# Goodnotes vs HQ

Goodnotes records 3,227,341 monthly visits with +10.8% month-over-month growth and Freemium, Free Trial pricing. HQ records 12,775 monthly visits with -1.1% growth and Freemium, Contact for Pricing pricing.

| Metric | [Goodnotes](https://openaitools.app/tool/goodnotes) | [HQ](https://openaitools.app/tool/hq) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- |
| Website URL | https://goodnotes.com | https://hqforwork.com |
| Categories | AI Note Taker, AI Spell Check, AI Writing Assistants | AI Knowledge Base, AI Knowledge Management, AI Workflow, AI Agent |
| Pricing Model | Freemium, Free Trial | Freemium, Contact for Pricing |
| Monthly Visits | 3,227,341 | 12,775 |
| MoM Growth Rate | +10.8% | -1.1% |
| Primary Market | United States | United States |
| Direct Visits | 1,638,916 | 6,569 |
| Review Score | 4.4 | 4.3 |
| Saved Count | 2 | 0 |
| Supported Platforms | Website | Website |

## Goodnotes

Goodnotes is a digital note-taking app designed around the feel of writing on paper, then extended with everything a paper notebook cannot do. The core notebook experience uses a low-latency ink engine so handwriting feels natural on a tablet with a stylus. You can rest your hand on the screen, cross out to erase, and convert handwritten text into typed characters when you need something searchable or exportable.

Around that core sits a flexible document workspace. The app handles PDF annotation, typed documents, infinite whiteboards, imported images, and recorded audio in the same environment, so a meeting, lecture, or project space can mix formats without switching tools. Notes and documents sync across iPad, iPhone, Android, Windows, and the web, letting you start a page on a tablet and finish it at a desk.

Goodnotes also layers in AI and collaboration. AI-powered search looks across typed text, handwriting, and sketches at once, and can turn a page of notes into a mind map, a summary, or a project plan with action items. Real-time collaboration, shared notebooks, and education-focused deployments make it a practical fit for students, teachers, and knowledge-heavy teams in fields like architecture, engineering, legal, and consulting.

**Pricing & Plans:** Freemium with a free tier and paid subscription plans, plus separate offerings for education and business. A free trial is available; exact regional prices are listed on the official pricing page.

- **Natural handwriting engine:** Low-latency ink with palm rejection, cross-out to erase, and handwriting-to-text conversion keeps writing close to pen on paper.
- **PDF annotation and markup:** Import contracts, papers, or textbooks and mark them up by hand, with searchable annotations and clean exports.
- **AI search and transformation:** Search across typed text, handwriting, and sketches, and turn notes into summaries, mind maps, or structured plans.
- **Real-time collaboration:** Work together in shared notebooks, documents, and whiteboards simultaneously, without version conflicts or file ping-pong.
- **Cross-device sync:** Continue the same notebook on tablet, phone, desktop, or web so notes follow you between work and study settings.

**Strengths:** Best-in-class handwriting feel makes the transition from paper notebooks easy; Combines notebooks, PDFs, whiteboards, and audio in a single app; AI search reads handwriting and sketches, not just typed text; Broad device support with reliable cross-platform syncing

**Limitations:** The best features sit behind the paid subscription or one-time purchase; Advanced AI and collaboration features require an account and internet connection; Heavy notebooks with large PDFs can be slow on older devices

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/goodnotes.md)

## HQ

HQ is built on a simple observation: when everyone uses AI individually, the gains stay individual. One person finds a prompt that works, it lives in their chat history, and the rest of the team starts from zero the next day. HQ is the shared layer underneath — a company brain that holds knowledge, skills, and workflows so that AI gets sharper the more the team uses it, and each person's breakthrough becomes everyone's baseline.

The mechanics are file-based and command-driven. Your active working directory in Claude Code, Codex, or Cursor points at the shared HQ context, and ChatGPT or Claude chat connects through MCP. Any prompt or workflow can be saved as a reusable slash command, and /hq-sync pushes it to the team. Knowledge — playbooks, brand guidelines, onboarding docs, competitive research — accumulates alongside them, so new projects inherit what the company already knows instead of onboarding from scratch.

Around that core, HQ adds the pieces teams usually stitch together themselves. HQ Bots bring persistent AI teammates into Slack and email that work from your skills and knowledge. HQ Deploy turns internal dashboards and tools into live links in a single command, with public, password-protected, or company-only access. A secrets manager stores API keys and credentials and injects them at runtime so they are never pasted around. HQ Cloud handles sync and team management, and the core is open source. Teams can start free with $10 of usage included monthly, and because the context layer is separate from the models, swapping AI vendors does not reset your setup.

**Pricing & Plans:** Freemium: start free with $10 of usage included every month and an open-source core. Team and cloud capabilities are paid, with details on the HQ pricing page and enterprise options available on request.

- **Reusable skills and slash commands:** Turn any prompt or workflow into a slash command and sync it to the whole team, so a win one person had becomes an action anyone can run.
- **Knowledge that compounds:** Decisions, docs, playbooks, and brand guidelines accumulate in HQ as your team works, so every new chat and every bot starts already informed.
- **Bots in Slack and email:** Deploy persistent AI teammates into Slack and email that use your team's skills and knowledge, acting with full context rather than from zero.
- **App deployment with one command:** Build dashboards, tools, and apps on shared context and ship a live link in one command, public, password-protected, or company-only.
- **Secrets management and MCP access:** API keys and logins are stored once and injected at runtime, and an MCP server connects company memory to ChatGPT and Claude chat.

**Strengths:** One shared context layer instead of per-person prompt history; Works across Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, ChatGPT, Claude, and Grok; Skills and knowledge compound, so onboarding new teammates gets faster; Secrets are injected at runtime rather than pasted between people

**Limitations:** Concepts like skills, sync, and deploy have a learning curve for non-technical teams; The most valuable features assume you already use a coding assistant such as Claude Code or Cursor; Deploying bots and apps requires someone comfortable with secrets and integrations; Cloud sync and team features require buy-in from the whole company to pay off

[Profile (Markdown)](https://openaitools.app/tool/hq.md)

## Frequently Asked Questions

### How do Goodnotes and HQ compare in monthly traffic?

Goodnotes has 3,227,341 monthly visits, while HQ has 12,775. Traffic estimates describe audience size, not product quality.

### How do their growth rates compare?

Goodnotes has a month-over-month growth rate of +10.8%; HQ has -1.1%.

### How does pricing compare?

Goodnotes: Freemium, Free Trial. Freemium with a free tier and paid subscription plans, plus separate offerings for education and business. A free trial is available; exact regional prices are listed on the official pricing page. HQ: Freemium, Contact for Pricing. Freemium: start free with $10 of usage included every month and an open-source core. Team and cloud capabilities are paid, with details on the HQ pricing page and enterprise options available on request.

## Alternatives

| # | Tool Name | Monthly Visits | MoM Growth Rate | Pricing Model | Summary | Profile (Markdown) |
| :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- | :--- |
| 1 | [Notion](https://openaitools.app/tool/t) | 173,441,670 | +0.1% | Freemium | The AI workspace where teams and agents get work done together | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/t.md) |
| 2 | [Knowt](https://openaitools.app/tool/knowt-com) | 4,183,953 | +5.4% | Free | Excels at automatically generating flashcards and practice quizzes from study notes, but lacks freehand drawing features. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/knowt-com.md) |
| 3 | [StudyFetch](https://openaitools.app/tool/study-fetch) | 1,750,520 | +1.7% | Freemium | Turns course materials into interactive AI study tools, but focuses less on handwritten digital notebooks. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/study-fetch.md) |
| 4 | [LightPDF](https://openaitools.app/tool/lightpdf-com) | 1,742,568 | -15.3% | Freemium | Stronger online PDF editing and AI chat capabilities, but lacks tablet-optimized handwritten note-taking workflows. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/lightpdf-com.md) |
| 5 | [Studley AI](https://openaitools.app/tool/studley-ai) | 1,031,545 | -19.5% | Freemium | Converts notes and PDFs into quizzes and flashcards, but lacks stylus-based handwriting and sketching tools. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/studley-ai.md) |
| 6 | [Craft](https://openaitools.app/tool/craft-do) | 703,417 | +8.9% | Freemium | Provides gorgeous structured block-based document editing, but is built for typed text rather than handwritten notes. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/craft-do.md) |
| 7 | [Dust](https://openaitools.app/tool/dust) | 547,217 | +1.8% | Contact for Pricing | Multiplayer AI where people and agents work side by side | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/dust.md) |
| 8 | [Capacities](https://openaitools.app/tool/capacities) | 339,396 | +5.7% | Freemium, Paid | Organizes notes into interconnected typed objects rather than traditional notebooks, but lacks handwritten ink support. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/capacities.md) |
| 9 | [Tines](https://openaitools.app/tool/tines) | 273,260 | +24.4% | Freemium, Contact for Pricing | A secure environment where teams build, deploy and govern AI agents, apps and automations | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/tines.md) |
| 10 | [Noteey](https://openaitools.app/tool/noteey) | 230,694 | -1.6% | Freemium | Uses an infinite visual canvas for note organization, but lacks Goodnotes' paper templates and PDF annotation polish. | [.md](https://openaitools.app/tool/noteey.md) |

---
Source: https://openaitools.app/compare/goodnotes-vs-hq

More Markdown: [Categories](https://openaitools.app/categories.md) · [Traffic rankings](https://openaitools.app/rankings.md) · [llms.txt](https://openaitools.app/llms.txt)