Now that Evernote limits free users to just 50 notes, it's time to jump ship. And there are some great alternatives to Evernote, ranging from simple note taking apps, to ones that let you make your own wikis.
It’s Time to Ditch Evernote for One of These Alternatives::undefined
If you’re in the MS ecosystem then OneDrive supports application syncing as a thing and so does Joplin including on its mobile clients. It’s basically free seemless cloud syncing once you set it up.
What most note taking apps ignore is OneNote’s strong drawing tablet capabilities, but Obsidian is here to save the day with the Excalidraw plugin. In total it is not as user friendly as OneNote, but the data portability cannot be weighted in gold.
I boost Joplin on here every chance I get, so please allow me to do so again now! I run it with my own sync server and a small userbase of about 6 people on a cheap VPS. I could not be happier; between the webclipper, sharing, encryption, embedding of pdfs, photos, even mp4s, ease of selfhosting, it’s an amazing project! It’s been (knock on wood) rock solid!
Sounds like it is a bit advanced and technical for me…all I want is something I can make a list on android and my partner can edit it on iOS. Can it do that?
Yep! As the other commenter who replies to you said, it definitely can. You don’t even have to selfhost it; the app’s developer hosts a cloud sync server you can pay for thays dirt cheap. You can also sync notes without the cloud server. There are a lot of ways you can use it without having to get into the technical aspect of it!
I still wish it could render rich text and pdfs/attachments in the composition window, but other than that (and lack of native ocr) it’s been a perfect EN replacement for my uses.
I really love Obsidian. It is a perfect fit for my needs. I just hope they don’t do the creeping subscription bullshit like Evernote did. The $96 a year is reasonable for those who need it (I don’t need it).
Crossing my fingers that the usual greed doesn’t give them brain rot. I probably should have gone with Joplin, but I’m too invested in Obsidian at this point (and very happy with it). I guess if they do go over to the Dark Side, I could freeze it at the last good release for a while then switch.
In the article someone mentioned Upnote (https://getupnote.com/) and it looks very good. Cross platform work sync. 50 notes in the free version and 99 cents a month for premium. Cross platform too.
As for me I wanted a more simple note taking app so I use Notesnook. I’m using the free version but there is a paid version. Includes sync on all versions and is cross platform.
I just need a note platform that I can feel sure will still be accessible in a few years time. I don’t mind paying for a service that’s valuable to me but evernote’s prices were a bit much and their constant pestering became annoying. I switched to Google keep - which, given that I wanted something that will last, may have been a mistake.
I’ve been using notesnook for a few weeks. I like it a lot, the native sync support and focus on encryption on the free version is awesome. I wish it had markdown support though.
I think I’m a bit of a dinosaur, but I’ve been making all of my notes in Zim for over 10 years. It’s not much to look at but I find the hierarchical wiki structure easy to navigate, and most of the functionality (todo lists, equations, version control integration, etc) is implemented by simple plugins.
in my opinion, a lot of these programs are too complicated - I tried Joplin for a while but I ended up spending more time organising my notes than I did making them.
They list Notion, but IMO Obsidian is the better path. Lack of offline access to data is a big risk to using Notion, and what made me switch to Obsidian after being bit by internet access issues keeping me from being able to use my notes during a critical meeting. Hard no for Notion ever since.
That depends. If Notion goes down that’s a problem. If you can’t access Notion because YOUR internet is down, I don’t see you being productive at all. The issue is moot as Notion syncs everything locally, so you can access your latest notes. You just can’t push any changes to the cloud until you have internet again.
The notes being sync’d locally is exactly what would have allowed me to remain productive for that meeting. It sounds like Notion has this ability today, which is good to hear. In this example local access wasn’t yet an option. This was a few years ago though, and I’ll stop bringing this up as a gap since it no longer applies.
Holy shit, $170 a year for pro? Who on Earth thinks it’s worth that? SAAS is generally an infuriating model, but I definitely think I get $100 worth of use out of Office 365 over the course of a year. Evernote is just not that useful.
In other words, the market is nearly saturated now, and Evernote makes its money with business people and institutions who often adhere to the “don’t change a working system” principle regarding their “tools.” Most of them will just keep paying if the functions are needed and already integrated.
It’s a model most of these types of companies adopt sooner or later if they are for profit, and investors see the potential of this business as almost exhausted. It’s: grow, establish, grip, and squeeze.
They also started annoying the users on every load with “deals” to buy their paid version. And they do that shitty thing where they switch the intuitive nature of the yes and no buttons.
Trillium lets you run arbitrary JavaScript, plugging into their APIs. It lets you do some cool stuff that you otherwise couldn’t with OneNote. If you do need something more powerful than OneNote, and admittedly most people don’t, I’d recommend downloading trillium and checking out the sample JS code that the developer wrote.
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Who is still using Evernote in 2023? Everyone I know is using either Notion or Google Keep.
I am but I have less than 50 notes and I like the cloud sync feature for 2 devices.
I’ve exported my notes and imported them into Obsidian but it lacks the cloud sync and up to 2 devices, for free anyway.
Never heard of Notion but I’ll give that a shot. Thanks!
I’ve switched to Joplin which I sync with my Nextcloud server.
OneNote is also good, if you’re already in the Microsoft ecosystem.
If you’re in the MS ecosystem then OneDrive supports application syncing as a thing and so does Joplin including on its mobile clients. It’s basically free seemless cloud syncing once you set it up.
What most note taking apps ignore is OneNote’s strong drawing tablet capabilities, but Obsidian is here to save the day with the Excalidraw plugin. In total it is not as user friendly as OneNote, but the data portability cannot be weighted in gold.
Joplin also has a drawing plugin called Freehand Drawing.
Does it have premade forms available like circles?
@Aurix@lemmy.world That extension is more for freehand drawing. For pre-made shapes and diagrams, you can use the Draw .io extension instead:
Freehand drawing: https://joplinapp.org/plugins/plugin/io.github.personalizedrefrigerator.js-draw/
Draw .io: https://joplinapp.org/plugins/plugin/com.github.marc0l92.joplin-plugin-drawio/
Thanks for the info!
I boost Joplin on here every chance I get, so please allow me to do so again now! I run it with my own sync server and a small userbase of about 6 people on a cheap VPS. I could not be happier; between the webclipper, sharing, encryption, embedding of pdfs, photos, even mp4s, ease of selfhosting, it’s an amazing project! It’s been (knock on wood) rock solid!
Sounds like it is a bit advanced and technical for me…all I want is something I can make a list on android and my partner can edit it on iOS. Can it do that?
Yep! As the other commenter who replies to you said, it definitely can. You don’t even have to selfhost it; the app’s developer hosts a cloud sync server you can pay for thays dirt cheap. You can also sync notes without the cloud server. There are a lot of ways you can use it without having to get into the technical aspect of it!
I still wish it could render rich text and pdfs/attachments in the composition window, but other than that (and lack of native ocr) it’s been a perfect EN replacement for my uses.
Is the sync server an alternative to cloud based saving?
Yep.
I really love Obsidian. It is a perfect fit for my needs. I just hope they don’t do the creeping subscription bullshit like Evernote did. The $96 a year is reasonable for those who need it (I don’t need it).
Crossing my fingers that the usual greed doesn’t give them brain rot. I probably should have gone with Joplin, but I’m too invested in Obsidian at this point (and very happy with it). I guess if they do go over to the Dark Side, I could freeze it at the last good release for a while then switch.
You’re probably fine for a while. My bet is that obsidian’s really happy with all the free advertising evernote’s been giving it
Obsidian is a godsend. The sheer number of plugins gives you basically anything you could want.
It not being open-source is pretty much my only complaint lol
Is there a plugin that lets me get rid of huge wasted whitespace on either side of the doc?
I haven’t looked into the alternatives much, but I’ve been using AnyType because of the decentralized sync.
In the article someone mentioned Upnote (https://getupnote.com/) and it looks very good. Cross platform work sync. 50 notes in the free version and 99 cents a month for premium. Cross platform too.
As for me I wanted a more simple note taking app so I use Notesnook. I’m using the free version but there is a paid version. Includes sync on all versions and is cross platform.
I just need a note platform that I can feel sure will still be accessible in a few years time. I don’t mind paying for a service that’s valuable to me but evernote’s prices were a bit much and their constant pestering became annoying. I switched to Google keep - which, given that I wanted something that will last, may have been a mistake.
Google Keep is fine. I also use it for short notes which I can access on the go and it’s been reliable for years now.
I just don’t like the layout of the notes all in squares. I’d prefer the option of a regular compact list view
I’ve been using notesnook for a few weeks. I like it a lot, the native sync support and focus on encryption on the free version is awesome. I wish it had markdown support though.
Simplenote is also great and cross platform.
I think I’m a bit of a dinosaur, but I’ve been making all of my notes in Zim for over 10 years. It’s not much to look at but I find the hierarchical wiki structure easy to navigate, and most of the functionality (todo lists, equations, version control integration, etc) is implemented by simple plugins.
in my opinion, a lot of these programs are too complicated - I tried Joplin for a while but I ended up spending more time organising my notes than I did making them.
I don’t need to take notes for work, but this seems great for documenting the home automation & media setup for my wife.
I love Joplin, https://joplinapp.org/
Open source, encryption, features rich, sync across devices, what’s not to like?
I use this and it’s hooked into my nextcloud. Good to go.
They list Notion, but IMO Obsidian is the better path. Lack of offline access to data is a big risk to using Notion, and what made me switch to Obsidian after being bit by internet access issues keeping me from being able to use my notes during a critical meeting. Hard no for Notion ever since.
That depends. If Notion goes down that’s a problem. If you can’t access Notion because YOUR internet is down, I don’t see you being productive at all. The issue is moot as Notion syncs everything locally, so you can access your latest notes. You just can’t push any changes to the cloud until you have internet again.
The notes being sync’d locally is exactly what would have allowed me to remain productive for that meeting. It sounds like Notion has this ability today, which is good to hear. In this example local access wasn’t yet an option. This was a few years ago though, and I’ll stop bringing this up as a gap since it no longer applies.
Lots of mentions for Obsidian. I’ll throw in my favorite for the past few years that’s similar: Logseq! Check it out!
What happened to Evermote? 😂 I used it so much when u was in uni, so sad
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Holy shit, $170 a year for pro? Who on Earth thinks it’s worth that? SAAS is generally an infuriating model, but I definitely think I get $100 worth of use out of Office 365 over the course of a year. Evernote is just not that useful.
In other words, the market is nearly saturated now, and Evernote makes its money with business people and institutions who often adhere to the “don’t change a working system” principle regarding their “tools.” Most of them will just keep paying if the functions are needed and already integrated.
It’s a model most of these types of companies adopt sooner or later if they are for profit, and investors see the potential of this business as almost exhausted. It’s: grow, establish, grip, and squeeze.
And make it difficult to export the data for another system migration.
Ah yes, the good ol’ extortion system: “Nice data you have here, it would be a shame if something happened to it.”
I mostly ditched them many years ago because of privacy concerns (or lack thereof.) Around when I stopped using Dropbox too (same reason.)
They also started annoying the users on every load with “deals” to buy their paid version. And they do that shitty thing where they switch the intuitive nature of the yes and no buttons.
Oh wow feels bad :/
I am currently selfhosting and trying Trilium, looks good so far
Looks like Windows 10 version of OneNote. I use OneNote daily.
Trillium lets you run arbitrary JavaScript, plugging into their APIs. It lets you do some cool stuff that you otherwise couldn’t with OneNote. If you do need something more powerful than OneNote, and admittedly most people don’t, I’d recommend downloading trillium and checking out the sample JS code that the developer wrote.
I used Evernote religiously five years ago. But I left it for OneNote as well. No issues since.
Came to say this. Been loving my Trilium instance.