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Ask HN: Alternatives to Evernote?

41 points by eswat ↗ HN
Given the amount of people asking for alternatives in the Evernote thread making the waves right now and since I’ve been looking for one for a while now, figured I ask what others use.

OneNote, Simplenote, org-mode seem to be some popular ones.

57 comments

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dmn757
Probably not nearly as feature packed or maintained, but Google Keep (https://drive.google.com/keep/) is an option.
jxf
Did everyone forget the lessons of Google Reader that quickly? I wouldn't use Google Keep.
dorfsmay
I believe google kkep has no clent for linux.
contextual
Definitely check out Springpad: https://springpad.com/about

For me, I've been using Basecamp for practically everything. It's so useful and reliable, and the mobile site has the best most functional interface I've ever used.

frossie
The problem with these (and all the other alternatives I've seen in this post so far) is that they ignore the one thing that locks people into Evernote despite the bugs, poor interface etc: scanner-support and OCR. Sure, if you have your information in digital form already, there's a bunch of decent solutions, but in terms of killing the paper mountain I am not aware of anything that supports that workflow, certainly not that easily.
firefoxNX11
what do you mean by "killing the paper mountain"? The OCR feature of Evernote Premium?
zaqokm
My 2 cents :) The trouble is that there are little or no real alternatives. There are plenty of hacks like dropbox, simple note, etc but nothing with the complete functionality and cross platform capabilities which Evernote.
AH4oFVbPT4f8
I'm a long time Evernote user and honestly, it's great for record keeping but I find it pretty awful for daily use.

A huge improvement could be made by Evernote if they would support markdown within their notes. Currently the editor is very basic and can't handle functions like tables very well (creating them sure, but then adding/removing cells or sizing them is a chore)

OneNote has the best editor but it's also a lot heavier than evernote.

Google Keep can't be an option after what Google does with it's side projects like iGoogle and Reader.

eswat
Yeah, Markdown support would be lovely for me since I write almost everything else outside of Evernote in Markdown.

I’m leery of Keep because Google has already tried this realm before with Google Notebook and shut that down.

patrickmay
I use OmniFocus. It is relatively easy to customize it to support GTD, but it is commercial software. I believe the price is around USD 80.
grimlck
Does anyone know of any note apps which support Linux, iOS, Windows, and OS X. Starts up fast. For example, vi starts up fast. Works offline and online. Always syncs without a manual step.

I don't care about pictures, or audio, or OCR, etc. I just want the basics to work and work perfectly.

gvb
Dropbox with plain text notes.

On Android (and, I presume, iOS) it caches recently used files for offline access. If you don't access a file on your phone before going off-line it will show up in the directory listing but not actually be accessible.

nXqd
just use your favourite text editor and dropbox. It works for me
klint
Zim and nvPY are cross-platform and save everything as plain text, which you can open and edit on iOS with Dropbox or something similar.
Styrke
I use a folder in my Google Drive.
eliben
+1. I also find Google Drive very convenient for this. The great search within my drive just lets me litter a large amount of new documents and not worry about it. I usually either view the most recently edited or search.
msluyter
I've been using nValt with synching via SimpleNote. nValt is pretty nice, actually - the UI is optimized for fast searching or adding notes.
monkey_slap
Same here. Been loving nValt and saving my notes in Dropbox. Super simple, and incredibly fast.
YousefED
I use onenote. Its simplicity and multiplatform support resulted in a lot of "is this really a Microsoft product?" reactions by people I showed it to. Definitely recommend to give it a try
msh
Unfortunately they don't have a osx version.
lucb1e
> multiplatform support

$ apt-cache search onenote

Yielded no results for me. What is the GNU/Linux client called?

YousefED
Sorry, I was referring to iOS and Android mobile support. There's a webversion though accessible from https://skydrive.live.com, but I've hardly used it (so can't recommend it. Also, I suppose a desktop version is crucial for a good note taking app so I guess it's not worth trying on linux / mac).
jkupferman
After getting frustrated with Evernote being slow and buggy I switched to Simplenote (http://simplenote.com/).

It's simple, fast and seamless. You start typing and it automatically syncs your note for you. It does one thing that does it well. That being said it doesn't have all the bells and whistles that Evernote does (audio notes, OCR, etc).

sutterbomb
Second the vote for Simplenote. Super fast native Mac & iOS apps. Search is lightening quick too. Decent web app as well if you need it.
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mrteal
Although I may be an extreme case, I use Dokuwiki for notes/journals/logs. I wanted something that was OSS, as I am somewhat uncomfortable providing brain dumps to a corporate entity in exchange for a license. Wiki markup is great for quick keyboard formatting, and all data is saved in flat files, so a rsync via cron takes care of redundancy/backups. Revision control works, and I can quickly create a new user with limited access if I need to share, or export to PDF.
acemtp
I created a project called http://dok.io The goal is to easily create and forget (like in gmail) small piece of info (dok). The dynamic search helps to find them if needed later.

Of course it's collaborative (like a wiki) and everyone in the team can add/edit just by typing in the dok (like in asana), no edit button or whatever. Oh and behind, it's HTML5/JS with Meteor.

Feedback will be greatly appreciated.

enko
Since you asked for feedback... get a native speaker to review your copy. "leverage on" - you don't need the "on" (this is in 2 places). "Notes are information that aimed at becoming knowledge" - doesn't make sense, perhaps say "aims" instead? hierarchizations - just say hierarchies.

Well, you asked : P

acemtp
Thank you! You right, I'll have to find a native speaker. I'll fix that.
dorfsmay
Text files on dropbox, using native editors is definitely the most portable solution with no vendor lock in. Dropbox's web site even has an online text editor.
mark_l_watson
+1, couldn't agree more.

I have dropbox aware editors on all of my devices, and have a good directory layout for storing and working on ideas as text files. BTW, I use the same setup so I can work on my book projects on any of my devices (using leanpub).

I use Dropbox a lot for clipping web articles, taking pictures of bills and records, etc.

paulgb
It's not close to a full-blown Evernote alternative, but Google keep (http://keep.google.com) is my alternative.
VMG
Keep is the first note taking app I can use without getting frustrated, precisely because it is so limited and does not feel bloated.
middleclick
Which is exactly how a note taking app should be.
zabouti
I no longer trust Google to keep its own services - they've gotten rid of too many projects. On the plus side, you usually have time to download your data before the service dies.
paulgb
Startups have an even worse track record. I switched to Google Keep when catch.com shut down.
xname
It depends on what you need.

- Serious note taking for study / research or whatever requires a lot of editing: ms word or alike.

- Quick saving of webpages: readability / instapaper / pocket etc.

- Quick note taking for a few words: google keep

- to do list: to do list apps

I have tried all kinds of things and I found I have to use different apps to achieve different goals.

kenrick95
By owning a Surface RT, I've used OneNote for almost a semester now. For me the only minus side of OneNote is that the PDF slides from the lecturers can't be editable inside OneNote. This is because the things that are "printed" inside OneNote are images which makes the OneNote file big. But then, after trying some alternatives, I cannot find any better one. Seems that I will stick to OneNote for now.
manojlds
As a Windows Phone user, I have come to love OneNote as well.
mvkel
I use JustNotes on OS X, which is built on top of Simplenote. It syncs wonderfully and is very, well, Simple. The reason I switched to Evernote: rich text.

Google Keep can't do RTF either :(

dsirijus
Fair chance is that plethora of use-cases covered by Evernote are not covered by any other alternative. OCR, Web Clipper (favorite bit of mine), audio notes, location-aware notes, sharing, cross-platform support, awesome note indexing and subsequent search, offline caching, 3rd (as well as 1st) party app ecosystem integrated with their API... You name it. Even their free as well as premium tier give you a lot of bang for buck.

Which is kind of explanation of why they can get away with some issues in their service - they own the space. Period.

oinksoft
Zim is pretty decent if you like something on the desktop and like wikis. Its strength is in quickly organizing a bunch of related ideas/notes (being a wiki) but it is much faster to use than a browser-based wiki. http://zim-wiki.org/

I tend to just scribble in Vim though, or use paper and pencil.

klint
+1 for Zim, even if you don't much like wikis. You don't actually have to use wiki markup or anything with Zim if you don't want to. You can just organize things with folders, subfolders and tags and never worry about creating links.

I find it to be sort of halfway between Notational Velocity and Evernote. Like nv it stores everything as flat files, but like Evernote you can add some structure to how your organize things.

spectrum
I also use Zim.

The nice thing is that Zim uses plain .txt files without the need of a database. So you can also view and edit your notes/pages using any text editor instead of Zim itself. Making backups is also very easy this way.

I keep these text files in sync across my devices using owncloud. That way I can also use it on my smartphone by just viewing the plain text. No extra apps necessary.

gum_ina_package
How about OneNote? They have a desktop version, tablet version, online versions, and clients for iOS/Android/WP8 as well. http://office.microsoft.com/en-us/onenote/
HackyGeeky
I'm hooked to OneNote, started using it a year back. From what I've seen it's extremely intuitive. Creating a table is a breeze and so is the indenting.