Second Brain Method

23 Best Evernote Alternatives For All Your Note Taking (Free & Paid)

Tired of Evernote? This is the list of the Evernote alternatives available, ranging from free to paid. Start organizing your notes better now!

May 1, 2024

Second Brain Method

23 Best Evernote Alternatives For All Your Note Taking (Free & Paid)

Tired of Evernote? This is the list of the Evernote alternatives available, ranging from free to paid. Start organizing your notes better now!

May 1, 2024

Second Brain Method

23 Best Evernote Alternatives For All Your Note Taking (Free & Paid)

Tired of Evernote? This is the list of the Evernote alternatives available, ranging from free to paid. Start organizing your notes better now!

May 1, 2024

woman finding Evernote Alternatives
woman finding Evernote Alternatives
woman finding Evernote Alternatives

Are you looking for Evernote alternatives to improve your productivity and organizational skills? If you're ready to explore other options that may better fit your needs, keep reading! In this blog post, we will introduce you to a range of digital tools that can help you with the Second Brain method. Discover alternative solutions to Evernote that might be the perfect match for your personal and professional goals. We'll focus on their unique features and how they can support you in managing your tasks and projects.

Table of Contents

What Is Evernote?

person working with Evernote Alternatives

Evernote is a powerful note-taking app that serves as a digital notebook for users to create, organize, and store notes in various formats such as text, images, audio recordings, and more. Evernote offers a wide range of features and benefits to users, making it a popular choice for individuals and teams looking to manage their notes efficiently. 

Seamless Note Access Across Devices

One of the key features of Evernote is its ability to facilitate cross-platform syncing, meaning users can access their notes from multiple devices. This feature allows users to seamlessly switch between devices and continue working on their notes without any interruptions. 

Enhancing Research Efficiency

In addition to note-taking, Evernote also offers features like web clipping, which allows users to save articles, web pages, and other online content directly into their Evernote account. This feature is particularly useful for research purposes or for saving content for later reading. 

Paperless Organization

Evernote also has a document scanning feature that allows users to scan and save physical documents directly into their Evernote account. This is especially useful for individuals who want to go paperless and store all their important documents digitally.

Evernote offers a wide range of features and benefits that make it a versatile and efficient note-taking tool for individuals and teams alike.

Related Reading

Personal Knowledge Management
Building A Second Brain Summary
Personal Knowledge Management System
Personal Knowledge Base

Why Are People Looking For Evernote Alternatives?

woman showing friend Evernote Alternatives

In recent years, people have been turning away from Evernote in favor of other note-taking apps for several reasons. Evernote's transition towards a more paid-oriented service has been a significant factor. They started by limiting free accounts and progressively increased the prices over time. 

This significant price increase has pushed many users away from Evernote as it is no longer an affordable option for many. Their base plan now costs $14.99 per month or $129.99 per year, which is too high for many users who initially enjoyed Evernote's free services.

Evernote's Free Account Restrictions Prompt User Migration

Evernote's recent limitations on free accounts have been a point of frustration for many long-time users. The imposition of a 50-note limit and a single notebook constraint has caused many to seek alternatives that offer more flexibility and freedom without restrictions. This has been a significant factor in the migration of users away from Evernote to explore other note-taking apps.

Dissatisfaction with Evernote's Performance Spurs Search for Alternatives

Performance issues plaguing Evernote have also been a reason for dissatisfaction among users. Slow speeds, lagging, and other performance problems have driven some users to seek alternatives that offer better speed and performance. This has been a critical factor contributing to the exodus from Evernote towards other note-taking solutions.

Exploring Evernote Alternatives for Enhanced Affordability and Performance

For these reasons, many users have been exploring Evernote alternatives that are more affordable, flexible, and offer better performance to meet their note-taking needs effectively and efficiently.

Streamlining Knowledge Workflows with Otio's AI-Native Workspace

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today suffer from content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many of them settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with the click of a button - this problem is only going to get worse. 

Otio solves this problem by providing one AI-native workspace for researchers. It helps them:

1. Collect

A wide range of data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos.

2. Extract key takeaways

With detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat.

3. Create

Draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected. Otio helps you to go from reading list to first draft faster. 

Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that are loved by researchers: AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (Youtube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.), Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT, as well as AI assisted writing. Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

24 Best Evernote Alternatives For All Your Note Taking

many happy with Evernote Alternatives

1. Otio

Knowledge workers, researchers, and students today suffer from content overload and are left to deal with it using fragmented, complex, and manual tooling. Too many of them settle for stitching together complicated bookmarking, read-it-later, and note-taking apps to get through their workflows. Now that anyone can create content with the click of a button - this problem is only going to get worse. 

Otio solves this problem by providing one AI-native workspace for researchers. It helps them

1. Collect

A wide range of data sources, from bookmarks, tweets, and extensive books to YouTube videos.

2. Extract key takeaways

With detailed AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat.

3. Create

Draft outputs using the sources you’ve collected.

Otio helps you to go from reading list to first draft faster. Along with this, Otio also helps you write research papers/essays faster. Here are our top features that are loved by researchers: 

  • AI-generated notes on all bookmarks (YouTube videos, PDFs, articles, etc.)

  • Otio enables you to chat with individual links or entire knowledge bases, just like you chat with ChatGPT

  • AI-assisted writing. 

Let Otio be your AI research and writing partner — try Otio for free today!

2. Google Keep

Google Keep is one of the many Google apps. It’s also one of the best Evernote alternatives in the market today. With a simple, easy-to-use interface, it’s no surprise that it was one of the most downloaded note-taking apps in 2019.

Google Keep has a user-friendly interface and sync seamlessly across every Google device. You can organize notes via label and the app can handle handwritten notes, voice memos, and audio notes as well.

Google Keep pros

  • Supports rich text formatting

  • Set reminders and add to-do lists to your notes

  • The mobile apps are completely free

  • Intuitive drag and drop interface is similar to post-it notes

Google Keep limitations

  • No alternate themes on this app

  • Lacks task management abilities

  • No desktop app for Windows, Linux, or macOS platforms

Google Keep pricing

The Google Keep app is completely free.

3.  Microsoft OneNote

The Microsoft OneNote app is another powerful note-taker. Like Box Notes, Quip, and Zoho Notebook, it comes with basic collaboration feature options to work on notes together.

Microsoft OneNote offers customizable themes on the desktop application and it supports text notes, voice memos, audio notes, and to-do list. This note-taker can encrypt notes before you share them. You can organize notes via folders and use digital sticky notes for enhanced user experience.

Microsoft OneNote pros

  • Supports handwritten notes

  • You can easily share your notes and folders via email or URLs

  • Tons of simple, handy shortcuts

  • Access to sticky note feature

Microsoft OneNote limitations

  • The mobile app interface isn’t as intuitive as the web app

  • The app can’t alphabetically sort note pages

  • This notes app can’t be used as a task management tool substitute

Microsoft OneNote pricing

Initially, Microsoft OneNote was only available to Microsoft Office 365 users. The notes app is now free for anyone to use.

4. Joplin

Joplin is a free, open-source note-taking app that uses a lot of the same structure as Evernote, in terms of how you can group and organize notes and notebooks. It's reasonably user-friendly, and you have the option of bringing your own storage and syncing or paying for Joplin Cloud starting at 1.99 euros per month for 1GB of storage.

Joplin was created as a free and open-source alternative to Evernote, so the two apps have a lot in common. There are apps for all major platforms, plus Linux and a terminal application.

Pros

  • There's no web app, but there is a web clipper. 

  • You can organize notes into notebooks and subnotebooks, which is essentially the same as notebooks and stacks. 

  • Joplin uses a three-pane interface similar to Evernote's as well, although it goes one step further and splits the editor so that you can see the HTML or Markdown version of your note side by side with the rich text version. You can toggle to see only one editor in either rich text, HTML, or Markdown if you prefer. 

  • Joplin also has the ability to capture geolocation data when you make a note, just as Evernote does. If you want to bring your own storage, it's easy to set up Joplin with Dropbox, Nextcloud, OneDrive, or WebDAV.

Cons

  • Joplin doesn't have OCR, collaboration, sketching and handwriting support, email forwarding, scanning in the mobile apps, PDF annotation

  • It also doesn't have any of Evernote's other advanced features, namely anything to do with collaboration.

Joplin Pricing

The Pro plan costs 5.99 euros per month or 57.48 per year for 10GB storage.

5. Notion

Notion is one of the best Evernote alternatives. It provides users with a place to write, think, and organize your thoughts. Notion has templates and other features that supports effective task management and note-taking. Their drag-and-drop editor allows users to easily customize their workspaces. Notion also has a collaboration tool where users can collaborate in real-time.

Pros

  • Notion offers a wide range of blocks and templates that can be customized to fit individual needs, making it a versatile tool for note-taking, project management, and knowledge management

  • Notion is a cost-efficient tool, especially for individual use, with a free version that provides basic features and a premium version that is inexpensive for teams of all sizes

  • Notion is designed to be intuitive and easy to use, making it accessible to people of all skill levels, with a user-friendly interface that makes navigation a breeze

Cons

  • Notion can be overwhelming to use, especially for new users, with so many different types of blocks and templates available that it can be hard to know where to start

  • Notion has fewer integrations than other productivity tools, which can disadvantage users who need to connect Notion to other apps and services

Pricing

Free or paid for Personal plan for $ 4/ month, and Team plan for $ 8/ month.

6. Dropbox Paper

Dropbox Paper is a co-editing tool that allows users to create and coordinate their thoughts in one place. Dropbox Paper serves as a compelling alternative to Evernote, offering a collaborative platform for creating and sharing documents seamlessly. With support for images, tables, and tasks, Dropbox Paper provides a versatile environment for team collaboration and project management. 

Users can create notebooks without size limits, although direct document insertion requires uploading to Dropbox first. The interface is user-friendly, allowing for easy drag-and-drop functionality. While there isn't an official method to migrate files from Evernote to Dropbox Paper, users can explore alternative apps or services for file migration.

Pros

  • Dropbox Paper allows for real-time collaboration on documents, making it easy for teams to work together on projects and share feedback

  • Seamless integration with Dropbox allows for easy access to files and resources stored in Dropbox, streamlining workflows and enhancing productivity

  • Dropbox Paper features a user-friendly interface that is easy to navigate, making it accessible to users of all skill levels and reducing the learning curve

Cons

  • Dropbox Paper has limited formatting options compared to other document editing tools, which can be a drawback for users who require more advanced formatting  

  • Users may face limitations in accessing and editing documents offline, as Dropbox Paper's functionality is restricted without an internet connection

Pricing

It is free with a Dropbox account.

7. Bear

One of the biggest differences between Bear and Evernote is Bear’s organizational structure. Unlike Evernote, which relies on the Notes/Notebooks schema, Bear favors a Slack-like hashtag system that organizes relevant items by hashtag. One of the most immediate benefits of hashtag organization is that one note can be saved across multiple relevant hashtags. Notes in Bear can also be assigned an unlimited number of tags.

Another of Bear’s handiest features is the ability to link between notes. This might not sound that impressive but it’s amazing how few tools offer this functionality. (Google Docs still doesn’t do this after fourteen years!) Bear’s linking works similarly to adding a hyperlink to a text document. Best of all, there’s no limit on how many links you can add between notes.

Pros

  • Clean, elegant UI

  • Great mobile functionality

  • Flexible hashtag organization

  • Fast, responsive search function

  • Linking between notes

Cons

  • Only available for iOS/OS X; no Android or Windows versions available

  • No sharing/collaboration features

  • No password protection/encryption options

  • No notifications or reminders for timely tasks

8. Zoho Notebook

Zoho is a company based in south India that focuses on selling cloud-based business apps for rather low subscription prices. Similar to Microsoft or Google, Zoho also offers free apps to individuals, perhaps as an entry point to learning about its brand of software. Zoho Notebook is one such free app. 

It doesn't look anything like Evernote, but it offers some of the same functionality and might be a good alternative, depending on how you plan to use it. Unlike Evernote, Zoho Notebook interprets "notebook" in a way that mimics the physical object. When you view your notebooks, you see a little display of books, each with its own cover. Your notes can use different color "paper," too.

Pros

  • Zoho Notebook has apps for all major platforms: Android, iOS, iPad, macOS, Windows, Linux, and the web. It comes with a tool for migrating from Evernote

  • Zoho Notebooks is free. There are no in-app purchases, tiers of service to agonize over, or even storage limits for note cards you create. 

  • Storage is handled by Zoho Docs, which has a 5GB limit for free users, and that applies to files you upload to your notes. In terms of features, 

  • Zoho Notebook supports text, images, audio recordings, tags, attachments, reminders, handwriting, sketching, scanning, checklists, and more. 

  • You get a web clipper, access to your notes' version history, and a voice command assistant in the mobile apps called Zia. 

Cons

  • Zoho Notebook is missing a few key features, such as email forwarding, OCR on images, and the ability to view all your notebooks in list format. 

  • The maximum file upload size is 5MB. 

  • If you have thousands of notes and dozens or hundreds of notebooks, Zoho Notebook may feel a tad stifling, as it's impossible to create a view of your notes and notebooks that shows you very much at once.

Zoho Notebook pricing

This Evernote alternative is free for all.

9. Notejoy

Notejoy is a real joy when it comes to collaborative notes for your entire team. You can easily give and receive feedback with note views, threaded discussions, and reactions. And its fast search function makes it easy to find what you need.

Pros

  • Forward emails to the app to convert into notes

  • End-to-end encryption

  • Offers themes and dark mode

  • Search texts within images, PDFs, etc.

Cons

  • No automations

  • No task or workflow management

  • Doesn’t offer other view options

  • Can be expensive for just a note taking app

Notejoy pricing

This app offers a free plan. The paid plans start at $4/user for solo users and $8/user per month for teams.

10. Todoist

Todoist is an Evernote alternative that’s available on Windows, Mac, and Linux. Use it to organize, prioritize, and manage projects while noting down important information you need to remember. The app also comes with templates to help you get started in minutes.

Todoist has a recurring due date to remember deadlines. It also helps you easily set priorities for managing urgent tasks

Pros

  • Lets you assign tasks

  • Customize your workflow with labels, themes, etc.

  • Add voice notes for more context in comments

  • Allows you to favorite key tasks, labels, etc.

Cons

  • No task statuses

  • Doesn’t offer custom fields

  • Lacks native document creator

  • No place for real-time chats

Todoist pricing

This Evernote alternative offers a free plan and a paid plan that costs $3/user per month.

11. Hive

Hive is a project management tool with a dedicated feature for meeting notes. It’s a great alternative to Evernote that you can use to take down every meeting note, assign tasks, and collaborate with your team. Hive has shareable notes for external participants and supports real-time collaboration.

Pros

  • Offers templates for product roadmaps, onboarding, etc.

  • Lets you create recurring meeting notes

  • Convert meeting notes into action items

  • Offers an Android and iOS app

Cons

  • You need add-ons for timesheets, analytics, and resourcing feature

  • No idea management feature like mind maps or a whiteboard

  • No embed view to access apps from Hive

Hive pricing

This alternative to Evernote has no free plan. You’ll have to pay $12/user per month for Hive notes.

12. Apple Notes

If you use an iOS device like an iPhone, iPad, or Mac computer, you’ve probably noticed the Apple Notes app. This Evernote alternative is available to only Apple device users. It excels in making quick to-dos and organizes your work. The best part is every Apple note will sync with your cloud storage (iCloud), so you can quickly recover notes (deleted in the last 30 days) too.

Pros

  • Drag-and-drop folder organization

  • View notes in gallery view

  • Pin your favorite notes

  • Add checklists

Cons

  • Only an Apple user can use it

  • Lacks task management features

  • Doesn’t support markdown

Apple Notes pricing

This Apple device app is free for all iOS and macOS users.

13. Milanote

Milanote an app made for visual collaborators such as product designers and photographers. It’s a flexible visual workspace for creating moodboards, capturing notes, and getting feedback on design concepts. Milanote has visual organization features with boards, cards, and image with a wide range of customization features

Pros

  • Built-in templates

  • Animated GIFs and fonts

  • Encrypted notes at rest and in transit

Cons

  • Limited integrations

  • Steep learning curve

  • Limited features in the free version

Milanote pricing

Milanote offers free and paid plans starting at $9.99/month per user.

14. GoodNotes

GoodNotes is a digital note-taking app that allows users to take handwritten notes and annotate PDFs on their mobile devices. With GoodNotes, users can create and organize digital notebooks, import PDFs and images, and annotate them using a variety of writing and drawing tools. GoodNotes also supports handwriting  and the ability to create multiple notebooks, folders, and tags.

Pros

  • Pen to paper like writing expirience

  • Importing and annotating PDFs

  • Cloud syncing

Cons

  • Limited platforms

  • File size

  • Limited OCR capabilities

GoodNotes pricing

GoodNotes free plan is limited to 3 notebooks and its paid version starts at $9.99.

15. nTask

This Evernote alternative has capabilities for note taking, task management, project management based on notes and brainstorming sessions, meeting integrations module, etc. nTask has a note-taking feature with support for text notes, to-do lists, Kanban boards, etc. Notes can also be converted to activities with dedicated assignees.

Pros

  • Affordable pricing plans

  • Easily export data in multiple file formats

  • Intuitive user interface with a minimal learning curve

  • Interactive Gantt charts, checklists, risk management module, and much more

Con

  • Cannot alphabetically sort tasks and notes

nTask pricing

  • Basic’s a free plan for low-scale users with a select number of features

  • nTask premium starts at $3 per user per month

  • For business users, the nTask Business plan starts at $8 per user per month

16. ProofHub

As a great Evernote alternative, ProofHub offers advanced project management and team collaboration features besides its intuitive and useful note taking app. With an easy-to-interface, this feature-rich software helps teams stay in ultimate control of their tasks, projects, and communications.

Pros

  • All-in-one tool

  • Flexible task management

  • Easy file sharing

  • Powerful collaboration features

  • Simple, no per-user pricing

Cons

  • Limited number of app integrations

  • No free plan

  • No Linux support

ProofHub pricing

The Essential plan with basic features starts at $45/month, and its Ultimate Control plan with unlimited users and all the advanced features starts at $89/month.

More Evernote Alternatives To Consider

17. Craft

Craft is another great Evernote alternative that takes you into a whole new realm of note taking with its AI assistant. Simply type in a short command and within seconds, the built-in tool will help you to write your notes. Get assistance writing a blog post, checking your grammar and spelling, rewriting an entry in a different tone, translating into a different language and more. You can even get a quick summary of a long body of text, saving you time when it comes to reviewing documents.

The interface is intuitive and user-friendly, with templates available to help get you started crafting your notes with ease. Keep your notes organized with features such as blocks, tables and markdown, subpages, and bi-directional linking. Craft is available for all Apple devices, Windows and on the web with a free starter plan. There’s an upgraded pro plan available for $5 per month, as well as business and enterprise level subscriptions for teams.

18. xTiles

Add some creativity to your note-taking with xTiles. Its intuitive interface and infinite canvas workspace make XTiles a great alternative to Evernote. Lay out ideas, keep it all organized with a drag-and-drop editing feature, and customize your view. The platform lets you add mixing notes, assorted media, links, and files to your dashboard. Its search function lets you look through your notes quickly, optimizing your productivity.

Another advantage of xTitles is its versatility, being available on desktop and mobile, you can jot down notes on your phone and then pick up on it again when you are back at your desk. There’s a free plan available with limited file uploads and cards, and you can get unlimited usage for $8/month.

19.  Slite

Slite sticks out as a robust alternative to Evernote when it comes to collaborative note-taking. It has a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for everyone on your team to create, share, and collaborate on notes in real-time – perfect for meeting notes, brainstorming sessions, and more. In comparison, Evernote has a more individual-focused design, whereas Slite emphasizes team collaboration with features such as mentions, comments, and shared channels.

These features encourage better communication and real-time collaboration within your team, similar to platforms like Slack but within a note-taking context. Slite offers a free plan with limited features and paid plans start at $8/user/month.

20. Boost Note

Boost Note is not your average note-taking app, but a solution designed for developer team’s to help with workflow documentation. The solution allows real-time collaboration between teammates, while its markdown editor makes it easier to write a tech spec. If you are looking for a note-taking app that is developer-friendly, Boost Note might be what you need.

The solution is not only a note-taking solution, but also offers project and task management with integration to 4,000 different apps. When compared to Evernote, Boost Note stands out for its API, markdown support, offline access for Windows and Android and for taking notes during meetings. Evernote is hard to beat when it comes to consolidating information using different sources, for example handwritten notes, typed notes, receipts, and supporting web clippers, images, text and links.

Boost Note offers a free 14-day trial. Its paid plan starts at $5 per user/month.

21.  Fellow

Fellow is a great note-taking app for anyone looking to streamline meeting communication with their team. While it’s not as comprehensive as Hive paired with Hive Notes, there are a ton of great functionalities. In Fellow you can bring together collaborative agendas that you can use to take real-time meeting notes across the team. You can also apply templates, add next steps, and assign action items to teammates.

22. Hypercontext

For those looking to take better, more effective meeting notes, look no further than Hypercontext. Hypercontext allows you to take notes within your meeting agenda, which will automatically get emailed to meeting participants as soon as the meeting’s finished. 

You can also assign clear next steps and action items to teammates so that nothing gets lost in the shuffle. The platform helps streamline and document everything you need before, during, and after your meeting, in one place.

23. Clover

Another alternative to Evernote is Clover, a digital notebook that combines notes, tasks, whiteboards, and a daily planner into one streamlined app. The solution offers powerful features including infinite canvas, presentation options, and the ability to embed rich media to your notes, so your colleagues can interact with content from YouTube, Figma, SoundCloud, and more.

Clover offers a free plan that supports up to three guests and 50MB uploads. Clover Pro plan starts at $6 per month with unlimited guests and 10GB monthly uploads. 

24. Taskade

If you loved Evernote for the collaboration, you’ll get better mileage from Taskade. Taskade integrates ChatGPT everywhere you can enter text, and it takes a collaboration-first approach. The app is centered around projects, but each project is a modular document you can keep on adding on to. And when a project is open, everyone who’s in it, and online, can be seen from the top. It doesn’t do the Google Docs thing of showing you who’s editing what with live cursors, but the version history will help figure that out.

You’ll also find basic task management features here. It has a web clipper, but there’s no OCR support. 

Related Reading

Second Brain Note Taking
Second Brain Examples
Building A Second Brain Notion
Second Brain Notion Template
Obsidian Alternatives
Notion Second Brain
Notedly Ai
Building A Second Brain
Milanote Alternative
Obsidian Second Brain
Second Brain Apps
Roam Research Vs Obsidian

Supercharge Your Researching Ability With Otio — Try Otio for Free Today

Otio is the next-generation tool designed to alleviate the content overload faced by knowledge workers, researchers, and students. This platform offers a seamless solution to the problem of fragmented, complex, and manual tooling that plagues modern workflows, providing a singular AI-native workspace for researchers. Otio aids in the collection of diverse data sources—ranging from bookmarks and tweets to extensive books and YouTube videos. 

Streamlined Research Workflow

With Otio, researchers can efficiently glean key takeaways through AI-generated notes and source-grounded Q&A chat. Otio facilitates the drafting of outputs using the collected sources, streamlining the transition from reading list to first draft. One of the standout features of Otio is its AI-generated notes on all bookmarks, including YouTube videos, PDFs, and articles. 

Enhancing Research Efficiency

Users can also engage in chat interactions with individual links or entire knowledge bases, akin to conversing with ChatGPT. Otio further assists researchers with AI-driven writing, offering support and enhancing the overall workflow. With Otio as your AI research and writing partner, you can experience a streamlined and efficient research process. 

Take advantage of Otio's features today and elevate your research and writing endeavors to new heights.

Related Reading

Personal Knowledge Management Software
Capacities Note Taking
Logseq Alternatives
Workflowy Alternatives
Roam Research Alternative
Roam Research Vs Notion
Apple Notes Second Brain
Reflect Note Taking
Reflect App Review
Heptabase Vs Obsidian
• Tana Pkm
• Heptabase Vs Scrintal
• Mem.ai Alternatives
• Mymind Alternative

Join thousands of other scholars and researchers

Join thousands of other scholars and researchers

Join thousands of other scholars and researchers