Evernote’s new owners gutted the free plan and raised prices. Here are the best note-taking apps for people ready to move on — including free options with better features than Evernote’s paid tier.
Each app below addresses a specific gap in Evernote's offering. We picked them based on real user review patterns and feature differentiation.
Already on every iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Supports rich text, sketches, document scanning, tables, and folder organization. Syncs seamlessly via iCloud. For most people, Apple Notes does everything Evernote does — for free.
Explore Apple Notes data →Goes far beyond note-taking with databases, wikis, project management, and team collaboration. More complex than Evernote but vastly more capable. The most popular Evernote replacement for power users.
Explore Notion data →Notes stored as Markdown files on your device — no proprietary format, no vendor lock-in. Bidirectional linking creates a knowledge graph. Lightning fast with thousands of notes. The anti-Evernote for people who value data ownership.
Explore Obsidian data →Beautiful, fast note-taking with Markdown, tagging, and a clean interface. Feels like what Evernote should have become — simple, polished, and reliable. Apple Design Award winner.
Explore Bear data →Free, open-source, and supports Evernote import (ENEX files). Markdown-based with end-to-end encryption. Self-host your sync or use Joplin Cloud. The closest 1:1 Evernote replacement for privacy-minded users.
Explore Joplin data →Made by Automattic (WordPress). Plain text notes with tags, Markdown support, and instant sync across every platform. No attachments, no formatting complexity — just fast, reliable text notes.
Explore Simplenote data →We found these alternatives by analyzing review patterns across hundreds of note-taking apps. Users switching from Evernote most commonly cite pricing increases, the gutted free plan, data portability concerns, and declining reliability.
Bending Spoons, an Italian software company, acquired Evernote in late 2023. Since then, the free plan was cut to 50 notes and 1 notebook, pricing increased significantly (some users reported 70%+ hikes), and features have been removed. Many long-time users are migrating to alternatives.
Apple Notes (if you’re in the Apple ecosystem), Joplin (open-source with Evernote import), and Simplenote (minimalist cross-platform) are all completely free. Obsidian is free for personal use and offers the most powerful feature set among free options.
Yes, but it’s not seamless. Evernote exports to ENEX format. Joplin has native ENEX import. Notion has an Evernote importer. Obsidian can import via community plugins. Apple Notes does not have direct import — you’d need a third-party tool. The sooner you migrate, the easier it is.
App Vulture uses AI-powered review intelligence to analyze what real users say about apps — their pain points, feature requests, and reasons for switching. We identified these alternatives by analyzing review patterns across note-taking and organization apps.
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