TRY OUR FREE APP

Write your book in Reedsy Studio. Try the beloved writing app for free today.

Craft your masterpiece in Reedsy Studio

Plan, write, edit, and format your book in our free app made for authors.

DIRECTORY

Best Writing Apps for iPad

Showing 64 writing apps that match your search.

Ignite your creativity. Coach your brain to think creatively & spark brilliant ideas at work and in life.

Platforms: iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Journal, and Free

Website: https://brainsparker.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Creative card decks

Templates

Creative workouts

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.7 on the App Store

Ginger is more than a grammar checker, spell checker, and punctuation checker. Ginger is an all-in-one writing tool that includes Rephrase to empower you to write your best in ways that traditional online grammar checkers can’t.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone, iPad, Online, PC

Best for: Editing, Proofreading, Book, Essay, Story, Blog, and Free

Website: https://www.gingersoftware.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$6.99 monthly

AI-powered

Grammar and spell checker

Sentence rephraser

Punctuation checker

★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.6 on the App Store

Capture what’s on your mind. Add notes, lists, photos, and audio to Keep.

Platforms: Online, iPhone, iPad, Android

Best for: Note-taking, Story, Book, Blog, Journal, Poetry, and Free

Website: https://www.google.com/keep/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Set reminders

Share easily

Quick search and filter

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.5 on TechRadar

Craft your masterpiece in Reedsy Studio

Plan, write, edit, and format your book in our free app made for authors.

Learn more about Reedsy Studio

In Outline you can create notebooks for your personal needs of widest range: travel or recipe book, any kind of journal or diary, photo album, daily planner, and so on and so forth. Just everything you could imagine!

Platforms: iPhone, iPad, Mac

Best for: Note-taking and Journal

Website: https://outline.app/

Base price:

$9.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Multi-touch gestures

Handwriting functionalities

Hightlight and annotate

★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.2 on the App Store

The best outlining app for your best work. Where brilliant ideas are captured, fleshed out, and realized.

Platforms: Online, Android, iPhone, iPad, Windows, PC

Best for: Outlining, Book, Story, Blog, Essay, and Free

Website: https://dynalist.io/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$7.99 yearly

Tags & cross-linking

Color code anything

Easy export

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.2 on Google Play

Note down, shape, & share your ideas with the world's best loved digital paper. Fall in love with handwriting all over again with Goodnotes’ digital ink.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Book, Story, Journal, and Poetry

Website: https://www.goodnotes.com/

Base price:

$8.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Search your handwriting

Annotate PDFs

Organize with folders and subfolders

Personlize notebooks

★★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.8 on the App Store

Scrivener is the go-to app for writers of all kinds, used every day by best-selling novelists, screenwriters, non-fiction writers, students, academics, lawyers, journalists, translators and more.

Platforms: Mac, Windows, iPhone, iPad, PC

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Editing, Publishing, Book, and Story

Website: https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener/overview

Base price:

$59.99 one-time payment

Premium price:

Flexible corkboard

Structure outliner

Metadata and target setting

Print and export functionalities

★★★★ Performance

★★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on Reedsy

Traditional notes apps are great for writing, but getting things done requires something more. Clover’s Daily Notes introduce a new way of documenting thoughts, keeping track of tasks, and planning work within the context of your daily agenda.

Platforms: PC, Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Note-taking, Journal, and Free

Website: https://cloverapp.com/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$8.00 monthly

Rich text with rich media

Networked notes

Whiteboarding

★★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.6 on the App Store

Super-clean writing space with a lot of configurability that stays out of sight when you don’t need it.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Note-taking, Drafting, Book, Story, Essay, Blog, and Free

Website: https://papereditor.app/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Plain-text writing environment

Syncs with iCloud

Works across Apple devices

★★★★★ Performance

★★ Features

★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.2 on the App Store

Do you have a story to tell? Unlike conventional word processors, Storyist helps you track your plot, characters, and settings, and keeps all of your writing organized and accessible—so you can focus on telling your story.

Platforms: Mac, iPhone, iPad

Best for: Outlining, Drafting, Book, and Story

Website: https://storyist.com/

Base price:

$59.00 one-time payment

Premium price:

Stylesheets for manuscripts

Flexible outliner

Story development tools

★★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★ Value

Also rated 4.0 on PC Magazine

The human brain is non-linear: we jump from idea to idea, all the time. Your second brain should work the same. In Obsidian, making and following connections is frictionless. Tend to your notes like a gardener; at the end of the day, sit back and marvel at your own knowledge graph.

Platforms: Windows, Mac, iPhone, iPad, Android, PC

Best for: Note-taking, Outlining, Journal, Book, Story, Essay, Poetry, Blog, and Free

Website: https://obsidian.md/

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

$25.00 one-time payment

Link pages

Graph view

Customizable with backlinked notes

★★★★★ Performance

★★★★ Features

★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★ Value

Also rated 4.5 on TechRadar

yWriter is a word processor which breaks your novel into chapters and scenes, helping you keep track of your work while leaving your mind free to create. yWriter was designed by an author, not a salesman!

Platforms: Windows, Android, iPhone, iPad, PC

Best for: Drafting, Book, Story, and Free

Website: http://www.spacejock.com/yWriter7.html

Base price:

Free

Premium price:

Track progress

Organize by scenes and chapters

Storyboard view

★★★ Performance

★★★ Features

★★★★★ Accessibility

★★★★★ Value

Also rated 3.5 on PC Magazine

What makes a good writing app?

Put simply, what makes a writing app good for you will depend on the kind of writer that you are. 

  • If you’re an author, you might be interested in a writing app with outlining, planning, and formatting functionalities.
  • If you’re a student, you’re probably in the market for a writing app that blocks out distractions while you’re writing.
  • If you’re a screenwriter, you’ll want a writing app that’s specifically dedicated to writing screenplays.

Or, if you’re none of the above, worry not: that’s why we built this directory of writing apps. Whatever you need, we’ve gathered the outstanding writing apps of 2024 across multiple categories (drafting, editing, note-taking, etc) and platforms (Android, iOS, online browsers, etc) in one place. Feel free to use the filters to make your quest for the perfect writing app even easier!

So what are the best writing apps of 2024?

We can now put an end to the age-old debate of which writing app is best: Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs

The answer, of course, is neither! Hopefully, this directory will point you towards a much better match that actually fulfills your writing needs. We objectively evaluated each writing app based on four metrics.

  • Performance: How seamlessly does the writing app do what it’s purported to do? How good is the user experience, from top to bottom?
  • Features: How many bells and whistles are built into the app to augment its use?
  • Accessibility: Is it widely available on many different operating platforms (e.g. iOS, Windows, mobile, desktop, etc)?
  • Value: Is it worth the cost that it would take to download it?

Here are some general recommendations to give you a headstart.

The best writing app for authors

If you’ve been searching for an all-in-one outlining, writing, formatting, and typesetting tool, look no further than Reedsy Studio. Used by over 50,000 authors every month, it’s publishing’s most trusted companion to take them from a first draft to a professionally exported manuscript.

💰 Price:  Free

🚉 Runs on: Web

The best writing app for note-takers

Evernote is the king of written organization. In addition to its free organizational templates, Evernote also gives you impressive tagging capabilities, an omnipresent Web Clipper, and the ability to share notes with collaborators, so that you’ll never forget anything again.

💰 Price:  Free basic plan, $4.99/month for premium

🚉 Runs on: Mac, iOS, Windows, and Android

The best writing app for screenwriters

Along with standard scriptwriting features, Final Draft enables you to measure character traits using its inclusivity analysis feature, and tweak your “beat board” until you find your perfect arrangement. And when you’re ready to bring in editors, you can all work simultaneously in real time.

💰 Price: Free trial for 30 days, $249.99 license fee

🚉 Runs on: Mac, iOS, and Windows

I’ve found the perfect writing app. What next?

Congratulations! Now the fun part begins: actually writing the project that you’ve got in mind.

For authors, this means that you have a long and exciting road ahead. In addition to a writing app, we recommend that you arm yourself with some writing knowledge before you embark on it: whether it’s an understanding of story structure or careful thought put into your character creation, all of it can help you realize your goal of a novel.

If you don’t know where to start, check out the list of free resources below. Good luck, and happy writing!

Free online materials

Bring your stories to life

Our free writing app lets you set writing goals and track your progress, so you can finally write that book!