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I migrated from Evernote to Microsoft OneNote. If I was 10 years younger or still an engineer I would have experimented with a 'roll your own' FOSS option but

by dotBen 4y ago

I migrated from Evernote to Microsoft OneNote. If I was 10 years younger or still an engineer I would have experimented with a 'roll your own' FOSS option but these days I'm an exec and I just need my notes to be stable, dependable, easily accessible etc. OneNote is essentially free, it's Microsoft's gateway to get people to come back into their ecosystem and you obviously know it's going to be well maintained, high integrity of storage, etc. I know it will be still around and maintained in 10 years time when I still want to access my old notes. The mobile and iPad apps are nice, there's also a convenient Evernote to OneNote importer: https://www.onenote.com/import-evernote-to-onenote https://www.onenote.com/import-evernote-to-onenote My take on Evernote is that they never managed to properly monetize it. I was a single user, not in a team, didn't need shared notes or chat functionality and there was no need for me to pay for it... until they decided to arbitrarily limit the number of devices you could use your account on which is just such a shitty approach because we all know there's no actual cost to servicing three devices vs two. In other words the only thing they could do to get me to pay for it was hobble my UX until I coughed up. Sorry, no thanks. Honestly, if you just want a solid 1:1 Evernote replacement that isn't markdown, self-hosted, etc just use MS OneNote. It's great.

danielodievich 4y ago
I've been a onenote user from its inception, desktop only. I've never lost a note yet and have all of them since I started gosh whenever it shipped. It survived moving 4 companies offline until 5th forced me into syncing it to cloude one drive so that I can share it between 3 macs and 4 windows machines and vms. An incredible tool that I can't do without.
prox 4y ago
Joplin is a solid alternative for me. You can also spin your own cloud or just buy a bit of space.
- 0ldskool 4y ago
  For mobile users, Joplin does not support widgets and never will. Its written in react-native and that does not support widgets. They have an open issue and basically responded with will not implement or support. I'm someone who needs widgets for my notes...
  - muhehe 4y ago
    What widgets do you have in mind?
- dkarl 4y ago
  I tried Joplin, but sync from desktop to mobile happens on a fixed interval instead of syncing automatically when you make changes. That was a blocker for me because a lot of basic use cases involve switching between devices: - Create a workout on my laptop, then walk to the back yard and follow it on my phone while taking additional notes. - Create a packing checklist for a trip on my desktop, then walk around the house with the list in my hand, checking off what I have already so I know what I need to buy. - Scan a tax form to my Taxes notebook on my phone and then go back to my laptop where I'm using Turbotax. Evernote has worked for these use cases for a long time.
- masterofmisc 4y ago
  Thanks. Never heard of Joplin. Its OpenSource, uses E2E encryption and says that the notes are stored in an open format. Deffo need to do some research
  - prox 4y ago
    Hope you like it. I just do regular back ups through my own pipeline, it’s really easy to link to files, pdfs, and so on.
dkarl 4y ago
> My take on Evernote is that they never managed to properly monetize it. I was a single user, not in a team, didn't need shared notes or chat functionality and there was no need for me to pay for it... until they decided to arbitrarily limit the number of devices you could use your account on which is just such a shitty approach because we all know there's no actual cost to servicing three devices vs two. In other words the only thing they could do to get me to pay for it was hobble my UX until I coughed up. Sorry, no thanks Asking people to pay for a non-crippled experience makes sense to me. The behavior I want from a note-taking app is not conducive to any other way of monetizing my usage. For a long time Evernote wouldn't face up to that, and a result, they didn't value their product or their users. I used to take backups obsessively because every day I half-expected Evernote to shut down their servers, because they couldn't figure out how to turn it into a social network or a business collaboration platform. Now at least they seem to have settled down and accepted what their product is. I click on virtually every headline I see about note-taking apps because Evernote has done plenty over the years to alienate me. I'd love to switch. But I don't want to run the infrastructure myself, and I don't want to be anyone's free user. I'm keeping an eye on Joplin, but for now, Evernote is the best for my purposes.
coffeeling 4y ago
I wouldn't say OneNote is a 1:1 replacement. The tagging system works differently and is more for callouts than note organization, while OneNote itself is much more folder-driven than Evernote's limited foldering ability (which it compensates for with stronger tag support).
NWoodsman 4y ago
If you trust that Windows will support legacy versions of apps (true so far), and you are ok with a free but proprietary license (use freely in perpetuity as long as you can get a copy of the portable installer)...and you want to save plain text data via version control... maybe try my app: http://notes.paperbirch.app http://notes.paperbirch.app. It's not for marking up documents or drawing, let's say that data-storage and recollection is the main use, it might help you. BTW, the use of tags allows you to quickly "view the world" from a particular set of words, "work,project,todo" is a pretty specific domain and my app is designed to let you work within that domain or simply change tags to view the world from a new domain.

by dotBen 4y ago

danielodievich 4y ago

I've been a onenote user from its inception, desktop only. I've never lost a note yet and have all of them since I started gosh whenever it shipped. It survived moving 4 companies offline until 5th forced me into syncing it to cloude one drive so that I can share it between 3 macs and 4 windows machines and vms. An incredible tool that I can't do without.

prox 4y ago

Joplin is a solid alternative for me. You can also spin your own cloud or just buy a bit of space.

0ldskool 4y ago
For mobile users, Joplin does not support widgets and never will. Its written in react-native and that does not support widgets. They have an open issue and basically responded with will not implement or support. I'm someone who needs widgets for my notes...
- muhehe 4y ago
  What widgets do you have in mind?
dkarl 4y ago
I tried Joplin, but sync from desktop to mobile happens on a fixed interval instead of syncing automatically when you make changes. That was a blocker for me because a lot of basic use cases involve switching between devices: - Create a workout on my laptop, then walk to the back yard and follow it on my phone while taking additional notes. - Create a packing checklist for a trip on my desktop, then walk around the house with the list in my hand, checking off what I have already so I know what I need to buy. - Scan a tax form to my Taxes notebook on my phone and then go back to my laptop where I'm using Turbotax. Evernote has worked for these use cases for a long time.
masterofmisc 4y ago
Thanks. Never heard of Joplin. Its OpenSource, uses E2E encryption and says that the notes are stored in an open format. Deffo need to do some research
- prox 4y ago
  Hope you like it. I just do regular back ups through my own pipeline, it’s really easy to link to files, pdfs, and so on.

dkarl 4y ago

> My take on Evernote is that they never managed to properly monetize it. I was a single user, not in a team, didn't need shared notes or chat functionality and there was no need for me to pay for it... until they decided to arbitrarily limit the number of devices you could use your account on which is just such a shitty approach because we all know there's no actual cost to servicing three devices vs two. In other words the only thing they could do to get me to pay for it was hobble my UX until I coughed up. Sorry, no thanks Asking people to pay for a non-crippled experience makes sense to me. The behavior I want from a note-taking app is not conducive to any other way of monetizing my usage. For a long time Evernote wouldn't face up to that, and a result, they didn't value their product or their users. I used to take backups obsessively because every day I half-expected Evernote to shut down their servers, because they couldn't figure out how to turn it into a social network or a business collaboration platform. Now at least they seem to have settled down and accepted what their product is. I click on virtually every headline I see about note-taking apps because Evernote has done plenty over the years to alienate me. I'd love to switch. But I don't want to run the infrastructure myself, and I don't want to be anyone's free user. I'm keeping an eye on Joplin, but for now, Evernote is the best for my purposes.

coffeeling 4y ago

I wouldn't say OneNote is a 1:1 replacement. The tagging system works differently and is more for callouts than note organization, while OneNote itself is much more folder-driven than Evernote's limited foldering ability (which it compensates for with stronger tag support).

NWoodsman 4y ago

If you trust that Windows will support legacy versions of apps (true so far), and you are ok with a free but proprietary license (use freely in perpetuity as long as you can get a copy of the portable installer)...and you want to save plain text data via version control... maybe try my app: http://notes.paperbirch.app http://notes.paperbirch.app. It's not for marking up documents or drawing, let's say that data-storage and recollection is the main use, it might help you. BTW, the use of tags allows you to quickly "view the world" from a particular set of words, "work,project,todo" is a pretty specific domain and my app is designed to let you work within that domain or simply change tags to view the world from a new domain.