.
  • Simplenote: A note-taking application with markdown support.
  • Google Workspace: A suite of productivity and collaboration tools including Docs, Drive, Meet, Chat, and Calendars. Reviewers found it easier to do business with, more expensive, and easier to set up than Zoho Notebook. Google Keep, a part of Google Workspace, is also a quick note-jotting app that includes OCR for search.
  • Goodnotes: Focuses on beautiful, searchable handwritten notes and organizing documents. Reviewers found it more expensive, easier to do business with, and easier to admin than Zoho Notebook.
  • Coda: Described as a new doc that grows with ideas, used for tasks like launching products or studying. Reviewers found it more expensive, easier to do business with, and better at support.
  • ClickUp: A comprehensive app designed to replace multiple tools, offering docs, reminders, goals, calendars, and an inbox. It is highly customizable. Reviewers found it more expensive, easier to do business with, and better at support.

Zoho Notebook’s recent emphasis on AI, particularly with Notebook AI, positions it as a competitive option in the evolving landscape of smart note-taking. However, user experiences regarding core functionality and customer service can vary.

Analogy: Think of Zoho Notebook as a Swiss Army knife that has recently acquired an impressive new “smart blade” (Notebook AI). It aims to offer many tools in one compact package, from cutting (note-taking) to opening cans (summarizing) and even translating. For many, it’s a handy, affordable, and versatile companion, especially with its new AI capabilities making tasks smoother. However, some users might find that certain older blades (like the search or scrollbar) are a bit rusty or stiff, and getting them sharpened (customer service) can be a frustrating process, leading them to look for other specialized toolsets or more polished multi-tools on the market.