Microsoft OneNote vs Trello

OneNote allows you to arrange text freely on the digital paper mimicking the way it would be done with a real pen on real paper.

Can have multiple 'sections/tabs' at the top like in a web browser with many notes within each 'section/tab'. Also, there can be sections within section groups infinitely. The complete hierarchy looks like this: Notebooks > Section Groups ... Section Groups > Sections > Pages > Sub-pages > Sub-pages.

OneNote is designed to allow hierarchical organization of information. This is achieved with grouping into the following categories and UI elements (Notebooks, Sections, and Pages). Both Sections and Pages allow additional groupings that can be expanded / collapsed in list view.

This can be incredibly helpful for quickly taking notes and organizing them for work or personal projects.

For example, you could have a Notebook for "Cooking Recipes", with sections for "breakfast, dinner, desserts", where individual recipes would be page entries (i.e. the "Desserts" section would have pages for brownies, chocolate cheesecake etc).

Adding and resizing rows and columns is easy and flexible. This makes for an easy way to adjust a note as it grows in content size.

You can add a variety of different files into your notes including images, video, audio, and more.

If you don't want to search through all of your notes, you can narrow it down by specifying the page, section, group, or notebook.
You're not limited to just searching through your text either. You can search for text in images, video recordings, and audio (this is off by default).

Which makes it easy to quickly look at the high level of notes, and then drill deep into each point.

You can choose what notebook the notes will save to. E-mail notes to your special Onenote e-mail and it will be accessible across all devices.

OneNote can be used on all touch capable devices via stylus or digitizer pen making for an intuitive and easy way to take notes by hand, which can often be faster or just preferred over typing. It has the best pen input out of any note taking app.

If you have experience with other Microsoft programs such as Microsoft Office, you'll feel right at home with the design of OneNote thanks to the similarity of the menus.

You can fully customize your default font (the color, type of font, and font size). You can override this styles with the same options (and more) in individual notes.

You can take handwritten notes on your mobile device with a stylus or digital pen and then convert the handwriting to text later on your Windows PC.

Has a web clipper extension on Chrome and Edge that can be used for clipping whole articles and images. Web clipping of articles is also available on Chrome mobile through the "Share" option.

Its available Windows Mobile, Windows Store, Android, a Desktop Version, and a Web app. Apple macOS and iOS are also supported.

Integrates well with Outlook, Office, and OneDrive.

You can share your notes by inviting people with an e-mail, or by giving them a direct URL. You have control over what kind of access the user has on your note (read only, edit) and can revoke it at any time.
OneNote will alert you when a chance is made on your shared note.

Unlike most other apps, you can selectively password protect, and fully encrypt, individual documents or entire folders. This is especially important to many people with data stored in the cloud. As of early this year, even the free version supports encryption. Microsoft has also enhanced their internal security methods for storing data on OneDrive (where OneNote performs sync), which makes it more secure than most of their competitors (including Evernote).

You can perform mathematical calculations in OneNote like a calculator.
e.g. 1+2=3,
85/4=21.25,
8!=40,320,
7^2=49

Handwritten mathematical equations can be converted to typed mathematical equations. Moreover, you can ask OneNote to solve the equation too.

You can copy / search text in images added to OneNote.

You can view the history of any page and revert to a previous version.

The badge on Android hovers over on your screen similar to Facebook Messenger's Chat Heads. You can tap it and instantly start jotting down your thoughts without having to flip to the app first.

This is great for taking meeting minutes. You can import all the meeting details, including a checklist of attendees and a link back to the original event in your Outlook calendar. You can tag all the actions coming out of a meeting and you can create linked tasks from them in Outlook. Much quicker and more effective than writing meeting minutes the traditional way.

The ability to quickly file away web clippings is a key part of note taking.

You have quite a few options for themes available with illustrated backgrounds. If you want something a bit more simple while still having personality, there are also several color themes.

There are two primary columns: the board is shown on the left and all the other controls on the right. The main means of interaction is dragging and dropping to-do cards into the various lists.

The board structure is very customizable, and includes a variety of features that help along the way: color-coding, due dates, card images, checklists with a graphics bar that allows following progress easily, and card aging for cards that haven’t been touched in a long time.

Trello has permissions at the board level as well as the ability to assign multiple people to each card. There are a lot of sharing options available and boards can be made visible for the public. It's also possible to subscribe to a card to be notified of its progress. The simplicity of the UI makes collaboration easy because it’s very simple to see the progress of each card and who is responsible for it. It also updates constantly to reflect real-time changes in progress.

The simplicity of the UI makes collaboration easy as it’s very simple to see the progress of each card and who is responsible for it. It also reflect changes on boards in real-time.

Trello calls items used in the workflow “cards.” Cards are double-sided and can contain subtasks as well as notes and other details.

Card columns can be used to simulate a workflow by moving cards from left to right as they are completed, or as a way of indicating task priority.

The workflow is highly flexible as the columns are completely customizable to suit the task flow. For example, tasks can be put through a workflow "idea > approved > in-progress > pending review > released" or simply "ideas > released" depending on the granularity level needed.

This makes Trello a great solution to feature management as it's possible to set up boards to handle everything from agile sprints to a more generic to-do list, all with status management.

Trello offers a very generous free version that has no ads, no restrictions on the number of users, and very little restriction on how the program can be used. The paid features are generally cosmetic, such as the ability to change the background, add stickers or integration with other tools.

The UI is based around Kanban, so you can see all your tasks and their status clearly.

Voting, view, and calendar plug-ins further increase the functionality.

Trello supports Markdown, meaning that HTML input is represented appropriately. Cards with attachments are also rendered well. For example, images are shown correctly on the card, bug links are detected etc.

Each card can have one or even multiple task lists.

Trello works on all modern devices through the web application and has native apps for iOS, Android and Windows 8/10 devices.

Keep all of your files (images, documents, etc.) organized on their relevant cards.

The responsiveness and layers of customization make it easy for team members of various disciplines to collaborate on the same task board.

Can set different priorities to various tasks, set appropriate due dates and Story points - timing allotted to each task.

Trello offers support for features to add voting on cards, often referred to as 'power-ups'.

Works like a charm.

There is a global history system which allows to rapidly follow changes. There is also a notification system if another user updates the board while you're watching it.