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Evernote alternative
- Thread starter MacBH928
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It's hard to fathom with all the note apps out there, that I can't find a single one I really like.
I gave UpNote a try for a couple months - very quirky UI, but the deal-breaker was losing data.
I gave "Craft" a shot for a few months - couldn't get over the wonky text editing UI is just unbearable - I bet that's why it hasn't caught on - it's terrible for text editing.
Now I'm on Joplin, which has been workable so far, very fast, very affordable cloud syncing, though the limited text formatting and non-functionality of hyperlinks (e.g. URL's) is very frustrating and has me still looking for something better.
I've looked at just about every app in this thread - they're either too basic (SimpleNote), too heavy (OneNote), too slow (Evernote, Nimbus), terrible UI (Craft, Nimbus, UpNote), lack decent import/export (Apple Notes, Notability), are geared towards developers (Bear, Joplin, Obsidian), and one doesn't even have any sort of trial/free version (GoodNotes).
I even considered going back to Evernote, but it's still unfathomably slow, and now that it's been sold to some no-name, it appears to be in a business death-spiral. Wow, they really blew it - I used to recommend that app as an essential top 10 app.
I can't believe no developer has taken what Evernote originally did right - fast and stable, solid formatting tools, decent UI, easy syncing between devices on Macs, iPhone/iPad, and import/export of common file formats, and reasonably priced for folks that don't use it for business. Really, why is that so hard to do?
I gave UpNote a try for a couple months - very quirky UI, but the deal-breaker was losing data.
I gave "Craft" a shot for a few months - couldn't get over the wonky text editing UI is just unbearable - I bet that's why it hasn't caught on - it's terrible for text editing.
Now I'm on Joplin, which has been workable so far, very fast, very affordable cloud syncing, though the limited text formatting and non-functionality of hyperlinks (e.g. URL's) is very frustrating and has me still looking for something better.
I've looked at just about every app in this thread - they're either too basic (SimpleNote), too heavy (OneNote), too slow (Evernote, Nimbus), terrible UI (Craft, Nimbus, UpNote), lack decent import/export (Apple Notes, Notability), are geared towards developers (Bear, Joplin, Obsidian), and one doesn't even have any sort of trial/free version (GoodNotes).
I even considered going back to Evernote, but it's still unfathomably slow, and now that it's been sold to some no-name, it appears to be in a business death-spiral. Wow, they really blew it - I used to recommend that app as an essential top 10 app.
I can't believe no developer has taken what Evernote originally did right - fast and stable, solid formatting tools, decent UI, easy syncing between devices on Macs, iPhone/iPad, and import/export of common file formats, and reasonably priced for folks that don't use it for business. Really, why is that so hard to do?
Having said what I did in post 112 above, and I stand by it; I’m not using DT anymore. Need something much simpler. I’m getting more tired, mentally, earlier than I’d like. Hope it’s temporary. Going back to EagleFiler and Bear. UpNote wasn’t native enough.
If Apple Notes had decent web clipping, I'd be on that train in a flash.
If Apple Notes had legitimate export functionality (export to PDF doesn't cut it), I'd buy a ticket.
But Apple has a history of ruining their apps, and as someone with close to a thousand notes, I can't afford to lock myself in.
I have about 1500 notes. I am using IA Writer and 1Writer now, both are text/markdown apps. I can just switch to a different markdown app and point it to my notes directory. That’s it, no migrating/converting whatsoever.
The ability to import (and more importantly, export) are vital features for me as well.
I had been using UpNote for my "basic formatting" notes tool since an MR member mentioned it in this thread back in May. But as visually appealing and flexible as it is, I found that I really missed being able to work directly with markdown.
So I did a bulk export from UpNote to markdown, and bulk import back to Joplin. Pretty straightforward and the opportunity gave me a chance to tweak some tags and structures.
Because the business model is ridicolous. Who wants to pay for a notes app $10/month when you can get Microsoft Office for cheaper with like 1TB free or something like that. maybe some core hardcore guys but yeah majority are not going to pay a subscription for a notes app.
have you tried the apps i mentioned about in in posst #127?
I have at your suggestion - thanks for mentioning them.
Skiff:
- I didn't actually try the macos app as I don't want to sign up for an account just to try it as by all appearances, it doesn't appear to be focused as a dedicated note app - the email functionality seems to be their primary business.
- From what I can see of screen shots and a couple reviews, it's not at all what I'm looking for in an Evernote replacement.
- Showed some initial promise, but the notebooks/notes "folder" organization is a complete nightmare. I spent 10 minutes just trying to figure out how it's implemented. Complete deal-breaker for me.
- On top of that, the macos app (that I'll spend most of my time using) is just an encapsulated web-app. It all felt buggy and poor user experience.
- This actually shows a lot of promise, though it's super annoying that the free version is completely useless, and there's no free full-featured "trial" version - you have to sign up up for a paid account at $60/yr ("permium" version, which is getting a little rich), and then cancel before the 14-day trial period is over.
- I did check out the macos app using the free version, so couldn't really test anything out, but folder/file/tag navigation seemed decent.
- The web "demo" version allowed me to see how the paid version of the app works, which looked quite good.
- The Tags/folder organization is very cool.
- One concern is exporting - it appears that it's exported as plain text files, which is better than nothing, but I add a lot of basic formatting like headers, B/I/U, photos, etc. which I wouldn't want to lose. I would consider Standard Notes if there's more to the "export" than what I'm seeing. I'd rather not have to sign-up for an account just to test that out and then have to immediately cancel. Anyone have experience with that?
I'm currently using Joplin and overall, happy enough with it, though it's a little limited on text formatting, and I find it super annoying that weblinks don't work - I have to copy them and paste into Safari rather than just clicking on them. But that aside, Joplin is super fast, low cost ($2/m for cloud sync), great folder/note navigation, and acceptable export functionality.
I use Apple Notes for my personal notes and it works well for that.
I use OneNote for work and it is really well for that. I can easily organize my notes by projects. It has a more robust editor that supports more features than Apple Notes and I can attach any kind of file to a note. I can also send an email or meeting invitation directly to OneNote will a lot of structure meta information included that make it easy to do meeting notes.
I also use Bear for notes for a personal writing project that I’m working on. I like to keep my personal and work separate and like to keep a large project’s content separate as well. The separation just makes it easier to manage.
Thanks for doing the mini review!
Skiff:- app is too heavy as it seems
NotesNook:- I have to checkout the app to understand whats wrong with file organization
StandardNotes:- seems nice but the price si heavy at $5 for something that TextEdit does (sync to icloud) . Markdown and rich text is part of their paid plan
If you are interested i stumbled upon Agenda and NotePlan but subscription as it seems.
Joplin seems it has everything. Encryption, Foss, Light, Free. Not that I do not want to pay the developer but I do not do subscription and they have no paid license. I will donate as their means of sustainability.
I feel like there is 2 types of notes app. 1 light notes for jotting things down, another is the heavier "workbook" kind of app that stores everything Like Evernote and OneNote. I think some people like DevonThink.
I used OneNote and its great for research and work but its too heavy. Syncing is too slow. I literaly have to wait for minutes for the sync to happen and to download things. Feels more like MS Office app.
How is it slow? Scrolling through my ~8k of notes is instantaneous.
Didn't know about the sale. Way too early to say it is in a death-spiral. Might be a growth surge.
I have used all of the features you list except for export/import and formatting tools and they are all excellent. Web clip a page on an iPad and it immediately appears on my Mac. Never had any stability issues in the 8 years I have been using it.
OneDrive and OneNote for Mac OS do indeed sync slowly. I have found OneNote on iOS/iPad OS to sync extremely quickly. So much so, that it drains battery. I've gotten into the habit of turning WiFi off while taking notes in meetings and only re-enabling when the meeting is over.
bear is great. i love the simplicity of pure text. it's also well baked. everything works. i can't wait for their improved editor panda to be integrated
Notability is fantastic, as is OneNote. OneNote is a little tough to get used to conceptually, but once you do, it's a fantastic app.
Bear is a solid app is well. Very pretty. Typical sort of artisan Apple-style app.
I took a quick look at Agenda and Noteplan - they're both primarily basic task management apps that include notes. Personally not what I'm looking for, but for "day planning" or very basic project management, they could be winners.
If you are using it as "workbook" it might be fast but if you needs to jot down notes to remember its too heavy. I am looking for something as light as TextEdit.
My Problem with Apple notes is that its un encrypted and I do not like to give 1 company too much power. Diversification is in the favour of everyone over 1 company controls all. I always try to go with a competitor if available to keep competition alive.
I do not want to be in a place where the only free email providers are Yahoo, Gmail , and Outlook. Things gotten better since then. Now we have Protonmail, Tutanota, Skiff, Fastmail, Yandex, ..etc
its too heavy and sync is impossibly long. its like downloading movies. I wonder if it got better but it was not last time I logged in using the web interface.
What are you looking for? I was looking for just a simple app for reminding me of stuff and references.
Do you happen to know if Joplin on iOS has a GUI formating option?
I have tried different apps for these more than 2 years.
Notion is the first. I liked the app at the beginning but later on don't. In 2020 it was slow (slower than Evernote v10.0 for me), no offline, too many customization so I felt like making my digital gardens, and most importantly: the CEO is from China (but this is not the most), and the attachments were open in a browser — generating a link at the same time which can be accessed without any password for 24 hours. Yes, the staff can read my notes but I at least can't accept the arrangement of the attachments, so I quitted.
Bear is the second app I moved to and at least used for almost half a year. Everything is great but I just don't like the markdown. They are working hard on v2 which can hide markdown but it's been 3 years now. I tried to wait but there are some annoying bugs in v1 now: like the keyboard on iPhone, image size much bigger when uploaded to Bear (say 2MB photo will become 7-8MB).
Apple Notes is the third. It is very fast but some issues still annoys me: when my note is too long, after editing somewhere in the note and removing the keyboard on iPhone and iPad, it will automatically scroll to another part of the note. Sometimes I can't search for the notes I want, and they don't put the notes which match titles to the top of the results. But I sometimes come back to Notes because they have good sketches and quick notes function. You can actually export but must be through the server (requesting Apple for a copy which can take 2 days) and a Mac is needed, but it is not as convenient as other apps like Bear and Craft.
Craft is something like Evernote because I can use different colours of highlighters. It is native, offline as well. But there are two deal breakers: one is if you use their Amazon server, your attachments can actually be accessed by everyone without password especially when hackers get these links, and there is no expiration for the links. Even though I can prevent myself uploading sensitive information, I don't want my images and files to be treated like this. Yes, you can choose iCloud Drive but it's not guaranteed forever: they can one day ask you to move to their server, say to train their AI (don't forget they have just launched their AI). Second, typing my language has some bugs and I reported them and don't know when it will be fixed.
iA Writer is another app I tried before, when I realised note taking is note writing. To be exact it is plain text so I can use other text editors to open my files. iA Writer, as they claimed clearly, is a writing app so I don't expect too much for note taking, and I did think of the ways to enhance my workflow. (Sorry I know Obsidian but I don't want to spend a lot of time on trying other apps). But sadly I have to accept I am a visual person who really prefers images and texts together. I can use preview function in iA to see the images but I can't edit at the same time, or open Finder for Mac or Files for iPhone/iPad but the experience of revising my notes will be uneasy. I know many of those just need text but I need some sketches as well.
It seems Noteplan can use text files and show images while hiding Markdown, it's mainly a task management in which I don't intend to do so much scheduling. I still prefer the way Apple Notes or Evernote do.
Evernote actually did quite well in note taking, or maybe because they have more than 20 years (?) of experience. I really like their navigation, searches, editor however their app quality is so horrible especially at the beginning. Now is better but iPad should be much better.
I can't sacrifice my personality as a visual person to use plain text which can completely avoid the issues of my data ownership. Other apps do have their own issues and shortcomings. I think I will use Apple Notes for capturing quick ideas or links but further elaborate and organise on Evernote. I will export some of the important notes as well.
Notion is the first. I liked the app at the beginning but later on don't. In 2020 it was slow (slower than Evernote v10.0 for me), no offline, too many customization so I felt like making my digital gardens, and most importantly: the CEO is from China (but this is not the most), and the attachments were open in a browser — generating a link at the same time which can be accessed without any password for 24 hours. Yes, the staff can read my notes but I at least can't accept the arrangement of the attachments, so I quitted.
Bear is the second app I moved to and at least used for almost half a year. Everything is great but I just don't like the markdown. They are working hard on v2 which can hide markdown but it's been 3 years now. I tried to wait but there are some annoying bugs in v1 now: like the keyboard on iPhone, image size much bigger when uploaded to Bear (say 2MB photo will become 7-8MB).
Apple Notes is the third. It is very fast but some issues still annoys me: when my note is too long, after editing somewhere in the note and removing the keyboard on iPhone and iPad, it will automatically scroll to another part of the note. Sometimes I can't search for the notes I want, and they don't put the notes which match titles to the top of the results. But I sometimes come back to Notes because they have good sketches and quick notes function. You can actually export but must be through the server (requesting Apple for a copy which can take 2 days) and a Mac is needed, but it is not as convenient as other apps like Bear and Craft.
Craft is something like Evernote because I can use different colours of highlighters. It is native, offline as well. But there are two deal breakers: one is if you use their Amazon server, your attachments can actually be accessed by everyone without password especially when hackers get these links, and there is no expiration for the links. Even though I can prevent myself uploading sensitive information, I don't want my images and files to be treated like this. Yes, you can choose iCloud Drive but it's not guaranteed forever: they can one day ask you to move to their server, say to train their AI (don't forget they have just launched their AI). Second, typing my language has some bugs and I reported them and don't know when it will be fixed.
iA Writer is another app I tried before, when I realised note taking is note writing. To be exact it is plain text so I can use other text editors to open my files. iA Writer, as they claimed clearly, is a writing app so I don't expect too much for note taking, and I did think of the ways to enhance my workflow. (Sorry I know Obsidian but I don't want to spend a lot of time on trying other apps). But sadly I have to accept I am a visual person who really prefers images and texts together. I can use preview function in iA to see the images but I can't edit at the same time, or open Finder for Mac or Files for iPhone/iPad but the experience of revising my notes will be uneasy. I know many of those just need text but I need some sketches as well.
It seems Noteplan can use text files and show images while hiding Markdown, it's mainly a task management in which I don't intend to do so much scheduling. I still prefer the way Apple Notes or Evernote do.
Evernote actually did quite well in note taking, or maybe because they have more than 20 years (?) of experience. I really like their navigation, searches, editor however their app quality is so horrible especially at the beginning. Now is better but iPad should be much better.
I can't sacrifice my personality as a visual person to use plain text which can completely avoid the issues of my data ownership. Other apps do have their own issues and shortcomings. I think I will use Apple Notes for capturing quick ideas or links but further elaborate and organise on Evernote. I will export some of the important notes as well.
It does not in editing mode AFAICT.
Viewing notes shows WYSIWYG, but editing switches to markdown only.
thanks for the great input. Speaking of bugs, I was upset about Joplin when I was trying to edit a note and it kept jumping to a different part of the note. It really makes me scratch my head how can something fully fledged like Microsoft Word 95 be fully functioning yet a text only app in 2022 can't put the blinking cursor in the right place.
I will never understand programming.
I am a Standard Notes user and I wouldn't really go to it for "lightness," because as an electron app it's not that much better than a website. For instance, no command-n to make a new note. It has other things to recommend it, principally top tier security and good sync across all platforms.
I feel similarly about Obsidian, although it seems like if you put a lot of effort into customizing it you could probably get everything just so.
For work notes I've landed on "The Archive," which just reads a folder of markdown files on your Mac. It supports wiki-like interlinking, which can be handy for making connections, and it actually has a pretty slick way of allowing you to insert images inline into plain markdown so that you can see them right in the note. It is also inspired by the legendary Notational Velocity, which was probably the pinnacle of "light" UI. All while remaining a folder of plain text files and an Images folder, which means I can switch to BBEdit, or even just work in BBEdit instead for a week, without breaking anything.
Not for everybody, works for me. Until something new comes along!