It's pretty interesting to see the downfall of what was once THE note taking app. The title of the article feels pretty accurate, Evernote went from being something I heard about constantly in...
It's pretty interesting to see the downfall of what was once THE note taking app. The title of the article feels pretty accurate, Evernote went from being something I heard about constantly in university and used regularly myself, to something I didn't even realize was still around.
I've personally moved over to keep when it seemed like they were becoming more and more hostile to their user base, and eventually moved to a combination of Notion and Todoist these days. I've found Notion is much more of the "external brain" Evernote was trying to be with its almost personal website style format, and Todoist is much better for keeping track of to-do lists and steps of projects.
I use Joplin as an "external brain", because it is open source and uses Markdown. This means that I will never loose those notes, because I can always use Joplin or read the Markdown files and...
I use Joplin as an "external brain", because it is open source and uses Markdown. This means that I will never loose those notes, because I can always use Joplin or read the Markdown files and that is a very important point for me. I've also heard good things about Obsidian: it uses Markdown too but is closed source so I am hesitant to use it
Arguably yes. The developers can make unpopular decisions about the future direction of the software, or decide to stop working on it entirely, leaving users with limited options for continuing to...
Arguably yes. The developers can make unpopular decisions about the future direction of the software, or decide to stop working on it entirely, leaving users with limited options for continuing to use the software. (How limited the options are depend a lot on specifics of the software itself.) Being open source means that someone else can, at least theoretically, pick up the software and continue developing it.
(edit: I should point out that I'm speaking above about closed vs. open source software in general... and from what I've learned in this thread, if Obsidian vanished today, users who are at least a bit technical would be in a pretty decent position re: the content of their notes.)
Because Obsidian uses text, it would be trivial to keep using a vault from another program. For example, using an Emacs mode to search through the notes and create new ones.
Because Obsidian uses text, it would be trivial to keep using a vault from another program. For example, using an Emacs mode to search through the notes and create new ones.
Logseq and Obsidian are quite different. They have different goals and means to achieve them, and while there's certainly an overlap of features and users, they truly can't be called equivalent....
Logseq and Obsidian are quite different. They have different goals and means to achieve them, and while there's certainly an overlap of features and users, they truly can't be called equivalent.
Logseq is an outliner - each line is a bullet point, a "block", and blocks are their base unit of information. Their UI is built around that, and they heavily nudge users to just dump data in daily notes with links and tags. Each dedicated page, even when empty, will then display those linked/tagged blocks and all their descendants. Its kinda weird to explain, but it works well if you get their workflow.
Obsidian is truly a note taking app, their base unit of information are pages. It can't really work as an outliner, and is not opinionated at all. Your organize your stuff how you see fit. They also heavily rely on their rich plugin ecosystem. They also have an excellentcanvas feature, something that is IMO sorely missing in Logseq.
I use both apps in different contexts - Logseq for work notes, Obsidian as a personal wiki - because they both have different strengths.
I write my notes 100% in markdown, and you can export everything as markdown. I haven't noticed anything being lost in that process. But yes, the "working copy" of everything you write is logseq...
I write my notes 100% in markdown, and you can export everything as markdown.
I haven't noticed anything being lost in that process. But yes, the "working copy" of everything you write is logseq blocks.
I switched from Joplin to Obsidian for the simple reason that Obsidian "databases" are just a directory of markdown files. I can sync it with anything, I can use any editor on it, I can import...
I switched from Joplin to Obsidian for the simple reason that Obsidian "databases" are just a directory of markdown files.
I can sync it with anything, I can use any editor on it, I can import them to any other software.
Joplin on the other hand uses it's own database format to save files, which isn't optimal for longevity.
While I understand the benefit to keeping your notes in a structured folder of markdown files, it's worth noting (for someone who may casually read this) that Joplin does have one-click "export...
While I understand the benefit to keeping your notes in a structured folder of markdown files, it's worth noting (for someone who may casually read this) that Joplin does have one-click "export every note to markdown." It's easy to read this and get the impression that Joplin notes are somehow locked away from the user.
Most programs have some kind of export, it's mostly a given. I've been bitten by "export" functionality from custom formats too many times, it tends to not work like you want it to or doesn't...
Most programs have some kind of export, it's mostly a given.
I've been bitten by "export" functionality from custom formats too many times, it tends to not work like you want it to or doesn't export everything. If that doesn't bother someone then Joplin is a good solution.
I prefer my notes to be in a standard format at all times.
I have used the exportfunctionality of Joplin many times and it works like a charm. The only thing that has to be converted is the name of the file and the directorystructure, because all Joplin...
+1 for Joplin. Also worth mentioning you can E2EE your notes. I host my notes on 1TB OneDrive which effectively removes storage limits in any practical sense for notes, and secure from prying eyes.
+1 for Joplin. Also worth mentioning you can E2EE your notes. I host my notes on 1TB OneDrive which effectively removes storage limits in any practical sense for notes, and secure from prying eyes.
interesting you should mention the website style format, im using an app called anytype , which intends to be part of the web in a new way and as much as I love it, the learning curve feels very...
interesting you should mention the website style format, im using an app called anytype , which intends to be part of the web in a new way
and as much as I love it, the learning curve feels very high to me.
I always come back to keep, but let's face it, it's messy lol. very limited too (though i dont mind it , i like to throw ideas around quickly, like on a piece of paper), and there is no offline app for desktop (be it windows or macOS) ...
so yeah, still trying to find something that resembles apple notes and works offline first. considering buying an iphone solely for apple notes , crazy I know
The offline first functionality is definitely the hardest thing to find. Notions lack of an offline mode is the biggest reason I still pay attention to the organization/productivity space. I'm...
The offline first functionality is definitely the hardest thing to find. Notions lack of an offline mode is the biggest reason I still pay attention to the organization/productivity space. I'm always hoping for a new alternative that is slightly less complicated and more offline friendly.
Google Keep is an okay apple notes alternative, but the lack of updates for years and years and Googles track record for killing apps is always worrying.
I recommend FSNotes for offline-first text-based notes :) fast and lightweight sync across desktop and mobile free and open source markdown support cross-note links tags and nested tags
I recommend FSNotes for offline-first text-based notes :)
Thanks to what I found in this discussion, I just now installed Joplin and Todoist on My Linux mint desktop, Linux mint laptop, and android phone. They work great and sync through Dropbox. I only...
Thanks to what I found in this discussion, I just now installed Joplin and Todoist on My Linux mint desktop, Linux mint laptop, and android phone. They work great and sync through Dropbox. I only recently switched from Windows to Linux and was having trouble finding apps to replace their Todo and Onenote. Looks like I'm finally going to be able to send the last of my Windows relics to the dustbin. Thanks to all who posted here.
Not too surprising, they'd been enshittifying (word of the year 2023 right there) their product for years. I actually just jumped ship to a self-hosted Joplin setup. It's not perfect but it is...
Not too surprising, they'd been enshittifying (word of the year 2023 right there) their product for years.
I actually just jumped ship to a self-hosted Joplin setup. It's not perfect but it is actively developed and FOSS, and it gets the job done.
Very simply, it was once free to use, and while basic functions are still free to use, they've designed and designated premium functions which are monetized on a subscription model. Every time you...
Very simply, it was once free to use, and while basic functions are still free to use, they've designed and designated premium functions which are monetized on a subscription model. Every time you open the goddamn app it tries to get you to pay a subscription. The ads they have are only their own but it really did frustrate the experience to take simple notes.
I vaguely remember that, at one point, they removed the (perfectly working) native OS X app and moved to an electron (or other web technology embedding a browser), trading quality (and features)...
I vaguely remember that, at one point, they removed the (perfectly working) native OS X app and moved to an electron (or other web technology embedding a browser), trading quality (and features) for a cheaper development. Sorry for the lack of details, it was many years ago…
A few years ago I use to drive by the Evernote offices and think it was pretty cool (back when Evernote was big). A great reminder that these kinda of companies come and go all the time. Some last...
A few years ago I use to drive by the Evernote offices and think it was pretty cool (back when Evernote was big). A great reminder that these kinda of companies come and go all the time. Some last longer than others, but power always shifts. One day Notion will also be a forgotten memory.
But how come the big tech always stays despite not producing anything cool in so many years? Are they just reaping the early mover advantage or is there something more to this power balance?
But how come the big tech always stays despite not producing anything cool in so many years? Are they just reaping the early mover advantage or is there something more to this power balance?
You'll have to define "big tech", and "cool" to get a good answer to that. There have been large tech companies that have failed, and a few more that are on the Evernote stagnation path. Off the...
You'll have to define "big tech", and "cool" to get a good answer to that.
There have been large tech companies that have failed, and a few more that are on the Evernote stagnation path. Off the top of my head, Research In Motion, former makers of the BlackBerry, is a recent one whose sales and share of the market have plummeted to a shadow of their self. Nortel Networks was one of the largest telecom manufacturers in the world until they went bankrupt in 2009. IBM has been seen as stagnant for years, and in my opinion, only bolstered by enterprise lock-in and sales tactics. Snapchat's stock price has been reduced to a tenth of what it was during the pandemic, and are likely dead in the water unless they find a hail mary. Twitter was near-profitable before the buyout by Elon Musk, and has seen its valuation cut heavily -- the same with Reddit's valuation by Fidelity come to think of it. Uber is pretty successful in certain respects, but also has reported massive financial losses every year since its inception. The recent string of crypto companies I hesitate to count as big tech, but are adjacent enough that I'll include FTX and Binance.
"Cool" is a matter of opinion. Apple is putting out an insane (and insanely priced) VR headset, Oculus/Meta has been putting out low cost headsets for years. All of the big players have been improving and releasing their large language models (e.g. ChatGPT). The last few years have seen the release of several large short-form video platforms (TikTok, Instagram Reels, Youtube Shorts) that have gained a ton of traction. Self-driving cars are being used every day. We're all consuming streaming TV, movies, music, even games.
But past that I'm going to make a hasty assumption that you meant something like Google, whose main moneymaker is a combination of search and an ad platform they control (on both the supply and demand sides too), which prints an unlimited amount of money they can use to fund other ventures, until it dries up, and then they'll have to adapt. Amazon makes most of their money on AWS, again another money printer. Microsoft makes a killing off of Office 365 and their enterprise offerings like that.
You're forgetting one of the most influential ones in the history of computing: Bell Laboratories. If you measure success by profit, then they probably wouldn't count, since they were a strategic...
You're forgetting one of the most influential ones in the history of computing: Bell Laboratories. If you measure success by profit, then they probably wouldn't count, since they were a strategic endeavor. Through bad management, they went from one of the most influential institutions in the world (in many areas of science) to a shadow of itself. A string of mergers and acquisitions saw them changing hands constantly, many of their super stars left, some even across the river, to New York, to big tech companies' campuses in the city or founded their own companies.
Big tech usually has a broad portfolio. If one segment slows, they usually have enough stability and other produce lines to stay afloat. They also have the money for R&D to try new things until...
Big tech usually has a broad portfolio. If one segment slows, they usually have enough stability and other produce lines to stay afloat. They also have the money for R&D to try new things until they find something profitable. Evernote was a one-trick pony in a saturated market and didn't do anything to keep up with the competitors in their market.
As others are saying, I used to be a heavy user of Evernote. I even had the paid version when they first introduced it. But then they kept introducing higher tiers and moving features behind...
As others are saying, I used to be a heavy user of Evernote. I even had the paid version when they first introduced it. But then they kept introducing higher tiers and moving features behind bigger paywalls. You'd pay more money for some features and then a year or two later, they'd do the same, introduced more features but put them behind a higher tiered paywall.
Then I switched to Joplin and haven't looked back.
I still remember its green and white widget on my phone. I think I stopped using it when they put a lot of their features behind a paywall and required subscriptions.
I still remember its green and white widget on my phone. I think I stopped using it when they put a lot of their features behind a paywall and required subscriptions.
Exactly when I did as well. Honestly in this day and age it would have been fine, but back then the idea of paying a monthly sub for an app was bewildering.
Exactly when I did as well. Honestly in this day and age it would have been fine, but back then the idea of paying a monthly sub for an app was bewildering.
I think I first heard about it from the Tim Ferris blog, back in the day when I was sure I’d come up with the next big thing. It’d fun to go back and see what I still have stored on there, it has...
I think I first heard about it from the Tim Ferris blog, back in the day when I was sure I’d come up with the next big thing. It’d fun to go back and see what I still have stored on there, it has been at least 5 years since I’ve touched it.
I feel like the only user who uses it here, but I switched from Evernote (2014?)-> OneNote & Word -> Obsidian -> Notesnook. If anyone is looking for something similar to Evernote, and less like a...
I feel like the only user who uses it here, but I switched from Evernote (2014?)-> OneNote & Word -> Obsidian -> Notesnook.
If anyone is looking for something similar to Evernote, and less like a document organizer (such as Obsidian) - then Notesnook is the closest thing to a true Evernote competitor, along with being open source, heavily developed (seriously, I've never seen an OSS project release and fix so many things so quickly), a great web clipper, and entirely end-to-end encrypted. If anyone is looking for something that is similar to Evernote, I would suggest checking it out.
Noteshook looks interesting. Free version is quite limited, and I can't find good screenshots of desktop GUI. Could you tell me, does Noteshook supports tree structure of tags like Evernote do?
Noteshook looks interesting. Free version is quite limited, and I can't find good screenshots of desktop GUI. Could you tell me, does Noteshook supports tree structure of tags like Evernote do?
Not sure on iOS, but on Android it's spectacular. Loads fast, syncs incredibly quickly, all the features of desktop are there. They use React Native so I believe the two mobile platforms share...
Not sure on iOS, but on Android it's spectacular. Loads fast, syncs incredibly quickly, all the features of desktop are there. They use React Native so I believe the two mobile platforms share nearly all the same code.
Yeah it's on their roadmap , and one of the more requested features. Developers have said they are working on it and will release "soon", but no ETA yet.
Yeah it's on their roadmap , and one of the more requested features. Developers have said they are working on it and will release "soon", but no ETA yet.
The funny thing is that they were one of if not the first of these mobile apps to go with the subscription model, I remember all the shit they got for that from people/articles and now...
The funny thing is that they were one of if not the first of these mobile apps to go with the subscription model, I remember all the shit they got for that from people/articles and now subscription is the norme.
I used Evernote up until yesterday, when I exported out my main notebook (again, to get the latest version), and imported it into Joplin. I went with Joplin because it's free and open source, but...
I used Evernote up until yesterday, when I exported out my main notebook (again, to get the latest version), and imported it into Joplin. I went with Joplin because it's free and open source, but also because it was totally painless to migrate my huge amount of notes from Evernote, including tags.
I guess I might migrate to something else later, but for now, I feel like I've escaped from the sinking Evernote ship quite nicely. I find that an elegant note-taking app is essential to me these days. I knew a while back that Evernote was basically closing shop over time, so I just needed to find a way to transition away.
I also use Joplin because I don't want to worry about losing my notes. The fact that it uses Markdown helps, because it means you can always resort to reading your notes as plain text.
I also use Joplin because I don't want to worry about losing my notes. The fact that it uses Markdown helps, because it means you can always resort to reading your notes as plain text.
I remember using it a lot. Then one day, I logged in, and everything became 100x more complicated to use. It seems like all these productivity apps want to be everything for everyone. They...
I remember using it a lot. Then one day, I logged in, and everything became 100x more complicated to use. It seems like all these productivity apps want to be everything for everyone. They should've chilled out and realized that all we wanted was basically a Notes app but for Android.
Urghs... FSNotes looks really nice, but no linking between notes... reaaallly? I used to be an evernote user, but stopped when they got aggressive with the pay to win. Since then I used almost...
Urghs...
FSNotes looks really nice, but no linking between notes... reaaallly?
I used to be an evernote user, but stopped when they got aggressive with the pay to win.
Since then I used almost everything - here is my breakdown:
Application
Pro
What is missing
Dropbox Paper
I already use and pay for dropbox
Navigation sucks, unclear if this will survive or die
Bear
Sweet UI
no web-interface
Obsidian
Graphs, 24549870943 ways to organize your notes
Horrible mobile UI, very cluttered, no web interface, a lot of functionality in plugins which might be discontinued/abandoned
Notion
Really nice way to build an own system
Too slow, no easy export/copypaste
loqseq
No web-interface
joplin
No web interface
OneNote
Available at work, comes with M$ 364.5
No nested folders
The need for a web-interface comes from not being allowed to install software on my PC at work. (City IT)
A windows client is nice, but not needed if a web interface is available.
Oh, I didn't forget. I dropkicked it into the bin. I was unhappy with their decisions for awhile, but having a web login count as a device was, weirdly, the last straw for me. I use Joplin and I'm...
Oh, I didn't forget. I dropkicked it into the bin.
I was unhappy with their decisions for awhile, but having a web login count as a device was, weirdly, the last straw for me. I use Joplin and I'm trying out Obsidian-- and they're beautiful. No web interface since I bounce around computers a lot, but I'll make do.
Hmm, unlike a lot of others here, I’m using it for its document management capabilities, but haven’t seen anything obvious to replace it, as yet… I’ve got it embedded into my scanning workflow,...
Hmm, unlike a lot of others here, I’m using it for its document management capabilities, but haven’t seen anything obvious to replace it, as yet…
I’ve got it embedded into my scanning workflow, such that a scanned document is converted to pdf and automatically sent to Evernote for import (and separately the pdf is archived to a cloud drive). In Evernote, it’s automatically OCR’d so I can search for string (and periodically I go through the Inbox to tag the docs). I don’t refer to it all that often , but it’s been occasionally useful to be able to find info that otherwise is in a pile of physical papers, enough so that I’ve paid for the personal subscription.
Having said that, I’d be interested if anyone has suggestions of alternatives to take a look at?
I’ll be looking for something to replace it, any suggestions? I know a few have been named here already but for my specific needs… I’m looking for a cloud-synced tool I can use to share my notes...
I’ll be looking for something to replace it, any suggestions? I know a few have been named here already but for my specific needs… I’m looking for a cloud-synced tool I can use to share my notes with a household. Think for keeping grocery lists up to date. I also appreciate the way I could organize Evernote notes into notebooks.
I have a few notes with media in them so it would be nice to keep those around. Generally I’m not using the advanced features of Evernote. I do need something I can easily use from iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Ability to migrate over my Evernote data painlessly would be great. I love FOSS but often that means UI clunkiness that won’t go over well with other members of my household.
https://tildes.net/~tech/17zb/evernote_the_memory_app_people_forgot_about_lays_off_entire_us_staff#comment-9gwm - I posted about FSNotes here! FOSS but the UI is very clean 🙌
Could never get into Evernote. Have to use OneNote at work and it’s just another MS clusterf*ck app. End-to-end encryption is a must for me, with cloud sync - and needs to be Mac / IOS compatible...
Could never get into Evernote.
Have to use OneNote at work and it’s just another MS clusterf*ck app.
End-to-end encryption is a must for me, with cloud sync - and needs to be Mac / IOS compatible at least.
Standard Notes and (more recently) NotesNook are my current goto apps.
Evernote was one of the hundred or so note-taking/task management/productivity apps I've tried over the years that I just couldn't get into. In my head, I love the idea of these kinds of apps, to...
Evernote was one of the hundred or so note-taking/task management/productivity apps I've tried over the years that I just couldn't get into. In my head, I love the idea of these kinds of apps, to have a persistent digital assistant that I can use to track anything and everything in my life in one centralized location so that I never lose anything and I have all my life goals planned out that I'm working towards and everything would be so much better... but it's hard to keep up with a routine that involves these apps. I can go for a week, maybe a month of using these things, but then at some point either I get too busy and don't have the time, or there's a lull and there's nothing to add or do on these things, so my use stagnates and I just stop using them altogether.
That's how it went with Evernote for the most part. I can't even remember what prompted me to export everything I had off of there to somewhere else, probably a pricing or policy change or something, I just stopped caring about it.
I've actually worked Obsidian into my routine a little bit at work, and it's actually managed to stick around the longest so far, while Notion and my Remarkable tablet seems to handle my personal notes. We'll see how long those stick around for.
I just don't understand how they could ever get Evernote so wrong. They practically dominated the market 15 years ago and had no significant competitors for a decade (well, OneNote). How could...
I just don't understand how they could ever get Evernote so wrong. They practically dominated the market 15 years ago and had no significant competitors for a decade (well, OneNote). How could they fail to develop in the most obvious direction and let the explosion in note-taking apps (which almost immediately got everything right) blow past them?
I would've loved to continue loving Evernote, but it just never listened to popular (and very obvious) user asks so it was pretty easy to abandon once a half decent alternative came along. Right now I'm on Joplin and (mostly) really loving it.
In late 2020, Evernote released Evernote v10, written from scratch in the Electron framework, to replace older versions on multiple platforms.[52][53] Some users noted the new app was much slower than the previous Windows and iOS versions,[54] had many features removed, and did not work with some default keyboard layouts, including Turkish, Latvian, and Polish, due to conflict of hardcoded key bindings.[55][56]
They had Evernote Classic. Just recently (week or two ago) they sturted to bombard with "upgrade" dialog every few hours. I tried new "upgraded" version few times.. and it is horrible. Bloated,...
They had Evernote Classic. Just recently (week or two ago) they sturted to bombard with "upgrade" dialog every few hours. I tried new "upgraded" version few times.. and it is horrible. Bloated, comically slow, limited and slow again.
I suppose they plan to halt support for Evernote Classic in the near future.
I used Evernote back in 2017 for a grand total of about a few weeks, mainly to screenshot class notes that I hand-wrote to have some form of digital backup. I forgot the app even existed until...
I used Evernote back in 2017 for a grand total of about a few weeks, mainly to screenshot class notes that I hand-wrote to have some form of digital backup. I forgot the app even existed until this article popped up.
When Google Drive exists and allows for both rich text word processing and image uploads, why the fuck would you even use Evernote?
It's pretty interesting to see the downfall of what was once THE note taking app. The title of the article feels pretty accurate, Evernote went from being something I heard about constantly in university and used regularly myself, to something I didn't even realize was still around.
I've personally moved over to keep when it seemed like they were becoming more and more hostile to their user base, and eventually moved to a combination of Notion and Todoist these days. I've found Notion is much more of the "external brain" Evernote was trying to be with its almost personal website style format, and Todoist is much better for keeping track of to-do lists and steps of projects.
I use Joplin as an "external brain", because it is open source and uses Markdown. This means that I will never loose those notes, because I can always use Joplin or read the Markdown files and that is a very important point for me. I've also heard good things about Obsidian: it uses Markdown too but is closed source so I am hesitant to use it
Is being closed source intrinsically bad? I’ve yet to find a worthy FOSS equivalent of Obsidian
Arguably yes. The developers can make unpopular decisions about the future direction of the software, or decide to stop working on it entirely, leaving users with limited options for continuing to use the software. (How limited the options are depend a lot on specifics of the software itself.) Being open source means that someone else can, at least theoretically, pick up the software and continue developing it.
(edit: I should point out that I'm speaking above about closed vs. open source software in general... and from what I've learned in this thread, if Obsidian vanished today, users who are at least a bit technical would be in a pretty decent position re: the content of their notes.)
Because Obsidian uses text, it would be trivial to keep using a vault from another program. For example, using an Emacs mode to search through the notes and create new ones.
Logseq tries to be just that. I like it, but I never was an Obsidian power user, so I can't say how far away feature parity is.
Logseq and Obsidian are quite different. They have different goals and means to achieve them, and while there's certainly an overlap of features and users, they truly can't be called equivalent.
Logseq is an outliner - each line is a bullet point, a "block", and blocks are their base unit of information. Their UI is built around that, and they heavily nudge users to just dump data in daily notes with links and tags. Each dedicated page, even when empty, will then display those linked/tagged blocks and all their descendants. Its kinda weird to explain, but it works well if you get their workflow.
Obsidian is truly a note taking app, their base unit of information are pages. It can't really work as an outliner, and is not opinionated at all. Your organize your stuff how you see fit. They also heavily rely on their rich plugin ecosystem. They also have an excellent canvas feature, something that is IMO sorely missing in Logseq.
I use both apps in different contexts - Logseq for work notes, Obsidian as a personal wiki - because they both have different strengths.
The biggest gripe (and dealbreaker) I have with Logseq is the fact they don't use markdown, but rather some block format.
I write my notes 100% in markdown, and you can export everything as markdown.
I haven't noticed anything being lost in that process. But yes, the "working copy" of everything you write is logseq blocks.
It is markdown, everything is saved locally as .md files.
Yes, but it introduces things that are not part of the MD spec.
It has been discussed here as well: https://github.com/logseq/logseq/issues/3457
I switched from Joplin to Obsidian for the simple reason that Obsidian "databases" are just a directory of markdown files.
I can sync it with anything, I can use any editor on it, I can import them to any other software.
Joplin on the other hand uses it's own database format to save files, which isn't optimal for longevity.
While I understand the benefit to keeping your notes in a structured folder of markdown files, it's worth noting (for someone who may casually read this) that Joplin does have one-click "export every note to markdown." It's easy to read this and get the impression that Joplin notes are somehow locked away from the user.
Most programs have some kind of export, it's mostly a given.
I've been bitten by "export" functionality from custom formats too many times, it tends to not work like you want it to or doesn't export everything. If that doesn't bother someone then Joplin is a good solution.
I prefer my notes to be in a standard format at all times.
I have used the exportfunctionality of Joplin many times and it works like a charm. The only thing that has to be converted is the name of the file and the directorystructure, because all Joplin notes are plain MD files. Edit: they seem to have chosen for it explicitly: https://joplinapp.org/faq/#is-it-possible-to-use-real-file-and-folder-names-in-the-sync-target
Joplin is great. I'm really over losing my data when a company gets bought or fails.
+1 for Joplin. Also worth mentioning you can E2EE your notes. I host my notes on 1TB OneDrive which effectively removes storage limits in any practical sense for notes, and secure from prying eyes.
interesting you should mention the website style format, im using an app called anytype , which intends to be part of the web in a new way
and as much as I love it, the learning curve feels very high to me.
I always come back to keep, but let's face it, it's messy lol. very limited too (though i dont mind it , i like to throw ideas around quickly, like on a piece of paper), and there is no offline app for desktop (be it windows or macOS) ...
so yeah, still trying to find something that resembles apple notes and works offline first. considering buying an iphone solely for apple notes , crazy I know
The offline first functionality is definitely the hardest thing to find. Notions lack of an offline mode is the biggest reason I still pay attention to the organization/productivity space. I'm always hoping for a new alternative that is slightly less complicated and more offline friendly.
Google Keep is an okay apple notes alternative, but the lack of updates for years and years and Googles track record for killing apps is always worrying.
RIP Allo 😭
I recommend FSNotes for offline-first text-based notes :)
Thanks to what I found in this discussion, I just now installed Joplin and Todoist on My Linux mint desktop, Linux mint laptop, and android phone. They work great and sync through Dropbox. I only recently switched from Windows to Linux and was having trouble finding apps to replace their Todo and Onenote. Looks like I'm finally going to be able to send the last of my Windows relics to the dustbin. Thanks to all who posted here.
Not too surprising, they'd been enshittifying (word of the year 2023 right there) their product for years.
I actually just jumped ship to a self-hosted Joplin setup. It's not perfect but it is actively developed and FOSS, and it gets the job done.
Could you give an example of the enshittification of evernote? I guess I jumped ship before it was noticeable…
Very simply, it was once free to use, and while basic functions are still free to use, they've designed and designated premium functions which are monetized on a subscription model. Every time you open the goddamn app it tries to get you to pay a subscription. The ads they have are only their own but it really did frustrate the experience to take simple notes.
I vaguely remember that, at one point, they removed the (perfectly working) native OS X app and moved to an electron (or other web technology embedding a browser), trading quality (and features) for a cheaper development. Sorry for the lack of details, it was many years ago…
A few years ago I use to drive by the Evernote offices and think it was pretty cool (back when Evernote was big). A great reminder that these kinda of companies come and go all the time. Some last longer than others, but power always shifts. One day Notion will also be a forgotten memory.
But how come the big tech always stays despite not producing anything cool in so many years? Are they just reaping the early mover advantage or is there something more to this power balance?
You'll have to define "big tech", and "cool" to get a good answer to that.
There have been large tech companies that have failed, and a few more that are on the Evernote stagnation path. Off the top of my head, Research In Motion, former makers of the BlackBerry, is a recent one whose sales and share of the market have plummeted to a shadow of their self. Nortel Networks was one of the largest telecom manufacturers in the world until they went bankrupt in 2009. IBM has been seen as stagnant for years, and in my opinion, only bolstered by enterprise lock-in and sales tactics. Snapchat's stock price has been reduced to a tenth of what it was during the pandemic, and are likely dead in the water unless they find a hail mary. Twitter was near-profitable before the buyout by Elon Musk, and has seen its valuation cut heavily -- the same with Reddit's valuation by Fidelity come to think of it. Uber is pretty successful in certain respects, but also has reported massive financial losses every year since its inception. The recent string of crypto companies I hesitate to count as big tech, but are adjacent enough that I'll include FTX and Binance.
"Cool" is a matter of opinion. Apple is putting out an insane (and insanely priced) VR headset, Oculus/Meta has been putting out low cost headsets for years. All of the big players have been improving and releasing their large language models (e.g. ChatGPT). The last few years have seen the release of several large short-form video platforms (TikTok, Instagram Reels, Youtube Shorts) that have gained a ton of traction. Self-driving cars are being used every day. We're all consuming streaming TV, movies, music, even games.
But past that I'm going to make a hasty assumption that you meant something like Google, whose main moneymaker is a combination of search and an ad platform they control (on both the supply and demand sides too), which prints an unlimited amount of money they can use to fund other ventures, until it dries up, and then they'll have to adapt. Amazon makes most of their money on AWS, again another money printer. Microsoft makes a killing off of Office 365 and their enterprise offerings like that.
You're forgetting one of the most influential ones in the history of computing: Bell Laboratories. If you measure success by profit, then they probably wouldn't count, since they were a strategic endeavor. Through bad management, they went from one of the most influential institutions in the world (in many areas of science) to a shadow of itself. A string of mergers and acquisitions saw them changing hands constantly, many of their super stars left, some even across the river, to New York, to big tech companies' campuses in the city or founded their own companies.
Big tech usually has a broad portfolio. If one segment slows, they usually have enough stability and other produce lines to stay afloat. They also have the money for R&D to try new things until they find something profitable. Evernote was a one-trick pony in a saturated market and didn't do anything to keep up with the competitors in their market.
As others are saying, I used to be a heavy user of Evernote. I even had the paid version when they first introduced it. But then they kept introducing higher tiers and moving features behind bigger paywalls. You'd pay more money for some features and then a year or two later, they'd do the same, introduced more features but put them behind a higher tiered paywall.
Then I switched to Joplin and haven't looked back.
This title is v funny to me because I used Evernote extensively in college and yes, I did completely forget about it until this post.
I still remember its green and white widget on my phone. I think I stopped using it when they put a lot of their features behind a paywall and required subscriptions.
Exactly when I did as well. Honestly in this day and age it would have been fine, but back then the idea of paying a monthly sub for an app was bewildering.
I think I first heard about it from the Tim Ferris blog, back in the day when I was sure I’d come up with the next big thing. It’d fun to go back and see what I still have stored on there, it has been at least 5 years since I’ve touched it.
I feel like the only user who uses it here, but I switched from Evernote (2014?)-> OneNote & Word -> Obsidian -> Notesnook.
If anyone is looking for something similar to Evernote, and less like a document organizer (such as Obsidian) - then Notesnook is the closest thing to a true Evernote competitor, along with being open source, heavily developed (seriously, I've never seen an OSS project release and fix so many things so quickly), a great web clipper, and entirely end-to-end encrypted. If anyone is looking for something that is similar to Evernote, I would suggest checking it out.
Oh, I'm loving Notesnook! Thank you for the recommendation!
Seconding this! I've been using logseq recently but have been dissatisfied with it. Notesnook feels much nicer to use, and I'll be giving it a try.
Noteshook looks interesting. Free version is quite limited, and I can't find good screenshots of desktop GUI. Could you tell me, does Noteshook supports tree structure of tags like Evernote do?
I don't believe Notesnook does, but they do support nested notebook topics which is something similar.
This looks awesome.
How well does it work on mobile?
Especially iPhone, iPad
Not sure on iOS, but on Android it's spectacular. Loads fast, syncs incredibly quickly, all the features of desktop are there. They use React Native so I believe the two mobile platforms share nearly all the same code.
Thanks for the info.
Right now., the lack of linking notes is killing this.
Yeah it's on their roadmap , and one of the more requested features. Developers have said they are working on it and will release "soon", but no ETA yet.
I’ll hold out.
I’ve been burned by roadmaps before (Bear comes to mind)
The funny thing is that they were one of if not the first of these mobile apps to go with the subscription model, I remember all the shit they got for that from people/articles and now subscription is the norme.
Even I stop using them when that happen.
I used Evernote up until yesterday, when I exported out my main notebook (again, to get the latest version), and imported it into Joplin. I went with Joplin because it's free and open source, but also because it was totally painless to migrate my huge amount of notes from Evernote, including tags.
I guess I might migrate to something else later, but for now, I feel like I've escaped from the sinking Evernote ship quite nicely. I find that an elegant note-taking app is essential to me these days. I knew a while back that Evernote was basically closing shop over time, so I just needed to find a way to transition away.
I also use Joplin because I don't want to worry about losing my notes. The fact that it uses Markdown helps, because it means you can always resort to reading your notes as plain text.
I remember using it a lot. Then one day, I logged in, and everything became 100x more complicated to use. It seems like all these productivity apps want to be everything for everyone. They should've chilled out and realized that all we wanted was basically a Notes app but for Android.
Urghs...
FSNotes looks really nice, but no linking between notes... reaaallly?
I used to be an evernote user, but stopped when they got aggressive with the pay to win.
Since then I used almost everything - here is my breakdown:
The need for a web-interface comes from not being allowed to install software on my PC at work. (City IT)
A windows client is nice, but not needed if a web interface is available.
FSNotes does let you link between notes, like this:
[[note title]]
(There are no automatic backlinks though)
Oh, I didn't forget. I dropkicked it into the bin.
I was unhappy with their decisions for awhile, but having a web login count as a device was, weirdly, the last straw for me. I use Joplin and I'm trying out Obsidian-- and they're beautiful. No web interface since I bounce around computers a lot, but I'll make do.
Hmm, unlike a lot of others here, I’m using it for its document management capabilities, but haven’t seen anything obvious to replace it, as yet…
I’ve got it embedded into my scanning workflow, such that a scanned document is converted to pdf and automatically sent to Evernote for import (and separately the pdf is archived to a cloud drive). In Evernote, it’s automatically OCR’d so I can search for string (and periodically I go through the Inbox to tag the docs). I don’t refer to it all that often , but it’s been occasionally useful to be able to find info that otherwise is in a pile of physical papers, enough so that I’ve paid for the personal subscription.
Having said that, I’d be interested if anyone has suggestions of alternatives to take a look at?
I’ll be looking for something to replace it, any suggestions? I know a few have been named here already but for my specific needs… I’m looking for a cloud-synced tool I can use to share my notes with a household. Think for keeping grocery lists up to date. I also appreciate the way I could organize Evernote notes into notebooks.
I have a few notes with media in them so it would be nice to keep those around. Generally I’m not using the advanced features of Evernote. I do need something I can easily use from iOS, iPadOS, and macOS. Ability to migrate over my Evernote data painlessly would be great. I love FOSS but often that means UI clunkiness that won’t go over well with other members of my household.
https://tildes.net/~tech/17zb/evernote_the_memory_app_people_forgot_about_lays_off_entire_us_staff#comment-9gwm - I posted about FSNotes here! FOSS but the UI is very clean 🙌
Could never get into Evernote.
Have to use OneNote at work and it’s just another MS clusterf*ck app.
End-to-end encryption is a must for me, with cloud sync - and needs to be Mac / IOS compatible at least.
Standard Notes and (more recently) NotesNook are my current goto apps.
Evernote was one of the hundred or so note-taking/task management/productivity apps I've tried over the years that I just couldn't get into. In my head, I love the idea of these kinds of apps, to have a persistent digital assistant that I can use to track anything and everything in my life in one centralized location so that I never lose anything and I have all my life goals planned out that I'm working towards and everything would be so much better... but it's hard to keep up with a routine that involves these apps. I can go for a week, maybe a month of using these things, but then at some point either I get too busy and don't have the time, or there's a lull and there's nothing to add or do on these things, so my use stagnates and I just stop using them altogether.
That's how it went with Evernote for the most part. I can't even remember what prompted me to export everything I had off of there to somewhere else, probably a pricing or policy change or something, I just stopped caring about it.
I've actually worked Obsidian into my routine a little bit at work, and it's actually managed to stick around the longest so far, while Notion and my Remarkable tablet seems to handle my personal notes. We'll see how long those stick around for.
I just don't understand how they could ever get Evernote so wrong. They practically dominated the market 15 years ago and had no significant competitors for a decade (well, OneNote). How could they fail to develop in the most obvious direction and let the explosion in note-taking apps (which almost immediately got everything right) blow past them?
I would've loved to continue loving Evernote, but it just never listened to popular (and very obvious) user asks so it was pretty easy to abandon once a half decent alternative came along. Right now I'm on Joplin and (mostly) really loving it.
Does Evernote still has native, non-Electron apps for Windows? Because that's the only thing I miss.
From wikipedia:
They had Evernote Classic. Just recently (week or two ago) they sturted to bombard with "upgrade" dialog every few hours. I tried new "upgraded" version few times.. and it is horrible. Bloated, comically slow, limited and slow again.
I suppose they plan to halt support for Evernote Classic in the near future.
I used Evernote back in 2017 for a grand total of about a few weeks, mainly to screenshot class notes that I hand-wrote to have some form of digital backup. I forgot the app even existed until this article popped up.
When Google Drive exists and allows for both rich text word processing and image uploads, why the fuck would you even use Evernote?