01-05-2021

Evernote Alternative Google



Today, I did this Google search 'what note tools are better than evernote'. I found some promising alternatives I will be trying over the next weeks. When a company gets so complacent that they don't improve and innovate like they did when they had their peppy startup spirit, that's the beginning of the end. Google Keep is our top pick for the best alternatives to Evernote. This one is designed to keep your notes and lists organized so you can access them from anywhere anytime. Coming with a lot of features, it is a recommendable software for use in the organization. It has a pretty basic interface which makes it. What are other Evernote alternatives? This note-taking app works well with all of G-Suite’s cross platforms and integrates text, voice notes, images, and to-do lists to other Google apps. A simple interface makes it easy to use, and it lends itself to collaboration and group editing. Google Keep lacks many of the collaboration.

It was a risky move, to be sure, but as Google Trends makes clear, Evernote was out of options: According to Google Trends, interest in Evernote fell 80% over the past five years The jury is still out on whether this long shot reboot can survive a note taking ecosystem that has only grown more competitive with time. In that case, Evernote can be the best alternative because it has an outstanding tool to take notes. If you like notes in the right place instead, or if you’re a daily Office 365, Microsoft Onenote can be one of the best Evernote alternatives to do so. Is Evernote the best?

To take notes online on any platform-Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android or iOS, you can use top & best 10 free alternatives to Evernote, that you should surely give a try.

With several distractions everywhere, and in the era, where multitasking is the key to progress in life, we need to set small goals for all the tasks we have to do in our lives and work on them to proceed. Thus, it takes a lot to achieve maximum productivity and noting down small things from time to time surely help out most people to achieve the goals. As most things related to our work and life has gone online nowadays, we all prefer taking notes online using different apps. Talking about note-taking apps, Evernote is one of the best apps. Most people already use it, and the features make the best of its kind.

Evernote is a free app, which is available on the Web, Android, iOS, however, the free version comes with its own limitations. Subscribing to Evernote is optional, but the biggest limitation, which bothers me and most other users are the two-device limits, which means, you cannot use the Evernote app in more than two devices. So if you have more than two devices, this is a big concern, when you might think of switching over to a new app offering the same functionality. Sometimes, you might not need all the premium features that come with Evernote, and thus, looking for a viable alternative makes sense.

Contents

  • Best free Evernote alternatives

Best free Evernote alternatives

Google Keep

The first Evernote Alternative in the list is one of my favourites, and I use it almost every single time I need to take some quick notes. It is Google Keep. Google Keep is one of the best note-taking apps, where it is even possible to take audio and photo notes beside the simplest text notes. Unlike Evernote, you cannot change the text colour, style, but it has some additional functionalities making it worth using.

Evernote like app Google Keep comes with OCR functionality so that you can copy and paste text elements right from the photo notes on Google Keep. This feature is very useful. Besides that, you can even add photo notes by just tapping on the camera button within the Google Keep user interface, and draw anything on the canvas to save it as a handwritten note or idea. It is also a piece of cake to organize notes with the provision of pinning the important notes, adding tags and labels to the notes and by changing the paper colour of the individual notes. Google Keep is free, just like most other Google products, and is cross-platform.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS

Microsoft OneNote

Microsoft OneNote is also a note-taking app that you might already know about. It is a part of the Microsoft Office package, or you can even download and install Microsoft OneNote individually. With a pleasing user interface and cross-platform support, you can sync all your thoughts across devices and can ask your colleagues to contribute to it, all at the same time. Just like Evernote, this alternative can format the font style of the notes and can organize the notes across several categories to help you find it instantly when you need it.

Microsoft OneNote is the perfect note-taking app with support for optimized brainstorming. Besides the ability to work on a single note by multiple users, Microsoft OneNote comes with some neat features to capture a business card and save it instantly to OneNote, search across the notes taken by you, draw items within the canvas to create notes, create to-do lists, and everything else to organize your digital life with notes.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS

Evernote alternative mac

Notebook by Zoho

Most netizens are already aware of Zoho CRM, and the Notebook app is one of the cool developments by Zoho to make it easy to take notes and share the same across devices. Like other alternatives to Evernote, the Notebook by Zoho is a completely free service, which can help you take notes almost in every possible way with hardly any limits. Start writing a note, add photos from your gallery or camera, record voice notes, draw things, all within a single note and share the same with others. Out of the other Evernote alternatives, it provides a web clipper functionality on Notebook, capture screenshots and add it to your notes or create a smartcard.

Besides a plethora of functionalities on Notebook, there are some handy features available exclusively for Android, which include multi-window support, access to the last 20 notes easily, create a shortcut to a note using a widget, any more. Well, the best one is the ability to create notes asking Google Assistant to the same. Create a note using your own handwriting or by typing, add some illustrations to it, and export it to PDF to share or print it without any hassles. The ability to secure the notes ensures nobody will steal your ideas or get hands on them without your consent.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS

Notion

Another great cross-platform note-taking app available for all platforms is Notion. The notion app is one of the best Evernote alternatives if you are looking for something better than Evernote. Just like Evernote, Notion comes with support for templates, which is my favourite feature as it saves a lot of time while I start creating some notes. There are several categories, and chances of your not getting the most desired template are out of the question. Note-taking apps are not always limited only to taking notes. The apps can also be useful to organize a day for maximum productivity. Yes, that is something Notion makes very easy.

With Notion, you can create to-do lists, and can even add sub-tasks to add all the elements or tasks that you need to do and break the task into smaller goals. Just like most other popular note-taking applications like OneNote, Notion has support for online collaboration to help you work on the project with all the colleagues. To make the notes more interactive, it is super-easy to add photos, videos, and other multimedia elements quite effortlessly to Notion by simply dragging the content and dropping it into the note you are working on. With all those features for free, Notion is worth giving a try.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, MacOS, Android and iOS

Joplin

Joplin app might not offer a wonderful user interface like that of Evernote, but it is almost as good as Evernote if you have a look at the features. Just like Evernote and Google Keep, you can assign tags aka. labels to the notes for the purpose of organizing them, and search them easily when you actually need them. With the ability to add multimedia elements, Joplin can help you keep everything associated with a note in a simple way. Depending upon how important a particular note is, you can assign every single note to different folders like the notebook functionality on Evernote.

With Joplin, you can synchronize the notes across all the devices, but in a different way. Joplin features a robust backup functionality to help you back up and synchronize notes through Dropbox, OneDrive, WebDAV, etc. Joplin is a very light-weight note-taking app, and you can even use it offline. The notes can be configured to sync automatically once you are connected to the internet. Joplin can also help you create alarms, add geolocation to the maps, which are some small handy features, most people will often need in a note-taking application.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS

Simplenote

Not everybody needs the rich set of features available on Evernote. That’s when Simplenote comes into play. Simplenote, as the name suggests, is a great note-taking app, and it justifies its name for the true simplicity it has to offer. With Simplenote, you can organize the notes by adding tags, and can simply find a note with a specified tag, by tapping on the hamburger menu, and then by choosing the appropriate tag, associated with the note. Yes, it is that simple. But wait! The simplicity of Simplenote doesn’t imply, this Evernote alternative doesn’t have other features, at all.

On Simplenote, you can easily add photos to the notes, create grocery lists, and everything else with no distracting tools within the user interface of the app. Simplenote offers a dark user interface, which can be changed, however, but you can understand, how pleasing the black colour or the dark mode is, for the eyes. Simplenote is meant for taking notes quickly, and its availability for almost all the major platforms including Linux is something that really makes it special. Simplenote offers 5 GB for keeping your notes, which isn’t too bad.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS

Dropbox Paper

Dropbox is the cloud storage platform most people already know about. Dropbox Paper is another note-taking program in our Evernote alternatives list, with support for every other feature to create documents effortlessly directly from the notes written by you. As the name suggests, Dropbox Paper features a paper, where you can write or draw anything or everything, no matter whether it is a document, note, handwriting, or anything else. With easy collaboration, you can invite others to work on the note or document, whichever it may be, and others can comment on some particular element. You can even reply to that at the same time.

With the ability to access Dropbox Paper from any device, you can work on your projects from anywhere with your colleagues and co-workers. Unlike most other note-taking applications, which do not work properly while offline, Dropbox Paper is different, and you can work on your projects to get it synced when you are online. So your deadline will never depend on the geological restrictions caused by your mobile network. Dropbox Paper comes with 5 GB storage for free, which isn’t a bad number, and the user interface is minimalistic. All the features make Dropbox Paper a Swiss Knife for all your needs at home and office.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS

Notejoy

Looking for a note-taking application with an easy way of sharing the same with others to work on! Notejoy is the one you should try out. With robust sharing functionalities, you can share a complete library of note with a group of people to allow them to work on the same. What exactly can be better than that! Out of other alternatives for Evernote, here, each library is like a Notebook which will contain notes for a certain requirement. Add multimedia elements to the notes, including files from different sources to make the note a full-fledged one and work efficiently.

Notejoy has a chat functionality, which can be very useful for real-time collaboration with your co-workers to skyrocket your productivity while you are working on a certain project. Besides cross-platform synchronization, which is worth mentioning, Notejoy will also integrate with Slack, Microsoft Office, G Suite, and Trello. Notejoy is free to use, but with a set of limitations. However, you can upgrade to premium versions to get over the limitations and get the best out of Notejoy. If you aren’t a professional, the basic version of Notejoy shouldn’t disappoint you.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android and iOS

Elephant

In love with Evernote, but want to switch to a different note-taking program, with almost the same set of functionalities! Elephant app is the one for you. It comes with almost the same set of features like Evernote, and the user interface is also purposely made as similar as possible to Evernote. So just feel at home with your hands laid down on the Elephant note-taking app. Well, that’s not the best part!. The best part is, Elephant is open-source, and you have the option to change or modify the program to suit your needs, obviously if you have some coding expertise.

If you are looking for almost the exact copy of Evernote, only for your computer, you can go for Elephant. No, Elephant isn’t available for mobile phones as of now which give it a downside as compared to other Evernote alternatives. Well, Elephant is open-source, and who knows, an Android and iOS version of the app will come tomorrow. We can just expect it to happen. But if you are frustrated with the limitations of Evernote’s free version, Elephant can be the best alternative you can choose, that will get you over the limitations, obviously for free.

Price: Free
Platform: Windows, Linux and MacOS

Orgzly

The final one in the list of top 10 alternatives Evernote is Orgzly, which is a note-taking app that is different from most note-taking apps, I had discussed. Orgzly isn’t optimized for taking quick notes, but for taking notes, prioritize them as per your timings, add tags, deadline, and most other necessary tidbits of information. Well, such information is optional, however, a title has to be assigned to the notes created using Orgzly. The ability to organize a note with additional pieces of information is very helpful to keep a track of your tasks, record the progress made by writing them down in the note itself.

Just like Joplin, Orgzly offers a robust backup and sync functionality and you can back things up to your Dropbox account, or to the local storage of your smartphone. The notes can be organized in notebooks, just like Evernote. With the ability to assign deadline, priority, etc. to each note within a notebook, you can create a notebook with the task name, and add notes to it as sub-tasks, with a deadline and priority for each. This can perhaps help you to complete a task as per priorities, and complete it well before the deadline. All such things make Orgzly perfect for professionals looking for a way to boost productivity.

Price: Free
Platform: Android

So that was the list of top 10 alternatives to Evernote. Note-taking apps are really useful today, and syncing them across devices isn’t a luxury. I tried to keep the list filled with freemium, if not completely free note-taking apps with support for synchronization across devices. Some of those I mentioned above are way better than Evernote, and you can even get way more functionalities in some of them with a paid subscription.

So that was it. Do you know any other great note-taking app that deserves its name in the list? Feel free to write the name of it in the comment section down below.

Other top alternatives:

Note-taking is personal. It has as much to do with how your mind works as it does with what you’re taking notes about and why you’re taking them in the first place.

Still, search for the best note-taking app and you’ll invariably find Evernote at the top of most lists.

Some notes are for sharing. Some are a reminder. Some are taken and never looked at again.

Sometimes a note is a quick thought, jotted down on-the-go on a mobile device. Other times your notes are prepared at length at your computer over a large project, meeting, or study session.

Evernote is fine, generally-speaking — but you’re not just anyone, and your notes aren’t just any notes.

To find the best Evernote alternatives, we tested and used over 30 apps, reviewed top threads on Reddit, and consulted reviews on G2 to hear what the community had to say.

It’s not all just Evernote vs OneNote anymore. There are a slew of great note-taking apps, each with a key advantage over Evernote depending on what you are doing.

The best note-taking apps that aren’t Evernote:

  • Hugo - Best meeting notes app
  • CacoonWeaver - Best speech-to-text notes app
  • Milanote - Best whiteboard-style notes app for creatives
  • Bear - Speediest markdown notepad for iOS & Mac
  • Typora - Best distraction-free notes app
  • Workflowy - Infinite expandable bullet points
  • OneNote - Best free option (not just for Microsoft lovers)
  • Boost Note - Best note-taking app for developers
  • Google Keep - Best note-taking app for Google fanatics
  • Ulysses - Top-of-the line notes for serious writers
  • Notability - Best notes app for iPad with Apple Pencil
  • Nebo - Best note-taking app for Surface with Surface Pen

Why Evernote is no longer the gold-standard for notes

For many years, Evernote was on top of the note-taking game. With its sleek, comfortable interface, enjoyable mobile experience, and easy way of organizing with folders and stacks of folders, Evernote dominated the note-taking world after the iPhone’s original launch in 2007.

However, over the last 4+ years, Evernote has undergone a series of problematic changes, introducing bizarre new products in an attempt to expand its reach. They also changed the free plan in ways that have driven away users by crippling key features unless you pay.

Evernote remains a great product in many ways. It syncs across devices, offers a handy web clipper, and can even search handwriting.

But in trying to be all things to all people, the notes app market has opened up, offering a slew of note-taking apps that are going to appeal to more specific groups of people looking for more specific solutions.

What’s not on this list?

With note-taking apps, you need to be able to quickly take notes. Speed is of the essence. That means not having to waste time organizing and saving your files. You also need to be able to easily search your notes to find information.

Of course, you can take notes almost anywhere you can write.

Some people use the cells in a spreadsheet. Others use word processing apps like Google Docs or Microsoft Word. Authors may prefer to jot down notes inside the tools they are already working in, like Scrivener. You can also take notes in project management software like Asana, or collaborative docs like Dropbox Paper.

None of these, however, beat the speed and simplicity of a dedicated notes app.

So in this post, we’re only looking at tools that are primarily for notes. Full-on word processing tools aren’t in the running, nor are project management tools or CRMs that happen to have a notes function. (Ulysses might be a minor exception, as it can be both a notes tool and word processor depending on how you use it.)

With that, here are the best note-taking tools in 2020 that aren’t Evernote.

Hugo - Best meeting notes app

For iOS and in your web browser. (Android, iPadOS, and macOS are on the horizon)

Plenty of note-taking apps are good generally-speaking, but taking notes in meetings poses some unique challenges. Fortunately, Hugo is purpose-built for meeting notes at work.

First, staying organized. Hugo centralizes and organizes all of your meeting notes with the help of your calendar. Notes are associated with your actual meetings, so you basically don’t have to worry about categorizing anything. (You can always add tags if you want to.) This works with G Suite, Gmail, or Office 365 calendars.

Plus, Hugo also integrates with over 20 other apps used for work. It syncs notes to your CRM (e.g. Salesforce), pushes tasks to project management tools (e.g. Jira), and works seamlessly with video conferencing tools (e.g. Zoom).

The Chrome browser extension gives you access to your notes from any page in your browser, which means you don’t have to dedicate your screen to note-taking during a video call. Just open and close the Hugo drawer when you need to check your agenda or jot a note down.

Hugo isn’t designed to just help you (although it will). With accounts for teams, collaborative note-taking, and a library of 80+ meeting note templates, everyone in your organization can use Hugo to centralize your meeting notes together.

During the pandemic, Hugo is offering free accounts to teams of up to 40 users. If you sign up during this period, you’ll get to keep that pricing even after the pandemic is over.

Hugo Pricing:

  • Free plan: Yes
  • Paid plan: $6/user/month for teams 11+

ALSO: Take a look at this guide to taking amazing meeting notes.

CacoonWeaver - Best speech-to-text notes app

Compatibility: iOS (iPhone/iPad)

CacoonWeaver is the best way to collect audio notes for iOS. Pop open the app and transcribe your ideas, thoughts, memories, and dreams. To organize your notes with voice commands, just say something like, “Cacoon Shopping” and the app will automatically put your notes in the Shopping category.

Unlike other note-taking apps where you need to enable dictation to record an audio note, and then carefully watch to make sure your text is going in correctly, CacoonWeaver records your audio and transcribes at the same time.

You can play back your notes, or read them back, which gives you the peace of mind to know that no matter what, your information won’t be lost, and there are no limitations on the max length of an audio recording.

CacoonWeaver also keeps track of where you had ideas, showing you blips on a map.

The UI is clean and minimalistic for distraction-free recording and offers custom push notifications and nudges to help you be your best self.

Because it is still in its debut phase, CacoonWeaver is currently free and keeps your data private and secure. The app claims to be in beta but it is fully functional and in better shape bugs-wise than a lot of other apps you’ll find on the AppStore.

CacconWeaver Pricing:

  • Free app: Yes
  • Paid plan: N/A

Milanote - Best whiteboard-style notes app for creatives

Compatibility: Desktop apps for Mac and Windows, plus mobile apps for iOS and Android

The Next Web calls Milanote “the Evernote for Creatives” and it’s easy to see why creative directors, filmmakers, photographers, marketers, and designers of all kinds enjoy using it.

Unlike most note-taking apps, Milanote takes a highly-visual approach, allowing you to organize your ideas and projects in visual boards. Collect images, videos, text, and tasks all together on your screen.

If your creative process includes activities like mood boarding, brainstorming, storyboarding, or mind-mapping, the visual canvas offers a flexible and delightful experience.

Milanote works for teams and clients too, with build-tin commenting, sharing, and notifications. Plus, you can download a high-quality, printable PDF of any board.

You can try Milanote free with no time limit, although it is limited to 100 notes, images, or links (and only 10 file uploads). After that, it’s $9.99 for unlimited storage

Milanote Pricing:

  • Free plan: Yes
  • Paid plan: $12.50/month when billed monthly, $9.99/month when billed annually.

Bear - Fastest markdown notepad for iOS & Mac

Compatibility: iOS (iPhone/iPad) and Mac

For Apple fans looking to upgrade beyond Apple Notes, Bear offers a good balance of features, design, convenience, and software speed. If you’re coming from Evernote, for example, it’s so fast, you’ll notice the difference immediately.

From your very first note, Bear’s design shines, treating you with elegant typography and theme options which include multiple dark modes.

Bear's speed isn't just for writing notes, either. Searching in the app also runs fast, with minimal delays when searching notes.

With many advanced markdown options (or is it markup?), Bear works great if you like to format as you type. Hybrid markdown support means you can see the formatted text as you’re typing, although if you’re not a regular user of markdown, you might not enjoy the experience at first. You can easily export these nicely-formatted notes to HTML, PDF, and TXT.

It also has quick shortcuts, such as for finding today’s date, and supports checkboxes to help with to-dos. Built-in tagging is powerful and allows you to create tags anywhere in a document that are automatically captured in the sidebar.

Bear uses iCloud to speedily sync notes between iOS and Mac with a Pro membership. Still, some users complain that this should be a free feature like it is with most other note-taking apps.

Bear is rated 4.5 out of 5 on G2 Crowd with positive reviews from many note-taking app power users, such as consultants, software developers, and UI/UX designers. The biggest complaint about Bear is a lack of helpful or effective support.

Bear pricing:

  • Free app: Yes
  • Paid Plan: Bear Pro is $1.49/monthly, $14.99 annually with a free trial

‍Typora - Best distraction-free notes app

Compatibility: For desktop/laptop computers only (Mac, Windows, and Linux)

Typora is a slick alternative to Bear that is even more minimalist and distraction-free. The app is simple, with very little UI getting in the way. It’s also beautifully designed, with clear, aesthetically-pleasing text.

Typora has a night mode and also supports custom themes so that you can create the perfect writing experience.

It also has two cool modes. One is a unique Focus Mode that highlights the paragraph you’re currently working on, while graying out everything else. Typewriter Mode similarly highlights the center of your screen.

Many of the same advanced markdown features are in Typora, meaning that you can type up nicely-formatted notes without ever having to shift your hand to your mouse. Even so, if you want to get a little bit fancy, Typora supports tables, diagrams, mathematical formats, footnotes, code fences, and task lists.

Typora Pricing:

  • Free app: Yes, during beta
  • Paid Plan: Not yet announced

‍Workflowy - Infinite expandable bullet points

Compatibility: Desktop apps for Windows, Mac and Linux, plus iOS, Android, and in your browser

Do you love taking notes with bullet points?

Do you wish everything in life could be bullets — Infinite, ever-expanding bullet points, as far as the sky can reach?

Does your whole world spin around lists and bullet points? If not, would you like it to?

If the answer the above is a resounding Yes!, you’ll be in heaven with Workflowy.

The concept is simple. Workflowy lets you create infinite piles of bullet points which are also each their own document. Expand, collapse, move documents, drill in and out — it’s intuitive and natural bullet points at a scale that you may have never dreamed of.

The product works well for outlining and project organization just naturally. It’s novel, intuitive, and requires very little learning to figure out.

The only downside to Workflowy is in organizing more matrixed information. This might be more challenging, because every bit of information may not have a clear place in your stack of bullet points for where it should belong. (Contrast this with Hugo, which organizes meeting notes based on your calendar, so notes don’t live in just one particular place — they’re associated with names, companies, dates, meeting titles, etc...)

Still, for your next novel or work project, especially for people whose minds work in a certain bullet-driven way, give Workflowy a try.

Workflowly Pricing:

  • Free plan: Yes
  • Paid plan: $5/month

OneNote - Best free option (not just for Microsoft lovers)

For iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, and in the browser

Simple, practical, and ubiquitous for Windows and Office users, OneNote is a free note-taking app that seems to be everywhere.

It’s a great basic option, with a familiar UI to anyone who has ever used Microsoft products like Word, and while it does most of the things Evernote does, it stands out because of one big four-letter word that starts with an F.

Free.

You get more advanced functionality here without having to pay.

In OneNote, you can add multimedia elements to your notes, such as audio, video, images, and even websites using the Webclipper browser extension. Task lists are an option, although robust task management in OneNote can be challenging because you can’t put due dates on anything.

OneNote has a large folder organization system, letting you create notebooks and sections, and nest them inside each other. The way that sections get dragged around can be frustrating — trying to move one section below another and can have it end up inside on accident — but again, for a free option, for many, this may be a minor inconvenience. Cross-notebook search is available, although there is a learning curve to finding your information.

OneNote uses OneDrive to sync across all of your Microsoft apps. If you don’t have an Office 365 subscription, you can upgrade your OneDrive to a paid plan for an increase in storage space.

OneNote Pricing:

  • Free app: Yes
  • Paid plan: Upgrade OneDrive for more storage space, starting at $1.99/month for 100 GB

‍Boost Note - Best note-taking app for developers

Compatibility: iOS, Android, Windows, macOS, Linux, and in your browser

Stylish, markdown-enabled, and fully open-source, Boost Note is a developer’s dream. The interface resembles Sublime, the popular text editor, with a slight skew toward taking quick and easy notes.

Boost Note highlights syntax for you and recognizes over 100 programming languages. It also supports math blocks where you can write math equations using LaTeX syntax. Themes are fully customizable.

Notes are stored safely in the cloud, with more file system-based storage coming soon.

Boost Note Pricing:

  • Free app: Yes (100 MB cloud storage)
  • Paid plan: 2GB cloud storage at $3/month. Boost Note for Teams launches in June 2020.

Google Keep - Best note-taking app for Google fanatics

Compatibility: Android, iOS, and in your web browser

Google Keep is a straightforward notes app that comes as part of your G Suite or Gmail account. It offers a clean, nicely-organized UI that has most of the standard features you’re looking for in a note-taking app, without too many bells and whistles.

If the rest of your life already revolves around Google products, Google Keep may be the right pick for you.

As you create notes, they are organized on your screen visually in a corkboard style. You can change the background colors to give it a post-it notes effect. While if you take a ton of notes, this may feel haphazard, with moderate use it's colorful and fun.

You might be wondering, Why do I need Google Keep when I have Google Docs?

For some users, it may be redundant to have multiple types of Google Docs, but others may enjoy the simpler note-taking experience in Google Keep. And if your notes start to become something more than just a note, there’s always the Copy to Google Docs action to transfer it over.

Google Keep Pricing:

  • Free app: Yes
  • Paid plan: N/A

Ulysses - Top-of-the-line notes app for serious writers

Compatibility: Mac, iPad, iPhone

For writers and authors, Ulysses is a notes app that will replace your word processor 99% of the time. Fully-featured and elegant, it is a very power writing app.

Export in various file formats, including text, HTML, ePub, PDF, and DOCX, plus a number of export styles for professional-looking PDFs and manuscripts. You can also schedule or publish articles to Wordpress and Medium directly within the app.

Ulysses also excels at organizing, if you’re willing to set it up. With views, custom searches, filters, and tags, it’s the most organizable note-taking experience on this list (except for Hugo, which auto-organizes meeting notes based on your calendar.)

All of this functionality comes at a cost, however. Ulysses is free to try, but if you get hooked, there’s not paired down free version to stick with.

Ulysses

  • Free plan: Trial only
  • Paid plan: $4.99/month or $39.99 ($3.33/month) when paid annually

Notability - Best note-taking app for iPad with Apple Pencil

Compatibility: iOS (iPhone and iPad)

Combine handwriting, photos, and typing into a single note with Notability. The elegant interface is nicely-designed, letting you choose from a variety of typing and drawing instruments with ease.

Notability has a nice range of sketching tools that make it easy to recolor, scale, and adjust your ideas and sketches. You can also pick from different paper backgrounds, for example, to sketch your notes on graph paper, or more textured art paper.

Notability syncs with iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, AirDrop, and Email for easy sharing with colleagues and study partners.

It’s also great for annotating PDFs.

Alternative Evernote Client

Notability Pricing:

  • Free trial: No
  • Paid app: $8.99

(Note: Nebo, discussed below, is another great option that works across all tablet platforms.)

‍Nebo - Best note-taking app for Surface with Surface Pen

Evernote Alternative Mac 2020

Compatibility: iOS, Android, and Windows

Microsoft’s Surface Pen offers a delightful drawing experience on the Surface Book, Pro, and Studio, and there’s no reason you can’t use OneNote for this purpose. The anniversary update of Windows 10 also brought the Windows Ink Workspace, which gives you three cool apps: Sticky Notes, Sketchpad, and Screen sketch.

If you have an active pen like the Surface Pen, you might be asking, with all this greatness bundled for you in Windows, can note-taking get any better?

The answer is yes, and the other answer is Nebo.

Draw sketches and diagrams. Easily switch between your pen and keyboard.

Evernote Alternative Mac

There are tons of cool gestures that make the experience delightful, like how you can scratch out a letter to delete it, or swipe up to join two sentences together.

Getting notes out of Nebo is a breeze, with image, text, DOCX, and HTML formats available. You can also copy/paste diagrams to PowerPoint and they stay fully-editable.

Evernote Alternative Google Maps

Nebo pricing:

Evernote Alternative Google Play

  • Free app: N/A
  • Paid app: $9.99