It's Time to Ditch Evernote for One of These Alternatives

It was time to ditch Evernote YEARS ago. Obsidian is basically the best alternative.

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

I love Joplin, https://joplinapp.org/

Open source, encryption, features rich, sync across devices, what's not to like?

I’ve switched to Joplin which I sync with my Nextcloud server.

OneNote is also good, if you’re already in the Microsoft ecosystem.

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!

Lots of mentions for Obsidian. I'll throw in my favorite for the past few years that's similar: Logseq! Check it out!

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.

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.

I am currently selfhosting and trying Trilium, looks good so far

Who is still using Evernote in 2023? Everyone I know is using either Notion or Google Keep.

I was pretty happy with EverNote until it started to feel like they were ransoming my content against sudden price hikes and enshittifying reductions in basic function Fk those guys

Simplenote is also great and cross platform.

Standard Notes is fantastic, assuming that:

• you don’t need to collaborate in real-time with your notes (you can share them after the fact and there is a way to give multiple accounts edit access to the same note, but it looked complicated and I haven’t explored it)
• you primarily use a keyboard - mobile counts, even if you’re using speech to text or Scribble on iPad - rather than wanting a canvas to draw on.
• you’re not trying to upload documents and annotate them

StandardNotes has the following going for it:

• it’s FOSS
• it’s easily self-hostable
• it’s also offered as SaaS, and if you use that your notes are e2ee
• if you self-host you can still use the official mobile apps (but those are open source, too)
• it has a web app, mobile apps, desktop apps on Windows, Mac, and Linux
• there is a variety of editor plugins created by the community that can be used even if you use the free SaaS offering - check out https://github.com/jonhadfield/awesome-standard-notes for a list.

I’ve been using StandardNotes for a few years at this point (as a paid user on their 5 year plan, which no longer exists as far as I know) and have also developed an editor plugin for it.

I'm giving Obsidian a try and I'm liking it, but I still use freebie Notion for a lot of work things.

I do ~6-12 month contracts, and have found that publishing notion pages is a really easy way to share stuff quickly with the team and keep it live-update-able by all parties. That feature suits some fast-paced environment needs.

I never really used evernote tho. I think i first tried it years ago before they allowed dark mode, so it automatically failed.

This dumbass article is about 8 years too late. I ditched it back when they cancelled all free accounts and deleted everyone data who didn’t pay. Fuck Evernote

Don't go to Notability. They went full asshole at the top of this last semester. Changed the entire interface as people were starting their first week of class. They nuked features that made note taking for class nice. They clearly don't respect their users and will most likely do the same thing again.

Not me having never actually heard of Evernote..

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.

What happened to Evermote? 😂 I used it so much when u was in uni, so sad

I use the marksman language server with my neovim configuration. It makes a navigable wiki-ish system ^., especially when you set it up with completion.wiki.style = "file-path-stem" in the .marksman.toml ( see: here for what that does.

This, plus syncthing or git, works for syncing ^.

I always felt that Evernote was a confusing mess line OneNote I would try to use it every couple years thinking it would different only to give up a little later and go back to Notepad++

Standardnotes and Notesnook also good as well and they provide web app

plaintext .txt

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 haven't looked into the alternatives much, but I've been using AnyType because of the decentralized sync.

This is why you don't buy in to subscriptions for every little thing.

I still use Tomboy Notes synced with Nextcloud & Dropbox. It's ancient, but I've never come across anything else that does these things:

• temporary sticky notes.
• permanent sticky notes.
• glorified clipboard buffer.
• personal wiki.
• light weight (no browser, database, or network required).
• one small window per note.
• optional categorization into notebooks.
• desktop pkeyboard shortcut for searching notes or opening new ones.

I really hate web based notes. I want small quick responsive windows beside my browser.

They shouldn't have started using it in the first place, as it is a proprietary APP that spies on everything the user puts into it.

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.

Joplin is very nice if, like me, you don't like product lock-in. The notes are structured and organised, but under the hood its basically just markdown. So exporting your notes to something else is no fuss.

Neither Joplin nor Obsidian do everything I want. Both have that feeling of pita open source app like Gimp. I still use Joplin but it isn't anywhere near perfect.

I like all these open source options. However, are there any for handwriting?

Saber go brrr

I just remember things.