Most note-taking apps do the same things. Save and organize digital notes. Search saved notes, clippings, and files. Sync across multiple devices.
Which should you use for cloud notes: OneNote or Evernote? Today, we'll go over some pros and cons of each, and which I prefer.- ššš¼š -į“į“į“į“Źį“: Fujifilm X.
Evernote and Microsoft OneNote both do all these things and more. Both tools let you save typed or handwritten notes, organize your notes into individual notebooks, and clip images, paragraphs of text, and even entire web pages as clippings for later viewing.
- Thoughts on my new favorite app Notion from an Evernote / OneNote user. Coffeewaitingmug May 16, 2020 Comments Off on Thoughts on my new favorite app Notion from an Evernote / OneNote user. I have used the Notion app for approximately three weeks now. As a technology sucker, I am always eager to try new gadgets to improve my workflow.
- (File- import - MS OneNote) Import from Evernote to Notion (If you are Evernote premium user, If not follow 4.) Export HTML on Evernote client. (File - export - export as multiple webpages.HTML) Win+R cmd cd to HTML saved folder enter command line below. For%F in (.html) do pandoc '%F' -f html -t docx -s -o '%F.docx' all the HTML files are converted to docx 6. Run notion then import word files.
Whatās interesting about both Evernote and OneNote is that, unlike email, document apps, or even instant messaging tools, note-taking apps arenāt often a core part of most work environments. You donāt necessarily need Evernote or OneNote the way you literally need email. They might not be essential, but they are useful.
But which of these tools is better?
Below, weāve examined Evernote and OneNote in depth to see which note-taking tool reigns supreme. We looked at several individual categories, and weāve made our recommendation toward the end of the post.
On the surface, there doesnāt appear to be much difference between Evernote and OneNote. Look a little closer, though, and the differences start to become more obvious. Letās look at how the two apps compare in terms of:
- Organization
- Storage
- Search
- Pricing
- Overall user satisfaction
Organization: Winner = Draw
Both Evernote and OneNote rely on the notebook convention to describe how the two tools manage file organization.
Evernote organizes items into Notebook Stacks > Notebooks > Notes. OneNote uses a similar convention of Notebooks > Sections > Pages.
In addition to their central notebook conventions, both Evernote and OneNote also feature tag systems. Evernoteās tags function similarly to tags in WordPress. You can add a tag to any note and search by tags to find thematically relevant notes.
OneNoteās tags work very differently. Theyāre a lot more interactive and can be used for lots of different things. For example, you can add Reminder tags to a note to be reminded at specific dates and times. OneNote comes with more than 20 preset tags, from To-Do items and Client Requests to Music to Listen to and Book to Read. Thereās even a Password tag.
Unlike Evernote, which limits tag placement to the Notes level, OneNote tags can be applied to any organizational element. Any Notebooks, Sections, or Pages in OneNote can have tags applied to them. You can add multiple tags to multiple elements on a page. For example, you could add a Contact tag to an image of a business card you uploaded after a meeting, a Reminder tag to follow up with that person at a specific date and time, and a Client Request tag to the action items you need to prepare for that meeting.
One of the biggest problems with Evernote is that the program itself can become sluggish once you reach a certain number of notebooks. Another major issue is that quick notes arenāt categorized by default, meaning that if you use Evernote to make lots of quick little notes, your file system in Evernote can quickly become a mess of Untitled Notes. For a tool thatās supposed to help us make sense of the information in our lives, this can be frustratingly counterintuitive.
I wouldnāt say tags in Evernote are ābetterā than tags in OneNote or vice-versa. It all depends on which system feels right to you and aligns with what you want from the tool.
Storage: Winner = OneNote
If you intend to use Evernote or OneNote simply to record your thoughts, storage isnāt that important. Individual text notes are tiny in terms of file size. So you donāt need to worry as much about running out of space.
If you intend to save a lot of documents and files, though, storage becomes a lot more important.
In terms of storage, Evernote is quite permissive but does have some hard restrictions:
- Evernote freemium accounts can have a maximum of 100,000 notes with a file-size restriction of 25MB per note. Premium subscribers can upload or capture notes up to 100MB in size.
- Evernote limits users to a maximum of 250 notebooks synced across a userās account.
- Evernote restricts users to a maximum of 10,000 tags.
- Evernote allows users to save up to 100 searches.
- Evernote freemium accounts are limited to just 60MB of uploaded data per month, premium users to 10GB, and business users to 20GB.
Evernoteās maximum number of notes, notebooks, and tags is fairly generous. But the 60MB upload limit is very harsh. Even casual users are likely to run up against this restriction pretty quickly, especially when working with larger files such as high-resolution images.
Evernote retired its Plus tier in April 2018, which had a 1GB upload restriction. This forces users to choose between the limitations of the Free plan or 10GB of storage in the Premium plan. Thereās no longer any middle ground between these two extremesāāa 5GB limit would have been a solid compromise for many users.
OneNote handles storage completely differently:
- OneNoteās storage limits are connected directly to a userās Microsoft OneDrive account; there are no restrictions on how many individual notes a OneNote user can save.
- OneNote Basic accounts offer individual uploaded file size restrictions of 25MB. Both Premium and Business subscribers are limited to uploads of up to 200MB per fileāātwice the size of Evernoteās maximum file size.
- OneNoteās free mobile version restricts users to 500 synced notes before prompting users to upgrade.
- Although the maximum file size you can upload to OneDrive is 15GB, the maximum file size you can upload to OneNote is 2GB.
The biggest problem with Evernote in terms of storage is the lack of a middle option. Itās either 60MB a month or 10GB a month. This makes sense for EvernoteāāEvernoteās harsh upload limits on its Basic plan are a powerful motivation to upgradeāābut it doesnāt make sense for users.
OneNoteās reliance on OneDrive for storage is a blessing and a curse. It helps keep OneNote largely free and offers generous storage and upload limits. But it also forces prospective OneNote users to sign up for a OneDrive account. This isnāt ideal if users prefer a different cloud storage provider or donāt want to migrate from Google Drive or Dropbox to OneDrive.
If you plan on using either of these tools for simple note-taking, storage wonāt be as important. If you need to save larger files or upload a lot of data, OneNote is the clear winner.
Search: Winner = Evernote
Note-taking apps help us record our thoughts. Theyāre somewhere for our random observations to live. If we canāt find our notes quickly and easily, then thereās not much point in saving anything. This makes search critically important.
When it comes to finding things, Evernoteās search functionality is solid. You can search by keyword or strings, as well as other search criteria such as where and when a note was created, media or attachment filetypes (such as PDFs, images, or audio files), and the people associated with or tagged in a note. Evernote also boasts a wide range of search modifiers that Google power users will find familiar.
OneNoteās search functionality isnāt quite as robust as Evernoteās search. OneNoteās search functionality can feel faster than Evernoteās (especially if you have a lot of notes stored) but offers fewer search operands. You wonāt see OneNoteās Notebook search option unless those Notebooks are stored in OneDrive. And you canāt search across all notebooks using OneNoteās web version.
Pricing: Winner = OneNote
With Evernoteās Plus tier no longer available, Evernote has three levels of pricing:
- Basic (free)
- Premium ($7.99 per month)
- Business ($14.99 per user, per month)
Evernoteās Basic plan will probably be fine for casual users. For even moderate use, however, itās not really viable due to Evernoteās upload restrictions. Itās worth remembering that this only really applies if youāre going to be saving lots of files and documents.
Evernoteās Premium plan lacks the restrictions of the Basic plan and offers a decent monthly upload limit. But at almost $96 for the year, itās far from cheapāāespecially when OneNote offers so much for free.
Evernoteās Business plan is the most robust of Evernoteās plans. Although cost isnāt likely to be as important a factor for larger companies or enterprise teams, itās still a considerable expense, especially as the number of users increases.
OneNote, on the other hand, is free. It isnāt even available as a premium version. All you have to decide is how much OneDrive storage youāll need if any.
Microsoftās basic plan, which offers 50GB of OneDrive storage, costs just $1.99 per month or $23.88 annually. For $6.99 per month, or $69.99 per year, you get 1,000GB of storage and access to Office 365 Personal edition.
Even if you donāt need Office or 1,000GB of storage, itās still cheaper than Evernoteās Premium plan.
Overall User Satisfaction: Winner = Draw
Evernote and OneNote score comparably in terms of overall user satisfaction.
According to G2, a website that ranks software products by user reviews and Net Promoter Score (NPS), both Evernote and OneNote perform strongly. Evernote was named a Leader product by G2 in spring 2019 and received an overall rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars across 1,352 user reviews.
OneNote was ranked as one of the Top 100 Software Products of 2019 by G2 and also received an overall rating of 4.4 stars out of 5 across 1,110 user reviews.
Technically, OneNote edges out Evernoteāābut only just. Evernote received slightly more one-, two-, and three-star reviews than OneNote did, and OneNote received slightly fewer reviews in general. Although this means OneNote beats Evernote narrowly in terms of user satisfaction, itās too close to be conclusive, so weāre going to call it a draw.
Our Recommendation for Evernote vs. OneNote
Now that weāve examined each tool in a little more depth, itās time to declare a winner.
Taking everything into consideration, we have to recommend OneNote.
OneNote gives you everything Evernote can do for a fraction of the price. If you want to do more with your notes, such as add to-do lists and reminders, OneNote can do that, too. If you just want to take simple text-based notes and find them quickly, Evernote might be a better bet.
Evernote is a highly capable tool with a broad range of use cases. However, as a product, Evernote has lost its way in recent years. And itās very hard to justify the cost when OneNote offers virtually identical functionality at a fraction of the price.
But itās not just about cost. Thereās more to it than that.
Aside from its dependence on OneDrive, OneNote is the clear winner for business users. It looks and feels like other Microsoft products. Some might see this as a negative, but it actually reduces the learning curve.
OneNote is also far superior for combining multiple types of information on the same page. For example, you can create a to-do list, add an image or table, and jot down some notes all on the same page. OneNoteās drag-and-drop interface, tabbed tagging system, and familiar toolbars make OneNote feel like Office might if Microsoft had acquired Notion.
Evernote looks and feels very sleek, but its performance and stability issues are problematic. Evernote has done an admirable job of doubling down on product quality, but some of these bugs have been around for years. For a premium product with a price tag to match, these frustrations are hard to justify.
In terms of writing and editing tools, Evernote has never positioned itself as a document tool. That said, its writing and document-editing tools are sorely limited. Creating quick notes feels anything but and highlights how poor Evernoteās default organizational structure can be. It doesnāt support markdown or HTML either.
Similarly, Evernote is a powerful tool but does a poor job of onboarding new users. Evernoteās tag system is much more flexible and useful than its default notebooks schema. Itās baffling why Evernote would almost completely overlook this aspect of its organizational structure in its learning resources and tutorials.
Of course, Evernote does do a few things better than OneNote.
One aspect of Evernote that really shines compared to OneNote is Evernoteās Web Clipper. This handy tool is available as a separate browser extension and allows users to quickly clip and save almost anything they find online. You can clip entire web pages as they appear, as simplified versions without images and special formatting, and even save web pages as PDF documents. OneNoteās clipper is fine, but it does struggle to preserve line breaks and other formatting rules. Evernoteās Web Clipper also offers āsmartā recommendations on where clipped items should be saved based on analysis of their contents. This feature is a little rudimentary and isnāt always accurate, but itās a nice feature.
Both Evernote and OneNote drop the ball when it comes to security. Evernote users can manually encrypt specific highlighted excerpts of text, but Evernote does not allow users to encrypt notebooks or even individual notes. OneNote doesnāt encrypt anything unless youāre a Business user. Granted, most people probably donāt need 256-bit AES encryption of their notes. But thatās beside the pointāāespecially if youāre paying almost $100 a year for Evernote Premium.
Should I Ever Choose Evernote Over OneNote?
At this point, the only real reason to choose Evernote over OneNote is if youāve already been using it for some time and donāt want to go to the trouble of exporting your notes to OneNote.
If youāre thinking of using Evernote or OneNote for the first time, we have to recommend OneNote every time.
Evernote has enjoyed its status as one of the most popular note-taking apps for a decade. However, with its unique style of note-taking, templates, and clean design, Notion quickly becomes choice for those looking for Evernote alternatives. In this post, Iāll make a detailed comparison of Evernote vs. Notion to see if Notion can be a possible candidate for note taking.
Read More:
Contents
- 1. Evernote vs Notion: Pros and Cons
1. Evernote vs Notion: Pros and Cons
Evernote Review: Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Scanner for mobile. You can use Evernote as a scanner to take photos of pages of books that when you donāt want to pay for photocopying.
- Web clipper for browsers. Evernote Web Clipper is the best on the web.
Notion Evernote Onenote Sign In
Cons
- Limited Free Version + Costly Evernote Pricing Plans
- The Evernote client doesnāt support real-time collaboration on notes with other users.
- Unlike other productivity apps that come with built-in features that you can use for task-management features, Evernote can only create notes.
Notion Review: Pros and Cons
Pros:
- Flexible pages. Notion has a template engine that allows you to turn pretty much anything into an easily-duplicated template.
- Nested hierarchical organization. You can even turn a set of text into a dropdown so you can roll them up when you want non-immediate information out of the way.
- Hybrid editor. Notion lets you write in Markdown or use normal keyboard shortcuts and UI elements to format your text.
Cons:
- Free account is really just a demo. A free account gives you 1,000 free blocks but they go FAST.
- Quirks in the editor due to the block system. Unfortunately, Notion falters heavily in the formatting department, and itās all thanks to their block system.
Winner ā Both can be preferred, depending on the type of usage.
2. Evernote vs Notion: Taking Notes
Note-taking capabilities are the prime aspect of any Notes app.
Evernote has included every possible way to add new notes. You can write notes, add images, recordings, tag files, and even draw with the available options. In addition, you can use Evernote as a scanner to take photos of pages of books that when you donāt want to pay for photocopying.
It also lets you choose from the available templates. The selection is undoubtedly rich, and Iām sure you will find the relevant template to start the note.
On Notion, you can add a list, plain text, videos, sound, code snippets ā itās up to you. To cut setup time, the Notion program also allows you to create templates for your notes. For example, you can easily create a standardized template for writing all your blog posts. The next time your content team needs to create a new article, they can use that template to get started.
Winner ā Both can be preferred, depending on the type of usage.
3. Evernote vs Notion: Cross-Platform Availability
Evernote is available on Android, iOS, Apple Watch, Mac and Windows.
Notion is also available on iOS, Android, Windows, and Mac.
In addition, Evernote extension is available on Chrome, Edge, Firefox, and every other Chromium-based browser. Notion recently added extension support for Chrome browser.
Winner ā Evernote
4. Evernote vs Notion: Pricing
Evernote offers three pricing tiersāa free Basic plan, a Premium plan for $7.99 a month, and a Business plan for $14.99 per user per month. Notion has four pricing tiersāa Free plan, a Personal plan for $4 a month, a Team plan at $8 per member per month, and an Enterprise plan at $20 per member per month.
Evernoteās free and premium subscription options
- Basic: Free. Access notes on only 2 devices.
- Premium: $7.99/month (for 10 GB of new storage monthly uploads)
- Business: $14.99/user per month. 20 GB of new uploads/month + 2 GB/user
Notionās free and premium subscription options
- Free plan: Supports unlimited members and the first 1000 blocks.
- Personal ($4/month): For solo users with unlimited storage and file uploads.
- Team ($8/month per user): Supports unlimited members, unlimited storage and unlimited file uploads.
- Enterprise ($20/month per user): This pricing plan is aimed at enterprise teams with additional features.
Winner: Notion
5. Evernote vs Notion: Our Recommendation
Move Onenote To Evernote
Evernote is commonly used as the best filing cabinet tool. Itās a great way to store documents, handy notes, important files, project notes, and even tend to your daily reminders. Then, should you switch to Notion?
What Notion does better:
- Long-form, structured notes
- Tables. They can be even switched to āTrelloā or calendar view. Itās literally a simple spreadsheet/database mixed with project management tool ā all inbuilt inside the note-taking app
- Code highlighting for all major programming languages
- Limited markdown support
- Distraction-free UI
- Comments inside note
Evernote Or Onenote For Students
What Evernote does better:
Notion Evernote Onenote ęÆč¼
- Quick notes
- Web clipper (Notion doesnāt have it, but authors claim that itās on their to-do list)
- Document scanner (straightening, contrast, OCR)
- Can draw (Notion canāt)
Onenote To Evernote
Evernote vs Notion, which is better? It all depends on your needs.