These 10 Evernote alternatives beat 40 others in our test

Evernote isn't the app people fell for. Back when it was the free shoebox you threw everything into, it felt limitless. Then in December 2023 the free plan dropped to 50 notes and one notebook, and the paid tiers crept into the low hundreds of dollars a year. If you kept years of clippings, receipts and half-written ideas in there for free, that's a real jolt.

Here's the good news, though. The note-app world got a lot better while Evernote stood still. Some of the strongest options cost nothing. A few let you keep your notes as plain files on your own drive, so no company can ever cap you again. And most of them will import your old Evernote export, so you're not retyping a decade of notes.

So I put more than 40 note apps through real use. Actual capture, actual search, moving an Evernote export in, living in each one for a while, not skimming a features page. These 10 are the ones I'd trust to replace Evernote, sorted by what each does best. At the end, a quick word on the tool that handles the other pile that gets messy, your messages, while your notes settle into their new home.

What happened to Evernote, and what to look for

The short version. Evernote was bought by Bending Spoons, and the free plan was squeezed down to 50 notes in a single notebook, with a small monthly upload allowance. Paid plans do lift the caps and add AI tools, but they now cost real money. For anyone who treated Evernote as a free, bottomless drawer, that model is gone.

Before you pick a replacement, it helps to know which part of Evernote you actually leaned on. Worth checking against each app below. Is the free tier good enough that you never think about it, can it import your Evernote ENEX export without mangling everything, does it clip from the web the way you're used to, does it sync across your phone and laptop, does search reach inside PDFs and images, and do you want your notes stored locally or in someone's cloud. Answer those, and the list gets a lot shorter fast.

Top 10 Evernote alternatives for note-taking, free and paid

Here's how I judged them. Whether the free plan is actually usable or just a demo. How cleanly an Evernote import lands. Everyday capture and search. Sync across devices. Whether you own your data or rent it. And price, because that's the whole reason most people are reading this. Prices shift often, so treat them as a guide, not a quote.

Notion

Best for people who want notes, docs, tasks and a light database in one place. Notion is less a note app and more a workspace you build to fit yourself. Pages nest inside pages, any list can become a table or a board, and the free plan is genuinely generous for a single person. It's why so many ex-Evernote users land here first.

The trade-off is that all that flexibility takes a minute to click. A blank Notion page can feel like homework compared to Evernote's just-start-typing. It also leans on the cloud and isn't the fastest to open. But if you want one tidy home for everything and you don't mind a little setup, Notion is hard to beat, and its Evernote importer means your old notes can come along.

Microsoft OneNote

Best for the closest free swap, with no cap hanging over you. OneNote is the one app on this list that feels like Evernote in spirit and costs nothing. Notebooks, sections and pages, a free-form canvas you can drop text, images and ink anywhere on, and a proper web clipper. There's no 50-note ceiling. You're limited only by your OneDrive storage.

It's a touch heavier than a minimalist note app, and the layout can sprawl if you're messy. But for a free, no-limit replacement that handles handwriting, PDFs and clipped pages, nothing else comes as close. If your only reason for leaving Evernote is the new cap, OneNote is the first one to try.

Obsidian

Best for owning your notes outright, forever. Obsidian stores everything as plain Markdown files in a folder on your own machine. No lock-in, no company that can change the rules on you, and it opens instantly even with thousands of notes. It's free for personal use, and the linking between notes turns a pile of thoughts into something you can actually find your way around.

It asks a bit more of you up front, since Markdown and the folder-based model take a day to settle into. Sync across devices is a paid add-on, though you can roll your own with a cloud folder. For anyone who wants their notes to outlive any app and stay fully offline, Obsidian is the one I'd never worry about losing.

Joplin

Best for the privacy-minded who want free and open-source with real sync. Joplin ticks the three boxes almost nothing else does at once. It's free, it's open-source, and it can end-to-end encrypt your notes. You choose where sync lives, whether that's a cloud folder or Joplin's own service, so your notes aren't trapped behind one company.

It's plainer to look at than Notion or Bear, and setup is a little more hands-on. But it reads Evernote's ENEX export cleanly, with notebooks, tags and attachments intact, which makes it one of the smoothest migrations here. If your checklist is free, private and portable, Joplin is the obvious pick.

UpNote

Best for the softest landing if you loved how Evernote worked. UpNote keeps the notebook-and-tag model Evernote users already know, so nothing feels alien on day one. It's clean, quick and syncs across your devices, and it's the app I point Evernote refugees to when they just want the same habits without the new limits.

The free tier caps how many notes you can make, but the paid plan is cheap, and there's a one-time purchase option so you can own it outright instead of renting forever. That one-time buy alone wins people over after the Evernote price hike. For a familiar, low-effort switch, UpNote is the gentlest move on this list.

Apple Notes

Best for quick capture if you're already on Apple gear. Apple Notes is free, already installed, and quietly very good now. It syncs across your iPhone, iPad and Mac without a thought, handles checklists, scans, sketches and locked notes, and opens the instant you need it. For a lot of people it's all the note app they ever needed.

It only really shines inside Apple's world, so it's a poor fit if you live on Windows or Android. Organization is lighter than Evernote's, with folders and tags but no deep structure. Still, for fast, free, no-setup notes on Apple devices, it's the default for a reason. Pair it with a couple of good Mac productivity apps and you're set.

Google Keep

Best for fast, sticky-note style capture you never lose. Google Keep is the fridge door of note apps. Jot a thought, snap a photo, add a checklist, set a reminder, and it's synced everywhere you're signed into Google. It's free, instant, and perfect for the small stuff that used to clutter Evernote.

It's not built for long documents or deep organization, and it lives inside Google's ecosystem, so privacy-conscious folks may hesitate. But as a quick-capture companion, or as a genuinely free replacement for people who only ever used Evernote for reminders and short notes, Keep does its one job really well.

Bear

Best for writing that feels good on Apple devices. Bear is the prettiest note app here, and it's a joy to type in. Clean Markdown, a lovely typeface, and a tag system that keeps things tidy without folders. Writers, students and anyone who cares how their notes look tend to fall for it quickly.

The catch is it's Apple-only, and full sync and export sit behind a cheap Pro subscription of around $2.99 a month. If you're cross-platform, look elsewhere. But if all your devices have an Apple logo and you want notes that are a pleasure to write and read, Bear earns its keep.

Notesnook

Best for private notes without giving up a free plan. Notesnook is end-to-end encrypted by default, open-source, and works on every platform. That means the company genuinely can't read your notes, which is rare for something this easy to use. The free tier is generous, and it imports from Evernote, so it's a real option, not a privacy toy.

It's younger than the big names, so the ecosystem and integrations are still growing. But if you want the convenience of a modern cross-platform note app with zero-knowledge privacy baked in and no paywall to get started, Notesnook is one of the most impressive newcomers I tested.

Standard Notes

Best for notes you want to still have in 20 years. Standard Notes is built around encryption and longevity. Everything is end-to-end encrypted, the format is deliberately simple and future-proof, and the project is open-source with a long-term promise not to lock you in. If your notes are a personal archive you never want to lose, this is the safe deposit box.

The free plan focuses on plain text, and richer editors and extras come with a paid tier. It's not the app for flashy layouts or media-heavy notebooks. But for a distraction-free, encrypted, built-to-last home for your writing, Standard Notes is exactly what it says on the tin.

What is Spanbox and how it saves your time

So you've picked your Evernote replacement. Your notes finally have a home you trust again. Here's the thing nobody mentions, though. Notes were only ever one pile. The bigger mess for most people is messages, scattered across WhatsApp, Slack, Gmail, Telegram and half a dozen others, each in its own window, each pinging for attention.

That's the gap Spanbox fills, and it does for your messages what a good note app does for your notes. Spanbox is a local-first desktop app that runs your chat and email apps as real tabs in one calm window, with every unread pulled into a single unified inbox. A command bar jumps you to any of them in one keystroke, and you can run several accounts side by side without a stack of browser tabs.

Because it's local-first, your accounts and messages stay on your own machine, nothing routed through a company's servers, which fits the same own-your-data instinct that sends people to Obsidian or Joplin. It's free for three apps to start, and if you want the full picture, our guide on putting all your apps in one place walks through the setup. That's how Spanbox saves your time. Not another app to check, but an end to the window-hopping between the ones you already use.

The bottom line

Don't overthink it. If you just want the same free, no-limit shoebox Evernote used to be, Microsoft OneNote is the closest thing. Want your notes as plain files you own for good? Obsidian. Free, private and open-source? Joplin. The gentlest switch that feels familiar? UpNote. And if you're deep in Apple's world, Apple Notes or Bear will likely do everything you need for next to nothing.

Then, whichever one you land on, sort out the other half of your day too. Give your notes a home, run a couple of genuinely useful productivity tools, and keep your messages in one window with Spanbox. Evernote taught a hard lesson about renting your own stuff from a company that can change the deal. The smarter setup now is a few great apps you actually control, each kept in one calm place.

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Julian Vance

Content Head at Spanbox

About the author

Julian Vance is the content head at Spanbox and has spent more than a decade in app product marketing. He writes about messaging, productivity, and the everyday tools people use to get real work done, always from hands-on testing rather than press releases. When something is clunky, he says so.

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