Introduction
I’ve been using Evernote for some time for taking longer notes, but it started to annoy me a little bit. The main drawback is lack of the Linux desktop app. I’m using this app on Android phone, Macbook (at work) and on Linux (at home). There are community apps like NixNote2, which is nice, but in my opinion it’s not good enough. Moreover, Evernote seems to have too many features, which distract me and I don’t really use most of them. A few of these features may be really helpful for some use cases, but not for mine. I need simpler & cleaner tool for taking basic personal notes, which is available on all operating systems. I’ve started searching for Evernote alternatives. Below you can find my types worth checking.
Google Keep
It’s nice & quite popular tool from Google with Android app. I started using it before Evernote. It doesn’t have dedicated desktop app, but it has Chrome extension, which behaves almost like a desktop app. It’s great for short & quick text notes, simple hand drawing notes, notes with pictures & even simple voice notes. It’s some kind of replacement or extension for physical yellow sticky notes. When I want to note something like one sentence or keyword quickly and I have only my phone with me, it’s perfect choice. Nevertheless, it’s not so good for a longer notes. Link: https://keep.google.com
Simplenote
This app is nice, clean & elegant. Moreover, it has desktop apps for all popular destkop & mobile operating systems: Windows, Linux, macOS, Android & iOS. It has less features than Evernote, but it’s sufficient for me. In addition, it easily synchronizes across all devices and allows you to export notes into single *.zip file. It doesn’t have folders/categories, but it has tags, which may be helpful during organizing your stuff. This is my strong personal candidate to replace Evernote. This app is developed by Automattic, a company behind Wordpress & other nice tools. Link: https://simplenote.com
Boostnote
Boostnote is another interesting tool worth checking out. It’s open-source and works on Linux, Windows & macOS. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have mobile & web apps yet. This tool is good for collecting code snippets and markdown notes, what makes it great for software developers. Moreover, you can attach any storage on your disk to this tool and fully control it. For example, you can add storage in your Dropbox account and synchronize it across devices. You can also attach it to your private Git repository and track changes in the notes. Nevertheless it requires additional work like committing & pushing changes to repository. This tool is under development. Maybe it wouldn’t be perfect replacement for Evernote, but it definitely looks promising. Link: https://boostnote.io
Summary
As we can see there are many tools for taking notes. Sometimes, I also use regular physical notepad, sticky notes & pen, which are perfect when power goes down or you want to have a break from the machines. We don’t have to be sticked to one tool forever.