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Ask HN: Alternatives to Evernote

8 points by Kevin_S 10y ago

Hello HN, Am a lurker here, and was wondering what people use other than Evernote. I've been using evernote since early 2013 but with the upcoming change to a 2 device limit I am interested in making a switch, seeing as I currently use Evernote on about 8 different devices. Any others planning to change services because of this?

acangiano 10y ago
Google Keep is very good. I'm thinking of switching myself. https://keep.google.com https://keep.google.com
- neverminder 10y ago
  Second that. Very simple and convenient - you just use it with your gmail account which pretty much everyone has.
PaulHoule 10y ago
Try Microsoft's OneNote. It's amazing good: it's maybe the first desktop product I've seen with fulltext search that actually works.
mstolpm 10y ago
There is no one to one alternative and it depends a lot on the platforms you use and the features you need. I've imported about 1.800 Evernote notes with attachments, pictures and so on to Apple Notes and Microsoft OneNote as a test: Apple Notes got really slow and sometimes unresponsive, messages about the number of attachments reached showed up, the layout of the notes was in part messed up. And of course, Apple Notes is only available under iOS and macOS. Microsoft OneNote was more responsive and the layout of the imported notes was much better, but OneNote has a completely different approach for structuring the information stored. That leads to lots of pages and tabs, tagging like in Evernote isn't really working in OneNote the same way. Moreover, OneNote doesn't store the notebooks locally when using a Mac, but only in the cloud. I had tried Google Keep some months before and wasn't really blown away, so I've not tried it in the last week again. If you rely on special Evernote features like easy creating notes from web pages or automated creation of notes from mails, there are much more and robust solutions out there (IFTTT ...) for Evernote than for OneNote or especially Apple Notes. OneNote at least can search text in images, but my tests were less successful than on Evernote. Using 3rd party apps to create notes? Not much available for OneNote. At least, both Apple Notes and OneNote use the Sharing Menu in iOS. There are even more things to consider before switching if you have some special work flow or need. So don't rush the decision and start by listing the devices and processes that need to be supported by the new solution. BTW: Evernote leaves one loophole. It seems, access through the web browser doesn't count to the two device sync limit.
darkmuck 10y ago
Google Drive works pretty good for me. It supports third party apps/extensions and is accessible on all of my devices.

8 points by Kevin_S 10y ago

acangiano 10y ago

Google Keep is very good. I'm thinking of switching myself. https://keep.google.com https://keep.google.com

neverminder 10y ago
Second that. Very simple and convenient - you just use it with your gmail account which pretty much everyone has.

PaulHoule 10y ago

Try Microsoft's OneNote. It's amazing good: it's maybe the first desktop product I've seen with fulltext search that actually works.

mstolpm 10y ago

There is no one to one alternative and it depends a lot on the platforms you use and the features you need. I've imported about 1.800 Evernote notes with attachments, pictures and so on to Apple Notes and Microsoft OneNote as a test: Apple Notes got really slow and sometimes unresponsive, messages about the number of attachments reached showed up, the layout of the notes was in part messed up. And of course, Apple Notes is only available under iOS and macOS. Microsoft OneNote was more responsive and the layout of the imported notes was much better, but OneNote has a completely different approach for structuring the information stored. That leads to lots of pages and tabs, tagging like in Evernote isn't really working in OneNote the same way. Moreover, OneNote doesn't store the notebooks locally when using a Mac, but only in the cloud. I had tried Google Keep some months before and wasn't really blown away, so I've not tried it in the last week again. If you rely on special Evernote features like easy creating notes from web pages or automated creation of notes from mails, there are much more and robust solutions out there (IFTTT ...) for Evernote than for OneNote or especially Apple Notes. OneNote at least can search text in images, but my tests were less successful than on Evernote. Using 3rd party apps to create notes? Not much available for OneNote. At least, both Apple Notes and OneNote use the Sharing Menu in iOS. There are even more things to consider before switching if you have some special work flow or need. So don't rush the decision and start by listing the devices and processes that need to be supported by the new solution. BTW: Evernote leaves one loophole. It seems, access through the web browser doesn't count to the two device sync limit.

darkmuck 10y ago

Google Drive works pretty good for me. It supports third party apps/extensions and is accessible on all of my devices.