Holding my breath. I have a lot of time invested in Evernote. I don’t mind the subscription.
FYI today The Verge offered its recommendations for notetaking apps. For most people they recommend OneNote, and for those in the Mac/iOS ecosystem they recommend Apple Notes. They give Evernote a cautious subordinate recommendation, calling the 2-device limit on the free plan too restrictive.
I mentioned Evernote above, which is a good alternative to OneNote. It costs $7.99 per month (or $70 per year) to unlock the full feature set. I generally prefer Evernote’s interface, which is simpler and more intuitive. Evernote has some atrocious features like one that puts related articles under your notes. It has also had a rocky few years in terms of overall app quality, so you’re taking a small leap of faith that the company will improve things in the near future.
Other apps mentioned include Simplenote, Zoho, Standard Notes, Notion, Bear, Ulysses, Google Keep, and IA Writer.
The Verge post as posted by @bowline…
Yes
I use an app that meets my current individual needs.
But
If I’m sharing words with my spouse, Notes works best for the two of us working in tandem.
And
When I used multiple platforms and had lots of stuff to sort and store Evernote was trapped
So
The obvious …needs differ.
Later in the Verge post Evernote was cited for having unnecessary features. Hurrump.
Not a bad article. I’ve used Evernote, Apple Notes, OneNote, and Google Keep and agree with many of their conclusions. Their statement that you can’t search within Keep is a bit misleading. You have full text search of everything in order to find a document, but you can’t search the individual document once it is open.
I can’t remember how many times I’ve tried and later abandoned Apple Notes. If it had a decent export function, and a way to backup and restore individual files it would be great for much of what I need.
But as long as I have to replace the current database (~Library/Group Containers/group.com.apple.notes) with a previous version in order to recover files deleted for more than 30 days, I can’t use it.
I use Keep a surprising amount, for little checklists. (It’s better than Notes and Todoist for that, for me at least, and I like app’s design with an open view of all lists - otherwise I’d probably use OmniOutliner.) The iOS app is fast and intuitive, and on the Mac I use the $5 KeepNotes from Notifyapp; it is basically a web wrapper but it can be used as a menubar app or a desktop app. )I use it full-screen in its own Space in macOS.) The app used to be in the Mac App Store but the dev said he pulled it because he could not quickly get updated approved through app-review (which sounds odd to me). At any rate I’ve been using it since 2017 without any problems, and might have to re-purchase it from the dev directly if the app gets any major new features of bugfixes.
I think the app is possibly the best included software Apple makes next to Garageband. It’s probably enough for most people, and the new folder sharing features are going to make a lot of more serious users take a second look at it. (Same with iCloud shared-folders coming to iOS 13/Catalina.).
For long-term notes storage I’m copying over to EagleFiler on the Mac, but I’d love to find one cross-platform iOS/macOS alternative. For now though nothing quite feels right for me yet in terms of features, UI and sync stability.
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I’ve been using Evernote for close to a decade and have found it to be super useful. I’m genuinely curious about the mistakes and issues that other users are referring to as I’ve luckily not encountered them.
I am intrigued that people would use and recommend Apple Notes as an alternative to Evernote. I use both but for different purposes; Apple Notes for jotting something down quickly and Evernote for keeping records and more important notes that I would like to keep and refer to over time. Both the apps serve different functions and IMHO Apple Notes is, at least for me, too barebones to be a true replacement for Evernote. This is not meant to be a criticism of Apple Notes as it does its job very well.
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Just done a small test with OneNote and Apple Notes as a comparison with Evernote. I have to say that OneNote seems good and is probably a reasonable replacement for EN. However, Apple Notes just seems so basic and lacking in the depth of functionality that Evernote provides.
I will be sticking with Evernote for now but remain very interested in the health of the company as I have a lot of info in my account that I do not want to lose.
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I ditched EN at the last price hike as I was fed up with the state of iOS app and moved to OneNote.
Price wise I’ve been able to get Office 365 for the whole family for less than the price of EN.
The clipper for OneNote is just as good as ENs - the only thing I missed was the sorting by date - but learnt to deal with it.
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DEVONthink - One time payment!
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I have just been using EN as a file cabinet functions especially for various owner’s manual. I find it’s search coming up with too many items but mainly its ability to share items and export items the main issue. By forcing others to use Evernote to look at any shared note and then only having EN file format or HTML as the only export options is limiting. I wish they would have a PDF export item.
I continue to use the MAC Skitch app for my screen captures of which they are only supporting the MAC App version.
The engagement of EN with their users needs improvement and it would be nice to see their future roadmap. EN’s web clipper is fantastic.
As stated I use it for file cabinet type functions. Scanning all receipts, bills and owner’s manuals but not as a knowledge base
Doesn’t Print > to PDF meet that bill?
I put PDF user manuals in iBooks and find I can easily scan single items or multipage documents to PDF with the Notes app. I used to use Evernote in the past but not since Notes went through its revamp.
Doesn’t Print > to PDF meet that bill?
You can, but the formatting is rubbish. And it would be one note at a time I guess.
@paulcg Yes indeed.
Notion claimed to have a way to import your whole Evernote notebook but that was a disaster.
I drive by the Evernote building many times and while a see a flurry of activity with Obsidian, Roam Research and REMNote with very lean personnel one has to wonder what the hell are the Dev’s doing at EN. So EN replaced their CEO in 2018. He did a communication then a year passes and this is his communication.
Pages and Pages of words that say little about anything. I mean these are the three top goals:
- We wanted to create a more coherent, more consistent Evernote experience; an experience that fixes the essential features on which all of us depend.
- We decided to change the way we develop and deliver software, so we can ship improvements and new features faster and with better quality.
- We committed to improving the core infrastructure that powers Evernote, so we can deliver a service with the speed, reliability, and scalability that all of us expect.
Nothing that you can hang your hat on, no wonder nothing is happening. What kind of roadmap is that? Contrast that to Obsidian
Obsidian Roadmap It is night and day.
Well maybe the demise of Evernote have bee greatly exaggerated, but there is an elephant in the room and EN looks like an episode of the “Walking Dead”
That’s not really true at all. If we take the CEO at his word, a lot has happened. Have you watched the behind the scene series at all? They’ve been doing a massive overhaul of their backend. There are multiple apps in preview mode right now, with some actively reaching beta mode. They forums there are very active (something that the notes episode of MPU) overlooked and said there isn’t a robust community around that app. I think they are far from a demise.
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Comparing Evernote, its market, customer base, and feature set, to Obsidian’s is perhaps not a fair analysis. And why should they be compared? Seems harsh. Or, somewhat like comparing Microsoft Word and Tot.
Well, they both store words in various languages.
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I did not mean to compare the market, customer base or feature set between Obsidian and Evernote just their looking at the way they communicate their roadmap and the taking of their customer base feedback.
Obsidian has taken the various customer’s requests such as filtering in graphics view and placed it in queue for future development.
I did watch some of behind the scenes at Evernote. They are focusing on yet another collaboration feature called “Spaces”. Who is asking for this? This field is already overcrowded with Miro/Teams already capturing a lot. How about developing go export capability which I am sure many are asking for without having the exportee’s having to join the EN eco system. Having the limited .enex and html is just too limited.
I will continue to use EN as the ultimate capturing tool (web clipper) as part of a capturing process that will then go to other processing software.
I like how Drafts has tagline “Where Text Starts” and EN should look at a similar “Where Knowledge Capture Starts” and focus on being the front end in the Knowledge capturing workflow.
I still love their screen shot capturing software “Skitch” that syncs with Evernote, but this has not been given a lot of love from EN whereas they stopped all support except for Mac.
I think the usage of “Spaces” will have the same engagement as Dropbox “Papers”
With EN effecting loosing all their upper management in one swoop a few years ago, it signals that the captain has left the ship.
Being a long-time customer I only pay $23 for an annual premium plan so I plan to stay onboard and hope for the best that they can expand their exporting capabilities.
One thing I see trending is many software companies engaging with their customer base through user forums such as DevonThink, Obsidian, Roam Research etc…
I think this is a smart move and would require little resources. A company like EN could dedicate one Remote employee to handle such communication.
Blogs are too one-sided.
I put a request into EN’s Twitter site let’s see if any response is forthcoming.
EN did provide a timely reply. So hopefully something is in the wings.
So if others can chime it for this option to Evernote’s team it may add weight to having this option addressed.
@D_Rehak how did you get $23 Annual Premium Plan. I have been with them for 10 years and still being charged the current price 
@sangadi it could have been possible two reasons.
One, I may have let the subscription lapse and sometimes companies will comeback with a discounted price.
BTW this is a good hack when you shop on the internet. Many sites have an abandoned app plug-in and the company will send some emails to try to close the shopping cart sale by offering one or two discounts a couple of days after the order was placed. The minimum would be a 10% discount.
Second, I reside between CA, USA, and Bangkok, Thailand so this renewal was done in Thailand so the pricing was in Malay Ringgit which is about 4 to 1 exchange rate to the USD.
Again using a VPN app like VPN Express can make you appear from South East Asia to see if there is a reduced rate.
Maybe a COVID-19 discount?
July is typically the worst month for online sales so many sales happen this month as well as on Black Friday. I bought my annual license for Teamviewer on Black Friday last year.
Today, I picked up a licensee for ACDSee for 60% off at $39.95 with discounts happening over a 3 month period.
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