Microsoft Lists vs. OneNote

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Microsoft Lists
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Lists is an information tracking app in Microsoft 365 that enables users to work with anyone, anywhere. Users can configure lists to better organize events, issues, and assets.N/A
OneNote
Score 8.3 out of 10
N/A
Microsoft's OneNote is a digital note-taking app, supporting photos, annotating, web page clipping, emailing, and synchronizing notes across devices.N/A
Pricing
Microsoft ListsOneNote
Editions & Modules
No answers on this topic
Microsoft OneNote
Free
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
Microsoft ListsOneNote
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
NoYes
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
Microsoft ListsOneNote
Top Pros

No answers on this topic

Top Cons

No answers on this topic

Best Alternatives
Microsoft ListsOneNote
Small Businesses
7shifts
7shifts
Score 9.0 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Medium-sized Companies
Todoist
Todoist
Score 9.1 out of 10

No answers on this topic

Enterprises
Notion
Notion
Score 8.8 out of 10

No answers on this topic

All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
Microsoft ListsOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
9.0
(1 ratings)
8.0
(70 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(13 ratings)
Usability
-
(0 ratings)
9.5
(10 ratings)
Availability
-
(0 ratings)
10.0
(2 ratings)
Performance
-
(0 ratings)
8.8
(3 ratings)
Support Rating
-
(0 ratings)
8.7
(10 ratings)
User Testimonials
Microsoft ListsOneNote
Likelihood to Recommend
Microsoft
It's great for anything that needs to hold data and process it into automation. It's a bit limiting if you like multi-line text fields or rich text fields. They lose a bit of their capability to filter.
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Microsoft
In my opinion OneNote is a must for anyone who does business. It’s versatile, stable and sustainable. It can keep private information private - like passwords. It can be used for collaborative work - like standard operating procedures. It is fairly easy to use and far superior to pen and paper. When used for meeting notes, it can be flagged with icons that are searchable - like ideas or important items. You can even create Outlook tasks on the fly
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Pros
Microsoft
  • great for capturing loads of data
  • great for manipulating and viewing the data many ways
  • strong integration with other M365 products and Power Automate
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Microsoft
  • Because of its flexibility and ability to hold different types of content (text, images, tables), it is a great tool for collecting content from different resources and organizing it in one place.
  • Technical support analysts are using sections for their support case analysis; they paste pieces of logs, screen-shots, document their steps in troubleshooting etc., all in one section, to get the full picture yet stay organized.
  • The logic of content structure; Notebook>Section>Page>Paragraph, allows you to manage and collect all needed information by the areas of the user's responsibility. For example; each of my projects has its own section, in which each page is a task.
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Cons
Microsoft
  • It's definitely getting better but for the average user, there is still a fairly big learning curve if you want to do anything beyond the basics
  • It would be cool to get Microsoft List addons that could further enhance the capabilities within Lists itself
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Microsoft
  • The table editing tools are too simplistic and lack the features found in other Office products.
  • Some content loses its rich text formatting when being pasted into OneNote. A workaround is to paste the content first into Outlook or Word and then copy/pasting that into OneNote.
  • Microsoft is moving away from a local install of OneNote, which means notebooks have to be in the cloud in Office 2019. This will actually reduce the usefulness of OneNote in some environments and opens the door to competitor products.
  • Update: Microsoft has now announced that it will continue to support OneNote 2016 through 2023. https://techcommunity.microsoft.com/t5/Office-365-Blog/Your-OneNote/ba-p/954922
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Likelihood to Renew
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
As this is not a compulsory tool in our organization, I would say all depends on the decision makers, however since this is a part of MS Office, I am sure we will have it for as long as we will possibly need it. However, I would not be so sure, if it was a separate product
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Usability
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
I find OneNote incredibly usable. I'm fairly middle of the road when it comes to tech savvy-ness. The platform was very easy to learn and explore. I like that OneNote is no clunky and offers a clean interface. This is important when it comes to deciding if a tool is usable for multiple people.
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Performance
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Overall, I rate OneNote's performance highly. In general, notebooks, sections and pages load quickly. OneNote integrates with other apps and info ca easily be shared/copied to and from the tool to other tools. Moreover, Notebooks tend to sync quickly meaning shared notebooks are up to date almost immediately provided there are no syncing issues.
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Support Rating
Microsoft
No answers on this topic
Microsoft
Since it is part of Microsoft Office and used across the globe there are a lot of support options available. It's quickest to just do a google search which will have plenty of articles to help you since there are so many OneNote users but as an Office customer you also have access to Microsoft support and I have had good experiences with their support (probably because I'm with a large company who is a large customer to them).
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Alternatives Considered
Microsoft
They are all different but can be used for the same things. They all have different benefits, and I use them except Airtable. Trello has the best automation capabilities natively built into the product of any product I've ever used. (I've personally built over 1,000 automations or more for clients on Trello.) ClickUp has the best flexibility to view data in very different ways and from different organisation levels (i.e. High level data through to detailed specific data across multiple departments or projetcs. Microsoft Lists is an excellent choice if you work in M365 already and you want a deeply integrated way to hold data and use it within M365
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Microsoft
I tried using Evernote and it is an equally usable tool, however, I prefer the interface and capabilities of OneNote. OneNote seems much easier to use and understand. I think that may primarily be because OneNote is a Microsoft application and I am very used to using Microsoft applications such as Word, Excel, etc. I also use OneNote to keep my grocery list. It does as good of a job as the grocery list applications out there, only I like the flexibility I have with OneNote and how I specifically do my shopping.
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Return on Investment
Microsoft
  • Massively positive, we have build a business that can scale with ease
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Microsoft
  • OneNote has become our organizational standard method of taking electronic notes (though some still prefer pen and paper.) It has been a zero cost outlay due to its freely available nature.
  • Its integration with other Microsoft Office products makes it easy to share notes and content between products, allowing for easy collaboration where needed.
  • OneNote's integration with OneDrive ensures that individual's notes are always safe and secure, taking away the tedious responsibility of backup from the user, and makes it happen seamlessly in the background.
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ScreenShots