I’ve been an Evernote user since 2008 and hung on for dear life through the dire days of the past five years even as the software have become less useful for me (e.g. losing Applescript support, keyboard shortcuts, switching to Electron, etc.) At the same time, the software subscription has become more expensive and restrictive.
But a month or so ago, I finally switched to DevonThink and while the transition has been bumpy, I’m not going back. Today, I’m glad I did because the new owners of Evernote announced new features, but also new pricing. Whereas the Personal subscription was $45 two years ago, the new price for Personal will be $130 annually. At the same time, they’ve moved it away from being the storage and archiving tool it was good at being into a competitor to note-taking, collaborating, task and project management tools like Notion. Since that’s not something I need, I’m glad I left.
But I am sad at losing a tool that was so useful to me for so long.
The Keep Productive YouTube channel has an overview of all the changes announced this month.
UPDATE: Bending Spoons claims this is the first price increase in 7 years, which is technically true, although there was a grandfathering of a lower price for long-term users that expired last year so for me it’s the second price change in two years.
That guy looks extremely distressed in the thumbnail. Like, he’s just been through a battle in WWII. He probably needs therapy, possibly PTSD from whatever crisis he’s just survived.
I left as well, right before I was about to lose my affordable annual plan of 37 USD/year (I think that’s right). The prices were about to drastically rise and I’d already migrated all my notes off of Evernote in anticipation. Still, it was a bittersweet day to pull the plug after so many years. I cancelled/deleted my very old main account and a test account I used for a few years and never looked back. I’m not ready for DevonThink, I’m still floundering around in Apple Notes. That whole process is a project lower down in my priority list right now.
This was the last straw. My account is closed and deleted. It’s a shame. I was a customer from the time it was first launched on Windows, and then later on OS X. In the early years Evernote was innovative and indispensable, but like all software the innovation stopped, management lost its way, and here we are.
I may misunderstand your use case, but for what it is worth, I don’t consider Apple Notes to be a repository for documents like Evernote. Rather, AN is for notes, that can include documents. I store all research documents in DT, personal documents in the Finder, and use AN for notes, which again, can contain documents.
My subscription is still active until September. I’m able to migrate all of my notes to Bear but slowly and painfully transferring each to Craft. Craft still doesn’t have anything to compete against Evernote’s webclipper. While Bear can handle it, it copies everything on the web page and no way to just pick the main article.
My subscription expires in September, so I have 4 months to figure out where I’ll be migrating to. The killer feature for me has been connecting notes to calendar entries. I’m looking at Agenda or Craft as an alternative. Also, waiting to see what the rumored Apple Journal app looks like.
I renew in December so penty of time to make the switch, I don’t use evernote much anymore mostly becuase its so slow to launch on all of my macs but I do have a good amount of notes from the last 15 years, (That have backed up)
A few years ago when i looked to change it seemed like the best alternatives were Ulysses & Bear, I never see ulysses mentioend anymore and I liked the look of Bear but i remember not puling the trigger on it awhile back since people were complaning aobut a long beta.
Will keep an eye on this thread for where others end up.
It depends on how you use them. If you’re like me and a lot of early users of Evernote who used it primarily as a repository of archival information, then yes. But if you use it as a collaboration and note-taking tool as they seemed to have it moved it, then it’s more like Notion, Craft, and Trello.
I was a satisfied EN premium user for several years and it took a while to put together a package that works for me.
If you need a web clipper, check out GoodLinks If you need an everything bucket, you might like EagleFiler. And if you need web based storage with excellent search nothing, IMO, beats Google Drive.
Thanks. The missing piece for me was obtaining a URL for an Apple Note to include with the calendar entry. I have found that info now, so I believe I’ll be all in with Apple Notes. https://youtu.be/s-EbaMxgHpU
