Reviewed by Francesco D'Alessio
Evernote Review (2024)
Best Features, Pricing, Alternatives & Verdict
Evernote is one of the most original note-taking applications but the last few years have not been kind to the elephant, but it is back in 2024, but is it a good notes app anymore?
What is Evernote?
Evernote is a note-taking application with tasks and calendar management with AI.
Used by over 180,000 teams worldwide — Try it now for free / No credit card needed
Run all your work on one platform with customizable products that scale with your needs.
What does Evernote do?
Evernote handles your note management but can also do tasks and calendar events.
Think of Evernote as the hub for your notes, tasks and calendar, they want to be the place you manage all of that in one location. Connect up Google Calendar and start bringing in events, connect notes to that event, and better manage the tasks that come out of the meeting, they want to be this ultimate hub for anything related to productivity.
Evernote is popular and works well as a second brain app and for GTD.
Now owned by Bending Spoons, an Italian AI and mobile development company, the last few years have been spent on re-organizing what Evernote built and producing a better infrastructure, but does that leap from them live up to that standard Evernote once had?
Evernote Best Features & Pros
Here's the bits we love about the Evernote application from our review.
1. Traditional for Note-Taking
Evernote is primarily for note-taking but there's more to it.
Evernote has many features, the first is their range of ways to note-take. You can use audio clips, sketching on iPad, Android tablet and iPhone, tables, attachments, connect up Google Drive links, manage tasks, calendar events via Google Calendar and much more.
They also have the ability to insert tasks and calendar events within notes making it easier to bring the tasks from meetings or the project calendar events into said notes for seamless connection. As a note-taking app, this helps to keep things aligned with many people liking having all these three experienced housed in one.
The other abilities many people like are the OCR scanning, PDF annotations and business card scanning that bring a level of professional accessibility to mobile devices.
2. Web Clipper
The Web Clipper has long been one of Evernote's best abilities.
Allowing for clipping articles, PDFs and on the web content into the perfect notebooks and relevant links and tags for referencing back to. This is something people tend to skip past but when you collect notes this is something that can save you huge amounts of time.
Used by over 180,000 teams worldwide — Try it now for free / No credit card needed
Run all your work on one platform with customizable products that scale with your needs.
3. Growing AI Features
Evernote is trying to bring their AI development background into the mix.
There are two main features within Evernote for using AI to enhance notes. The first of those is AI Note-Clean-Up which Evernote want to use as more of a gen-AI based feature allowing people to improve the context of their note.
The second is a new upgrade to Evernote search allowing you to use AI search to get answers across your account. For example, if you wanted to get an answer from the history of your notes, to save time interacting with those notes and better saving time.
As Bending Spoons is an AI based company, we'd say that 2024 will likely see the rollout of more and more AI based features inside of Evernote and a focus on better mobile.
Evernote Cons
These are the elements to be aware of when looking at Evernote:
1. Expensive Pricing
The pricing drastically changed with Evernote.
From free to a limit of 50 notes and one notebook, from $7.99 to $14.99 per month, and a sea change in who they want using the tool with this new focused pricing. Many people will not be able to afford this including students and many professionals.
However, Evernote did change their policy on the features available to those free users, allowing them to get access to things formerly locked under personal and professional accounts making personal accounts more appealing to new users.
2. New Management
In 2023, Evernote was acquired by Bending Spoons.
For many people, this acquisition didn't sit well as Bending Spoons tends to be a company that turns arounds businesses and focuses on higher tier pricing - and with many using Evernote thanks to their generous free plan, this was a big shock.
For many, this is also an exciting opportunity to turn Evernote profitable.
How much does Evernote cost?
Evernote is priced at $14.99 per month for Evernote personal.
Used by over 180,000 teams worldwide — Try it now for free / No credit card needed
Run all your work on one platform with customizable products that scale with your needs.
Evernote Pricing: Explained
There is a free tier with a limit of 1 notebook and 50 notes, with all features.
Verdict: Is Evernote the best note-taking app?
Evernote is one of the oldest note-taking apps on the market.
For many people, they have turned away from the old giant for apps like Notion, but with their new ownership, Evernote has a potential future in our opinion. For those looking at Evernote now, if the more traditional features appeal, that's good, that is what Evernote does well right now, but in 6-12 months Evernote could look a lot different.
Innovation is rapid across the world of note-taking apps, so right now, many apps might look more appealing to those who want networked thought note-taking and more.
Evernote expect to add Outlook Calendar soon too, to help their calendar efforts.
Best Evernote Alternatives
Obsidian, Notion, Capacities are all good Evernote alternatives.
