Another major issue is that quick notes aren’t categorized by default, meaning that if you use Evernote to make lots of quick little notes, your file system in Evernote can quickly become a mess of Untitled Notes. Create Quick Note. Evernote allows the ability to take quick notes through the macOS.

• Evernote Quick Notes
• How To Use Evernote
• Onenote Import From Evernote
• Evernote How To Guide
• Evernote Onenote

Welcome to The Evernote Quick Start Guide Evernote is the heart of my productivity system. It's my digital brain and partner in crime. This course will help you master the Evernote basics in the easiest, most efficient way possible. Evernote Web Clipper Quick Start Guide. Evernote Web Clipper is a simple extension for your web browser that lets you capture full-page articles, images, selected text, important emails, and any web page that inspires you. Save everything to Evernote and keep it forever.

When note-taking app Evernote launched back in 2004, it was a bold, innovative software product that promised to help us remember… well, everything.

In 2004, Evernote was in the enviable position of being first-to-market. Evernote was among the very first software products to offer native apps for Windows, OS X, Android, and iOS. It was one of the first tools to offer cloud syncing as a baseline feature. The earliest versions of Evernote were incredibly generous in terms of how much storage users were given for free.

Fast-forward to today. Evernote is still around, but it’s a shadow of its former self. It’s much more expensive than it used to be. Some legacy bugs and stability issues still haven’t been fixed. Even Evernote’s Business plan offers very little value for teams.

Evernote Quick Notes

Now there are dozens of note-taking apps and organizational tools we can use to keep our digital lives in order. But which Evernote alternatives are worth looking at and which should you avoid?

That’s exactly what we’ll be looking at in this post.

Below, we explore three Evernote alternatives and offer a rundown of each. We’ve examined each tool’s strengths and weaknesses relative to Evernote. By the end of this post, you’ll have a much better idea of how these tools stack up and how they can help you organize your digital life.

Evernote Alternative #1: Bear

The first alternative to Evernote we’ll be looking at is Bear by app development studio Shiny Frog. Of the three Evernote alternatives we’ve reviewed, Bear is the “purest” note-taking app of them all.

How To Use Evernote

The first thing you’ll probably notice about Bear is that it looks a lot like a mash-up of Slack and a generic email client. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, the simplicity of Bear’s sleek, minimal UI––and its simplicity as a whole––is one of the app’s major selling points.

One of the biggest problems with Evernote in recent years is bloat. Bear was seemingly designed with this in mind. Bear might not have as many features as Evernote. But it runs a lot faster––so much faster that most long-time Evernote users will probably feel the difference immediately.

This is especially true on mobile. Bear’s mobile app, which is only available for iOS, feels a lot faster than Evernote. Its mobile UI is similarly quick, utilizing familiar slide-and-swipe gestures to sort, delete, and pin notes. The icons used throughout the app are intuitive and the app does a decent job of walking new users through its features.

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.

In terms of pricing, Bear’s free version is solid. Almost all of Bear’s core functionality is available without purchasing a Pro subscription. The one feature you may be tempted to pay for is the ability to sync Bear across multiple devices. This feature is not available in Bear’s free version, nor are Bear’s custom themes and export options. Generally, though, Bear’s free version will probably be enough for casual users.

Now that we’ve taken a look at Bear, let’s summarize the pros and cons.

Bear: Pros

Bear is a quick, lightweight note-taking app that looks and feels great. Here’s what we really liked about it:

• Clean, elegant UI
• Great mobile functionality
• Flexible hashtag organization
• Fast, responsive search function
• Linking between notes

Bear: Cons

No software product is without its faults. Here’s where we thought Bear fell short:

• 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

If you’re an Apple user, Bear is a lightweight, capable note-taking tool that offers much of the functionality of Evernote without the bloat. But it’s a shame that Android and Windows users have been left out in the cold.

Evernote Alternative #2: Notion

Some people might argue that comparing Evernote to Notion isn’t really fair. After all, Evernote is primarily a note-taking app aimed at individuals, whereas Notion is an all-in-one workspace designed for teams.

Although this is true, it’s also fair to say that––for better or worse––Evernote has become much more than a note-taking app since it launched in 2004. It’s also fair to say that Notion has become one of Evernote’s greatest competitors.

Notion is built on the idea of Blocks. Everything in a Notion workspace is a Block. Paragraphs of text, images, embedded spreadsheets or calendars, to-do lists––all of these elements can be added to a single Notion “page” as individual Blocks that make up a workspace. This concept of Blocks is what makes Notion so powerful. A Notion workspace can be whatever you need it to be.

The biggest difference between Evernote and Notion is that Notion was built for teams from the outset. Evernote tried––and largely failed––to make the leap from a personal tool aimed at consumers to a collaborative tool aimed at teams. Notion, however, was designed with teams in mind. Notion’s collaboration features are very strong. Items can be shared with and assigned to team members. Notifications can be set to alert multiple users of pending meetings, deadlines, or urgent tasks. Changes made to one Block can cascade throughout workspaces. In this way, Notion is closer to tools like Airtable that utilize relational databases than a mere note-taking application.

For all its strengths, Notion has two fundamental weaknesses. The first is its flexibility. Although Notion can do pretty much whatever you want it to, that flexibility can make Notion intimidating to newcomers. Even creating a simple note brings up half a dozen potential templates to choose from. This makes Notion less than ideal for taking quick notes in a hurry. The second drawback is Notion’s speed. Notion is a very powerful tool. Unfortunately, this means that the tool as a whole can feel sluggish at times. This can feel especially painful on mobile.

Pricing-wise, Notion is reasonable. Notion’s free version is decent, but has a 1,000-block limit and an upload restriction of just 5MB. Notion is also available on Personal and Team plans, priced at $4 and $8 per month respectively. Notion also offers an Enterprise tier aimed at larger teams priced at $20 per user per month with a dedicated support manager.

Now let’s talk pros and cons.

Notion: Pros

We like Notion a lot. What does it get right?

• Very reasonable pricing
• Flexible, diverse toolset with broad functionality
• Clean, minimal UI
• Strong collaborative features

Notion: Cons

Notion is a capable tool but it isn’t perfect. Where could Notion improve?

• Not ideal for taking quick notes on the fly
• Learning curve can be steeper than that of comparable tools
• Can feel sluggish at times, particularly on mobile

Evernote Alternative #3: OneNote

The third Evernote competitor we’ll be looking at is Microsoft’s OneNote, a deceptively capable note-taking app that can do a lot more besides.

OneNote is unique in that it looks like a classically Microsoft product but feels like a blend of Evernote and Notion. Open OneNote and you’re presented with an unmistakably Microsoft interface that looks very similar to Outlook and Office. However, that’s where the similarities end.

Once you get past the familiar toolbar navigation at the top of the screen, you’ll notice that OneNote uses a blended notebook/tab system as its primary organizational scheme. First you have Notebooks, which are listed in the left-most column. Each Notebook can be broken down into distinct Sections. Finally, each Section can have multiple Pages, which function similarly to Notion’s freeform workspaces.

This is a little more complex than OneNote’s old tab system, but it’s still easy enough to see where you are in your OneNote file system at a quick glance. You can also add tags to individual elements within OneNote to keep track of your stuff.

Once you drill down into OneNote’s workspaces, you’ll find they’re as flexible and powerful as Notion’s workspaces. Similarly to Notion, OneNote allows you to add many different elements to a workspace. You can add images (including handwritten notes), checklists, media files, and file attachments to OneNote’s spaces. In this regard, OneNote feels much closer to a real notebook than Notion does. OneNote also supports simultaneous editing by multiple users. There’s a little lag between user input and edits displaying in real time, but it’s hardly a dealbreaker.

Onenote Import From Evernote

Like Evernote’s popular Web Clipper, OneNote allows you to save content from virtually any page and store it in OneNote. You can clip a single image or entire webpage, including PDFs. Clipped items can be categorized, tagged, and stored like any other item. This makes OneNote a very capable tool for researchers and users working across a wide range of source material.

In terms of pricing, OneNote is unique in that the product itself is completely free. It doesn’t even have a premium or pro tier. Instead, storage in OneNote is connected directly to a user’s OneDrive account. This is a blessing and a curse. If you’re already using OneDrive, you’re probably already using OneNote, too. If you aren’t using OneDrive, though, switching to another cloud storage provider is quite an ask. OneNote allows you to export notes to virtually every major productivity tool including G Suite, but the connection to OneDrive is its biggest weakness.

Now, let’s see what OneNote gets right and where it could use some improvement.

OneNote: Pros

OneNote looks like a Microsoft product but doesn’t feel like one. Here’s what we liked about OneNote:

• Smart, intuitive organizational structure
• Powerful, flexible workspaces
• Great for casual/quick note-taking
• Solid collaboration and sharing functionality
• Integrations with most major products and services
• Completely free to use

OneNote: Cons

OneNote is a strong Evernote alternative, but it isn’t perfect. Here’s what disappointed us about OneNote:

• No longer any dedicated desktop app; OneNote for Windows 10 is now the default OneNote experience in both Office 365 and Office 2019
• Microsoft OneDrive account required
• No advanced security options/two-factor authentication

Making the Switch from Evernote

Even ten years ago, it would have been difficult to imagine not just one, but several, software products threatening Evernote’s dominance. Evernote isn’t a bad product––it’s just not nearly as good as it used to be.

Fortunately for users, Evernote’s loss is their gain. There’s never been a better time to make the switch from Evernote to a competing tool. That said, there are some users who would probably benefit from sticking with Evernote. All three of the tools above make it easy to import notebooks and notes from Evernote. However, unless you urgently need any of the functionality Evernote lacks, it might be worth sticking with Evernote.

Most note-taking apps do the same things. Save and organize digital notes. Search saved notes, clippings, and files. Sync across multiple devices.

Evernote and Microsoft OneNote both do all these things and more. Both tools let you save typed or handwritten notes, organize your notes into individual notebooks, and clip images, paragraphs of text, and even entire web pages as clippings for later viewing.

What’s interesting about both Evernote and OneNote is that, unlike email, document apps, or even instant messaging tools, note-taking apps aren’t often a core part of most work environments. You don’t necessarily need Evernote or OneNote the way you literally need email. They might not be essential, but they are useful.

But which of these tools is better?

Below, we’ve examined Evernote and OneNote in depth to see which note-taking tool reigns supreme. We looked at several individual categories, and we’ve made our recommendation toward the end of the post.

On the surface, there doesn’t appear to be much difference between Evernote and OneNote. Look a little closer, though, and the differences start to become more obvious. Let’s look at how the two apps compare in terms of:

• Organization
• Storage
• Search
• Pricing
• Overall user satisfaction

Organization: Winner = Draw

Both Evernote and OneNote rely on the notebook convention to describe how the two tools manage file organization.

Evernote organizes items into Notebook Stacks > Notebooks > Notes. OneNote uses a similar convention of Notebooks > Sections > Pages.

In addition to their central notebook conventions, both Evernote and OneNote also feature tag systems. Evernote’s tags function similarly to tags in WordPress. You can add a tag to any note and search by tags to find thematically relevant notes.

OneNote’s tags work very differently. They’re a lot more interactive and can be used for lots of different things. For example, you can add Reminder tags to a note to be reminded at specific dates and times. OneNote comes with more than 20 preset tags, from To-Do items and Client Requests to Music to Listen to and Book to Read. There’s even a Password tag.

Unlike Evernote, which limits tag placement to the Notes level, OneNote tags can be applied to any organizational element. Any Notebooks, Sections, or Pages in OneNote can have tags applied to them. You can add multiple tags to multiple elements on a page. For example, you could add a Contact tag to an image of a business card you uploaded after a meeting, a Reminder tag to follow up with that person at a specific date and time, and a Client Request tag to the action items you need to prepare for that meeting.

One of the biggest problems with Evernote is that the program itself can become sluggish once you reach a certain number of notebooks. Another major issue is that quick notes aren’t categorized by default, meaning that if you use Evernote to make lots of quick little notes, your file system in Evernote can quickly become a mess of Untitled Notes. For a tool that’s supposed to help us make sense of the information in our lives, this can be frustratingly counterintuitive.

I wouldn’t say tags in Evernote are “better” than tags in OneNote or vice-versa. It all depends on which system feels right to you and aligns with what you want from the tool.

Storage: Winner = OneNote

If you intend to use Evernote or OneNote simply to record your thoughts, storage isn’t that important. Individual text notes are tiny in terms of file size. So you don’t need to worry as much about running out of space.

If you intend to save a lot of documents and files, though, storage becomes a lot more important.

In terms of storage, Evernote is quite permissive but does have some hard restrictions:

• Evernote freemium accounts can have a maximum of 100,000 notes with a file-size restriction of 25MB per note. Premium subscribers can upload or capture notes up to 100MB in size.
• Evernote limits users to a maximum of 250 notebooks synced across a user’s account.
• Evernote restricts users to a maximum of 10,000 tags.
• Evernote allows users to save up to 100 searches.
• Evernote freemium accounts are limited to just 60MB of uploaded data per month, premium users to 10GB, and business users to 20GB.

Evernote’s maximum number of notes, notebooks, and tags is fairly generous. But the 60MB upload limit is very harsh. Even casual users are likely to run up against this restriction pretty quickly, especially when working with larger files such as high-resolution images.

Evernote retired its Plus tier in April 2018, which had a 1GB upload restriction. This forces users to choose between the limitations of the Free plan or 10GB of storage in the Premium plan. There’s no longer any middle ground between these two extremes––a 5GB limit would have been a solid compromise for many users.

OneNote handles storage completely differently:

• OneNote’s storage limits are connected directly to a user’s Microsoft OneDrive account; there are no restrictions on how many individual notes a OneNote user can save.
• OneNote Basic accounts offer individual uploaded file size restrictions of 25MB. Both Premium and Business subscribers are limited to uploads of up to 200MB per file––twice the size of Evernote’s maximum file size.
• OneNote’s free mobile version restricts users to 500 synced notes before prompting users to upgrade.
• Although the maximum file size you can upload to OneDrive is 15GB, the maximum file size you can upload to OneNote is 2GB.

The biggest problem with Evernote in terms of storage is the lack of a middle option. It’s either 60MB a month or 10GB a month. This makes sense for Evernote––Evernote’s harsh upload limits on its Basic plan are a powerful motivation to upgrade––but it doesn’t make sense for users.

OneNote’s reliance on OneDrive for storage is a blessing and a curse. It helps keep OneNote largely free and offers generous storage and upload limits. But it also forces prospective OneNote users to sign up for a OneDrive account. This isn’t ideal if users prefer a different cloud storage provider or don’t want to migrate from Google Drive or Dropbox to OneDrive.

If you plan on using either of these tools for simple note-taking, storage won’t be as important. If you need to save larger files or upload a lot of data, OneNote is the clear winner.

Search: Winner = Evernote

Note-taking apps help us record our thoughts. They’re somewhere for our random observations to live. If we can’t find our notes quickly and easily, then there’s not much point in saving anything. This makes search critically important.

When it comes to finding things, Evernote’s search functionality is solid. You can search by keyword or strings, as well as other search criteria such as where and when a note was created, media or attachment filetypes (such as PDFs, images, or audio files), and the people associated with or tagged in a note. Evernote also boasts a wide range of search modifiers that Google power users will find familiar.

OneNote’s search functionality isn’t quite as robust as Evernote’s search. OneNote’s search functionality can feel faster than Evernote’s (especially if you have a lot of notes stored) but offers fewer search operands. You won’t see OneNote’s Notebook search option unless those Notebooks are stored in OneDrive. And you can’t search across all notebooks using OneNote’s web version.

Pricing: Winner = OneNote

With Evernote’s Plus tier no longer available, Evernote has three levels of pricing:

• Basic (free)
• Premium ($7.99 per month)
• Business ($14.99 per user, per month)

Evernote’s Basic plan will probably be fine for casual users. For even moderate use, however, it’s not really viable due to Evernote’s upload restrictions. It’s worth remembering that this only really applies if you’re going to be saving lots of files and documents.

Evernote’s Premium plan lacks the restrictions of the Basic plan and offers a decent monthly upload limit. But at almost $96 for the year, it’s far from cheap––especially when OneNote offers so much for free.

Evernote’s Business plan is the most robust of Evernote’s plans. Although cost isn’t likely to be as important a factor for larger companies or enterprise teams, it’s still a considerable expense, especially as the number of users increases.

OneNote, on the other hand, is free. It isn’t even available as a premium version. All you have to decide is how much OneDrive storage you’ll need if any.

Microsoft’s basic plan, which offers 50GB of OneDrive storage, costs just $1.99 per month or $23.88 annually. For $6.99 per month, or $69.99 per year, you get 1,000GB of storage and access to Office 365 Personal edition.

Even if you don’t need Office or 1,000GB of storage, it’s still cheaper than Evernote’s Premium plan.

Overall User Satisfaction: Winner = Draw

Evernote and OneNote score comparably in terms of overall user satisfaction.

According to G2, a website that ranks software products by user reviews and Net Promoter Score (NPS), both Evernote and OneNote perform strongly. Evernote was named a Leader product by G2 in spring 2019 and received an overall rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars across 1,352 user reviews.

OneNote was ranked as one of the Top 100 Software Products of 2019 by G2 and also received an overall rating of 4.4 stars out of 5 across 1,110 user reviews.

Technically, OneNote edges out Evernote––but only just. Evernote received slightly more one-, two-, and three-star reviews than OneNote did, and OneNote received slightly fewer reviews in general. Although this means OneNote beats Evernote narrowly in terms of user satisfaction, it’s too close to be conclusive, so we’re going to call it a draw.

Our Recommendation for Evernote vs. OneNote

Now that we’ve examined each tool in a little more depth, it’s time to declare a winner.

Taking everything into consideration, we have to recommend OneNote.

OneNote gives you everything Evernote can do for a fraction of the price. If you want to do more with your notes, such as add to-do lists and reminders, OneNote can do that, too. If you just want to take simple text-based notes and find them quickly, Evernote might be a better bet.

Evernote is a highly capable tool with a broad range of use cases. However, as a product, Evernote has lost its way in recent years. And it’s very hard to justify the cost when OneNote offers virtually identical functionality at a fraction of the price.

But it’s not just about cost. There’s more to it than that.

Aside from its dependence on OneDrive, OneNote is the clear winner for business users. It looks and feels like other Microsoft products. Some might see this as a negative, but it actually reduces the learning curve.

OneNote is also far superior for combining multiple types of information on the same page. For example, you can create a to-do list, add an image or table, and jot down some notes all on the same page. OneNote’s drag-and-drop interface, tabbed tagging system, and familiar toolbars make OneNote feel like Office might if Microsoft had acquired Notion.

Evernote looks and feels very sleek, but its performance and stability issues are problematic. Evernote has done an admirable job of doubling down on product quality, but some of these bugs have been around for years. For a premium product with a price tag to match, these frustrations are hard to justify.

In terms of writing and editing tools, Evernote has never positioned itself as a document tool. That said, its writing and document-editing tools are sorely limited. Creating quick notes feels anything but and highlights how poor Evernote’s default organizational structure can be. It doesn’t support markdown or HTML either.

Similarly, Evernote is a powerful tool but does a poor job of onboarding new users. Evernote’s tag system is much more flexible and useful than its default notebooks schema. It’s baffling why Evernote would almost completely overlook this aspect of its organizational structure in its learning resources and tutorials.

Of course, Evernote does do a few things better than OneNote.

One aspect of Evernote that really shines compared to OneNote is Evernote’s Web Clipper. This handy tool is available as a separate browser extension and allows users to quickly clip and save almost anything they find online. You can clip entire web pages as they appear, as simplified versions without images and special formatting, and even save web pages as PDF documents. OneNote’s clipper is fine, but it does struggle to preserve line breaks and other formatting rules. Evernote’s Web Clipper also offers “smart” recommendations on where clipped items should be saved based on analysis of their contents. This feature is a little rudimentary and isn’t always accurate, but it’s a nice feature.

Both Evernote and OneNote drop the ball when it comes to security. Evernote users can manually encrypt specific highlighted excerpts of text, but Evernote does not allow users to encrypt notebooks or even individual notes. OneNote doesn’t encrypt anything unless you’re a Business user. Granted, most people probably don’t need 256-bit AES encryption of their notes. But that’s beside the point––especially if you’re paying almost $100 a year for Evernote Premium.

Should I Ever Choose Evernote Over OneNote?

Evernote How To Guide

At this point, the only real reason to choose Evernote over OneNote is if you’ve already been using it for some time and don’t want to go to the trouble of exporting your notes to OneNote.

Evernote Onenote

If you’re thinking of using Evernote or OneNote for the first time, we have to recommend OneNote every time.