Sticky Notes has always been there in Windows but now in Windows 10 & Windows 11 the Sticky Notes app is not pre-installed and people are desperately looking for a better alternative to the Sticky Notes app. The best Sticky Notes apps are curated after considering their ease of use, categorization and organization skills, size and ability to set reminders and mark tasks. Let’s see the 10 best Sticky Notes alternatives for Windows in this blog post.
Stickies
Stickies is a freeware note-taking software for Windows. It is available and supported for almost all versions of Windows. The app is just 2.7MB to install and has a clean and decent look and feel. For those of you who love customizing things, Stickies supports different skins! You can download or create a skin for customizing the look and feel of the app.
Notable features of the Stickies app include:
- Free to use.
- Heavily customizable – 255 different skins to choose from.
- Ability to add sticky notes to a specific app so sticky is visible only when that app is open.
- Notes Keep Stuck to the desktop even after reboot.
- Makes no change in Windows registry entries.
- Ability to set reminders.
- Compatibility with Windows 7/10/11
- The app is available in 16 languages, including English, Chinese (Simplified & Traditional), Czech, Dutch, French, Galician, French, German, Hungarian, Italian, Japanese, Portuguese, Russian, Serbian, Slovenian & Spanish.
Notezilla
NoteZilla is another freeware sticky notes app for Windows which offers an unparalleled sticky notes experience. The app supports synchronisation among various devices. You can easily sync and manage all your desktop sticky notes straight from your Android or iPhone device.
Notezilla allows you to stick notes to different file types such as documents, websites and folders. It also supports setting up reminders and alarms. The app has a centralised list of all your notes and it allows tagging in notes which helps you keep your sticky notes organised.
Notezilla also supports features like spell check, note synchronisation, and sending and receiving stickies to other PCs in the network. The app looks elegant out of the box and supports customization through various skins.
PNotes
PNotes is an open-source note-taking app for Windows. PNotes is a great app if you want to clear the clutter on your desk at the workplace. You can easily customize the look, feel and typography of your sticky notes in the PNotes settings. It also supports inserting images, tables, and emojis. You can set reminders and mark completed tasks. The app is available in 40 different languages.
One of the coolest features of PNotes is that it lets you categorise your notes as per tags. For instance, you may tag household chores with a #household tag or work-related sticky notes with #work tags. This makes it very easy to find things when you need them.
PNotes is available to download in two different flavours:
- PNotes – The older one.
- PNotes.NET – The newer and improved one. (Recommended)
We recommend the second one because it is a major upgrade over the previous one. Unlike any other note-taking app, the PNotes app supports various plugins and themes which can help you enhance the functionality or customize the look and feel of the app. Plugins and Themes are available to download on the official website of PNotes.
Microsoft Sticky Notes
Microsoft Sticky Notes is available to download on Windows 10 & Windows 11. The official app from Microsoft can be downloaded from the Microsoft Store itself. The app is very clean, simple and minimalistic in design. The app also supports dark theme and because it is a product by Microsoft, it seamlessly syncs with the UI of the Windows operating system.
One of the best features of Microsoft Sticky Notes is the support for pen and ink. You can write your notes if you have compatible hardware. Unlike any other desktop-based sticky notes app Microsoft Sticky Notes syncs your Sticky Notes across devices and apps such as OneNote Mobile, Microsoft Launcher for Android and Outlook for Desktop etc. The app is available in many different languages.
Tomboy NG
The original Tomboy note-taking app from the Windows 7 era is no longer supported on all PCs as it requires a specific version of #GTK dependencies. Instead, you should consider Tomboy NG it works on Windows without any dependencies. Tomboy is an open-source note-taking software by GNOME.
Tomboy NG is just 2.8MB to install and offers great functionality as a note-taking app. The app comes in a simple yet clean and minimalistic design as shown in the screenshot below. If you take a lot of notes lately this is the best note-taking app for you! The app lets you search through your notes seamlessly without having to go anywhere else.
This app supports rich text formatting, and auto-linking to web and email addresses. The app also supports syncing your notes to the web and across devices with the help of a free GitHub account. You can backup and restore your sticky notes anytime.
Simple Sticky Notes (Editor’s Choice)
Simple Sticky Notes is simply the best sticky notes app available for Windows devices. I use this app on my PC to plan my blogs. This is a simple, easy-to-use, absolutely free, fast and efficient note-taking software.
Simple Sticky Notes is the best sticky notes app ever built.
The app looks and feels stunning out of the box still if you love customizations there are a few themes available. The app reminds you of the simplicity of Sticky Notes in the Windows 7 era while offering various functionalities such as support for Rich Text Editing, Color Customization and Central Notebook for all Notes. The app is also awarded for its ease of use and simplicity.
NoteFly
Notefly is a free open-source, lightweight, highly customizable, with advanced features note-taking application for Windows. You can customize the look and feel of the notes using various skins in Notefly. This app supports rich text editing and highlighting.
Notefly is a good option for those of you who know to code. It automatically highlights codes such as PHP, HTML and SQL snippets making it easier for you to manage and manipulate code. The app uses just 300KB of storage making it the most lightweight sticky notes software on our list. This app doesn’t even write to the registry it uses its database to record and save your sticky notes. Its functionality can be extended with plugins for instance you can use the Insert Smiley plugin to add support for smilies in your sticky notes.
Notefly is one of the very few apps that supports all the Windows operating systems such as Windows 7/8/8.1/10/11.
StickyPad
StickyPad is an amazing note-taking app which lets you create sticky notes on your desktop. It allows you to write sticky notes on your desktop, set up alarms and reminders about your important tasks or meetings etc.
The app allows you to keep your sticky note floating above any app you are working on. Adding a new note is so simple that you just need to press Windows+N and a new note will be opened. Overall the app looks decent and it has a tray icon at the bottom right of the screen where can manage it.
These were the best sticky note alternatives for Windows in 2025. Do you have any other recommendations to add to this list? If yes, tell us in the comments below and we will update the article after review.
Thanks & Happy Computing.!