Notion App Evernote
I have switched from Evernote to Notion, but there are a few things I’ll miss about Evernote. However, it wasn’t enough to prevent me from switching to this. Evernote is designed to store a lot of different types of information from a lot of different sources in one place. Using the Web Clipper, native integrations, or a service such as IFTTT (If This Then That) you can use Evernote to store all your ideas, notes (both handwritten. Notion and Evernote are quite powerful note-taking apps. But when it comes in matters of better value for money, Notion wins. Notion is cheaply priced at only $4 per month, which is half the price of Evernote premium. Additionally, Evernote’s $4 plan is free for students and educators. 🏫 The Full Notion Course here: Evernote and Notion are becoming one of the trickiest dilemmas when choosing your next note-taking appli. Notion and Evernote are two very different tools with very similar goals. The biggest difference between the two products is that, as an all-in-one workspace tool, Notion helps users keep all their work in one place. As an organizational note-taking tool, Evernote helps users keep their files in one place.
Notion and Evernote are two very different tools with very similar goals.
The biggest difference between the two products is that, as an all-in-one workspace tool, Notion helps users keep all their work in one place. As an organizational note-taking tool, Evernote helps users keep their files in one place.
Of the two tools, Evernote is the older product. Evernote has enjoyed its status as one of the most popular note-taking apps for a decade. But after faltering in recent years, Evernote’s dominance has waned, leaving it vulnerable to competition.
Notion is the relative newcomer. Notion 1.0 first launched in 2016. But the product has undergone a significant overhaul since its initial release. Unlike Evernote, Notion aims to be more than just a simple note-taking app. It’s an all-in-one workspace that happens to do a lot of the same things as Evernote.
But which tool is better? Should you pay for Evernote or Notion?
That all depends on how you work.
Below, we’ve examined both tools to see how they compare. We’ve broken our analysis down into several subsections before making our recommendation at the end.
Let’s see how Notion and Evernote stack up.
Notion vs. Evernote: Generalization vs. Specialization
Before deciding whether to purchase a subscription to either Notion or Evernote, you have to ask yourself whether you need a generalized tool that can do lots of different things or a specialized tool with fewer features but greater depth.
Most of us rely on multiple tools and software programs to get our work done. Document tools, email clients, instant messaging platforms, spreadsheets and databases, code repositories, cloud-based storage services – the list goes on. Notion aims to solve the problem of using dozens of tools to get work done by consolidating the most common features of these tools into a single, minimal workspace. Notion doesn’t replace every tool of course, but it can replace lots of them. And many of the tools we rely upon every day can be integrated with Notion to minimize disruption.
Similarly, just as most of us rely on several tools to get stuff done, many of us rely on almost as many ways to help us remember things. Calendar events for invitations and meetings; contact information of important people; hand-written notes for random thoughts; bookmarks for webpages – that’s a lot of stuff to remember. The more tools you use to keep track of your life, the more likely things are to slip through the cracks. Evernote lets you save and organize all your stuff into digital notebooks that can be synched across all your devices.
Although there are a few factors to consider, the choice between Notion and Evernote ultimately boils down to generalization versus specialization. Notion’s note-taking tools are fine, but they can’t hope to compete with those of Evernote because that’s Evernote’s entire value proposition. Likewise, Evernote can’t possibly go up against Notion as a workspace tool because that’s not what Evernote is.
The question of Notion versus Evernote is really a question of breadth versus depth.
Of course, there’s a little more to it than that. First, let’s see how Notion and Evernote stack up in terms of price.
Pricing: Winner = Notion
When it comes to price, Notion beats Evernote hands-down.
Notion’s free plan is a little restrictive, but it’s designed to introduce new users to Notion in a no-risk way. Notion’s Personal plan is ideal for newcomers to Notion. At just $4 per month, it’s also very inexpensive. Even Notion’s Team and Enterprise tiers are reasonably priced.
Evernote’s pricing is a sore spot for many users. Until a few years ago, Evernote had a very generous freemium version. That changed in 2016 when Evernote shook up its executive team and restructured its pricing. Many long-time Evernote users were understandably upset.
Like Notion, Evernote also has a free plan. Like Notion’s free plan, Evernote Basic has a pretty restrictive upload limit. But it gives users a taste of what to expect from its other plans.
Evernote’s biggest weakness when it comes to pricing is the lack of a truly mid-range plan. Sure, $7.99 per month might not seem like a lot of money. But when you consider that Notion does virtually everything Evernote can do at almost half the price, it’s a little more difficult to justify. Similarly, Evernote’s Business plan is cheaper than Notion’s Enterprise plan, but its two-user minimum might feel a little deceptive to some users.
Overall User Satisfaction: Winner = Notion
In terms of overall user satisfaction, Notion and Evernote are pretty evenly matched.
Notion has an average user rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 at G2.com, a site dedicated to reviewing software products.
Evernote also has an average user rating of 4.5 stars out of 5 at G2.
It’s worth noting that Notion’s average score was calculated across 40 user reviews (at the time of this writing). Evernote’s score was calculated across 1,381 user reviews. This disparity can be explained in part by the fact that Evernote has been around for fifteen years, whereas Notion has only been around for four years. Despite its smaller sample size, Notion generally has a greater proportion of positive reviews than Evernote does.
Although Notion and Evernote score similarly in terms of average ratings, perceptions of the two products differ quite widely. Between 2011 and 2015, the Evernote brand took a serious hit after the company released a series of largely irrelevant products that strayed pretty far from Evernote’s core value proposition.
Evernote also has somewhat of a deserved reputation for being buggy and unstable. Both of these factors have harmed perceptions of Evernote as a product in recent years.
Notion, on the other hand, doesn’t have the same branding issues as Evernote. It does, however, have something of a reputation for doing lots of things quite well, but not specializing or excelling in any one area.
Overall, we have to name Notion as the winner in this round.
Notion Vs Evernote Reddit
Note-Taking: Winner = Evernote
As a dedicated note-taking app that’s been around for fifteen years, it’s hardly surprising that Evernote is the clear winner when it comes to taking notes.
The main reason why Notion fails to beat Evernote as a note-taking app is that Notion’s note-taking feature can be pretty intimidating to use. With so many templates to choose from, making a simple note in Notion can feel like anything but. Notion can also feel pretty sluggish if you have lots of notes stored, particularly on mobile.
Evernote’s note-taking features are far from perfect, however. One of the most common complaints about Evernote’s notes is that it doesn’t categorize or label newly created notes by default. You have to manually rename and categorize each note yourself. If you don’t, it won’t take long before your sidebar is almost entirely populated with Untitled Notes with little to indicate their contents. This might not sound like a huge pain, but can quickly get out of hand if you’re in the habit of taking lots of quick notes on the fly.
Organization: Winner = Draw
Notion and Evernote both offer strong organizational options. Notion offers more flexibility when it comes to organization and lets you create custom workspaces using templates as a starting point.
Notion Vs Evernote 2020
Evernote’s organizational structure is a bit more defined but still offers users a good deal of freedom to customize how they keep their stuff organized.
Notion doesn’t really have a default organizational schema. How you choose to organize your stuff depends entirely on how you like things organized and the kinds of things you’ll be organizing.
For example, Notion allows you to combine multiple “Block” types – everything in Notion is a Block – on a single “page” or workspace. You could create daily, weekly, and monthly workspaces, each of which might contain different types of Blocks. You could add a personal to-do list to your Daily view, a Trello-style Kanban board to track your week’s work to your Weekly view, and Calendar events in your Monthly view. It’s totally up to you. This flexibility is what makes Notion so powerful.
Evernote’s organizational structure is a little more defined. Individual files, clippings, and other items are stored in Notes, which in turn are organized into Notebooks. Users can then combine multiple Notebooks into Notebook Stacks. It’s a familiar convention that doesn’t take a lot of getting used to.
One pretty big drawback of Evernote’s organizational tools is that newly created Notes aren’t categorized by default. So if you end up using Evernote to create a lot of quick notes, you will soon find your Evernote will be full of Untitled Notes.
Notion’s flexibility is a major asset when it comes to organization. Notion was built with teams in mind. As such, managing and organizing shared assets and collaborative projects is much easier and more intuitive in Notion than Evernote. If you need to keep your team’s assets and projects organized, Notion is the clear choice. If you’re more interested in getting your personal digital life in order, Evernote has a lot to offer.
Overall, both tools offer strong organizational features. It all comes down to which system works best for you and how you prefer to keep your stuff organized.
Search: Winner = Evernote
Both Notion and Evernote rely on the premise of being able to find any saved item quickly. Neither Notion’s workspaces or Evernote’s Notebooks would be much use if you couldn’t find anything within them.
Notion and Evernote both offer strong search functionality. But Evernote just edges out in front of Notion. Evernote’s search functionality is deceptively powerful. You can use a range of advanced search modifiers and operands to create custom search parameters. If you’ve ever used Google’s advanced modifiers, Evernote’s search features will feel very familiar. Evernote’s optical character recognition technology also allows you to search handwritten notes digitally.
Notion’s search features are also powerful. But they’re not quite as intuitive as Evernote’s search operands. Notion favors a series of keyboard shortcuts that rely on Quick Find, Notion’s real-time indexing of users’ files. This feels similar to OS X’s Spotlight feature. In addition to results based on strings entered by the user, Notion’s search function also returns recently viewed items, which feels quick and responsive.
Evernote’s search isn’t perfect. It can be a little slow, especially if you have lots of Notebooks. That said, it’s the strongest search feature of the two tools, which makes it the winner in this round.
Our Recommendation for Notion vs. Evernote
Now that we’ve taken a look at how Notion and Evernote compare, it’s time to look at everything in context and make our recommendation.
Based on the above criteria, we have to recommend Notion over Evernote.
The fact that Notion can do virtually everything that Evernote can do at a significantly lower price makes Notion the clear choice for most users. It’s more flexible, appeals to a broader range of use cases, and offers users more integrations with the tools they’re already using.
Evernote certainly outperforms Notion in some areas such as note-taking. But generally, Notion offers virtually all the same functionality, plus a bit more besides.
As a relatively newer tool, Notion is far from perfect. But Notion’s developers are listening carefully to the product’s community. The same cannot be said for Evernote. Although both tools have their bugs, many of Evernote’s most persistent technical problems have been around for years.
The one exception to our general recommendation of Notion is if you’re looking primarily for a note-taking tool. If this is the case, Evernote will probably serve you much better than Notion will.
For this demonstration, we’ve shortlisted Evernote, Trello and Todoist as the applications we’ll put head to head against Notion. We will simply compare how Notion challenges it, with some wins and losses to consider.
Remember Notion is aiming to be an all-in-one workspace, and the other resources mentioned are specialist resources. Todoist, for example, is a perfect list manager, with Notion replicating some basic features of task management, this is only to compare the snapshot of Notion to these tools to see if they compare.
Notion Evernote Import
Let’s highlight the following tools:
Evernote
Trello
Todoist
Starting with the elephant in the room.
Evernote vs Notion
Let’s start with the oldest, it’s only fair.
Evernote has been the world’s most popular note-taker for 10 years now. With Notion in 2019 aiming to take a chunk out of the Evernote platform. Notion looks the most focused on becoming an Evernote replacement this year. Before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s take a look at what makes this comparison in more detail.
A win - Evernote Clipper: One thing to kick things off is the Evernote Web Clipper for Chrome. The Evernote Web Clipper wins. Compared to Notion’s newly released Web Clipper, it doesn’t have much of a fight. You are limited to adding links and storing them in a database in Notion’s Web Clipper, whilst in Evernote’s Clipper you can snap up text, PDFs and much more - also adding tags, reminders and getting a share link ASAP. Early days for the Notion Web Clipper, but Evernote’s clipper redeems top spot!
A loss - Clunky Designs: The lack of platform consistency means Evernote’s Mac, iOS, Android and Windows versions all look different and still a little outdated. Compared this to Notion’s minimalist approach, Notion takes home the win. Evernote have stated they are focusing on getting things all consistent in 2019 - so we should see a streamlined Evernote coming this year, with no feature changes.
A win - Deep Function: Evernote takes home the bacon (sorry PETA) with their attention to detail on features. They’ve been the leader in note-taking for a fair while and you can see that with scanning OCR, hand-writing searching, advanced notebook searching, exporting abilities, merging notes, sorting abilities. There’s no doubt that Evernote still takes home the trophy with this, with Notion lacking behind with some basic functionality.
A loss - Inventing Future: Back in 2014/15, Evernote took their foot off the gas, and focused on building their business proposition, which for many personal users was a loss. The loyalty began to fall and many Evernote users felt sad that their use wasn’t as recognised. It’s fair to say Evernote has not been inventing the future ever since 2014, apps like Notion, Coda and Airtable have leapfrogged them in concepts making Evernote more vulnerable to being a legacy tool, like Steve Dotto puts it, in the space it once dominated.
Trello vs Notion
Next up, the one Trello to rule them all!
This project management solution has been a favourite amongst start-ups looking to use the popular Kanban methodology to get things done. With over 10m users worldwide, Trello has build itself as a house hold name, in many cases helping people to decorate their house and even plan major projects from parties to launches.
Here’s where Trello wins and loses:
A win - For Everyone: The one thing I see with Trello is its mass appeal. Trello is one of the most widely used tools, with very little explanation needed. Trello can be used by all types of teams, professionals and even in casual use, it reminds me to the versatility of Evernote in the beginning, with start-ups using it to plan their goals and retired individuals planning home decor redesigns, the abilities are literally endless and it’s so easy to get on with.
A loss - Too Fixed: It’s hard to point flaws in Trello, but one of the cracks that might appear in the future is Trello’s lack of alternative views. Trello is designed and focused on Kanban, and they do this well. But in the future, the space is open up to optional views, designs and even more. Will Trello fall behind due to their fixed state of Kanban? Too early to say but this fixed view could be Trello’s downfall.
A win - Free Resource: Trello is one of the most free tools out there, yes, you do have limits with the power-up additions, but there are no limits to how much you can post and use inside of Trello - leaving it to be potentially free ongoing if you don’t use those business tools, or have no need for customised backgrounds or stickers.
Export Evernote To Notion
Todoist vs Notion
And finally, the king of to-do list apps, Todoist is here!
This is probably the least likely comparison, Notion doesn’t market itself at all as a task management tool, but does have some features that resemble Todoist and potentially will continue to add them.
Let’s explore this comparison to Notion
A win - List Management: The one thing to note is that Todoist is an amazing list manager and it doesn’t try to be anything else. When it comes to comparing it against Notion, I’m so hesitant. Whilst you can create lists and build to-do lists in Notion, it doesn’t come close. Todoist continues to invest in making task management easy to get started with and I think people considering it against Notion for a task manager shouldn’t jump the gun, just yet.
A loss - Static Views: One of the biggest losses is that Todoist lacks the viewing options of Notion. In Notion, you can change your database to view gallery, list, table and board view, even calendar view - here’s our Notion database guide - but with Todoist, you have list view and that’s all. Todoist have announced that Boards are coming 2019, with a focus on giving you more layout options too, this will spice things up with long-time Todoist users looking to view their upcoming tasks with more intent.
A win - Context: Notion has reminders, it has the ability to add tags inside tables, but it doesn’t have something GTD prides itself on, and that’s context. Context helps people to add labels, associations and even create filters with a task and it makes Todoist so wonderful when looking to get more from the application. With this lacking in Notion, it’s not worth considering.
From looking at all three of these softwares in comparison to Notion, I’d recommend people do their research into what features are the most suitable and whether Notion meets those needs. Whilst Notion can be used as a Trello, Todoist and Evernote replacement, it isn’t going to fulfil all the needs you and with these applications.
From my own opinions, it replaces Trello - due to the board nature and databases - but not fully Evernote and Todoist right now. To fully replace Evernote it does need a little more focus on note-taking, and with Todoist it needs a LOT more.
Let’s see what 2019 brings, let us know if you have any Notion-related questions, take the Beginner’s course and do check out our long list of Notion videos on YouTube too. Our email: francesco (at) keepproductive (dot com).