Evernote Clipper vs. Instapaper

[BeEfficient 44]

I am a little confused when it comes to Instapaper.

The main argument is: Instapaper makes an article clean, so you can send it e.g. to Evernote.

However, the Evernote Clipper has an article option as well, where you get a very clean article format.

So is there a case where the free version of Instapaper gives me productivity advantage that the Evernote clipper does not have?

[PinkElephant 9,015]

Instapaper is much more focussed on just 1 task, which is holding web content for reading or saving it for later reference.

That is very little compared to the features of EN.

Instapaper may be something for people who don't have EN. It looks similar to Pocket, which serves a similar task.

When you are already using EN, I would not start using any of these apps. You even loose productivity, because you start searching for content in several "silos". Makes no sense.

[BeEfficient 44]

I absolutely agree with you @PinkElephant.

I just didn't see any argument for having Instapaper while using EN. Some tried to show the advantages on different YouTube videos. But I was definitely not convinced.

One core argument was: Instapaper makes articles much more clean.

So Instapaper becomes the inbox for ALL articles. And once you like the article, you can send it in this very clean format towards EN.

So EN will contain ONLY those filtered from yourself by scanning in Instapaper first.

Whatever, I don't care 🙂

[PinkElephant 9,015]

My experience with these „pass through“ apps is that they tend to clog up. Relevant content stays there instead of being passed on.

I use Pocket occasionally, only for reading, especially when going on a trainride or flight.

[aukirk 368]

While I don't use Instapaper, I heavily use Pocket and have a different perspective...

For me, Evernote is where I save things... Pocket is where I put articles/content that I *may* want to read.  I save a lot to Pocket that I may never get around to reading, or may find unimportant after reading.  However, if I finish reading something and find it relevant for some future use, I will then forward it to Evernote where it gets stored.

I would not recommend using Evernote v10 as your "reading list"... unless you just aren't saving much else there.  You certainly could use it, but in my opinion the dedicated reading apps are better focused on doing that and they are much better at that one "feature".  I find it very easy to save from multiple sources to Pocket... to quickly load it up and read a few things, highlight and determine what I want to do with it.  I imagine I would get frustrated trying to use Evernote v10 for that.

[Frki2 78]

I have the same issue. I strugle with separating what to add to Instapaper and what to Evernote, and usualy find some solution in between.

Good point with Instapaper is that it is connected to my Readwise so i can send only things i find valuable from article to Evernote as separate Readvise qoute and explanation.

[BeEfficient 44]

@aukirk

As described above, this is exactly the reason / case people use Instapaper I understood so far. EN just get those pieces that worth passing through. The rest is the long list in Instapaper etc. while EN represents the selected short list.