Evernote vs. Notion

ferol · February 13

I'm comparing the capabilities of Evernote and Notion. Based on preliminary testing, I don't think Notion can completely replace Evernote in my usage pattern. But the Notion system is interesting, and for certain activities I am considering moving some of my work from Evernote to Notion and using them in parallel. It looks like the two systems can complement each other nicely.

I'm posting my comparison table here, where I keep a running tally of what I've figured out through testing:

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s36/sh/451aca90-7903-4bc3-bc30-33ef6a94f4d8/G4NtRHd9gu8dJvUVx8AvBompLe95KTgrYwYnt_EAAEULVV7rlByUeIqfvg

I'm not starting this thread for the reason that I want to walk away from Evernote. Evernote is a top tool for me. So let's have a reasonable discussion about how and why to use which tool. Post constructive ideas and tips on what Notion is better at and what Evernote is better at.

If you have any comparisons of your own, let me know, I'll include them in the shared spreadsheet 😉

Dave-in-Decatur · February 13

Thanks, @ferol. I'm not particularly interested in Notion, or in leaving Evernote. But the new Evernote interface is the first change they've made that has me saying, "Hmm." Could you post (here or in the shared Evernote note) comparable views of the two apps' interfaces?

ferol · February 13

11 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Thanks, @ferol. I'm not particularly interested in Notion, or in leaving Evernote. But the new Evernote interface is the first change they've made that has me saying, "Hmm." Could you post (here or in the shared Evernote note) comparable views of the two apps' interfaces?

Fast screen video - there was some default pages (can delete)... I dont have here my own content now...

eugenes · February 13

thank you, @ferol for starting this thread!

very useful list. i didn't notice some of them (like the limited fonts in Notion) because they're really not important to me.
BTW, you can embed youtube videos in EN, just paste in the link and hit return.
i would add:
Display number of notes/pages in notebook/database: EN yes (automatically); Notion yes (but requires manual intervention)
Collapsible lists: EN no; Notion yes
Free tier: EN yes (very limited, practically just a demo); Notion yes (unlimited number of pages, some limitations)
AI for text: EN yes (only for formatting); Notion yes (powerful text manipulation, but not free)
Search in attachments: EN yes; Notion no

Dave-in-Decatur · February 13

Thanks, @ferol. So it looks as if Notion has the same low-contrast type of interface as Evernote now has. My curiosity has diminished. 🙂

eugenes · February 13

for the record, i am currently in the process of moving to notion.

Jon/t · February 13

IMO Notion is not so good at capture but good for database things and Wiki's.

I've tried it and too complicated. I just need to get stuff done and not fuss with excel-type formulas.

No offline mode either which I use a load.

VincentC · February 13

I agree with you, @Jon/t. I work sometimes with a vendor who occasionally supplies equipment to one of my clients. The vendor has given me access to a wealth of support materials which they keep in Notion. It's very database-y, and as just a "normal" person, not that friendly to me. I find Evernote much simpler to use for a purpose like this -- so much so that I typically cut-and-paste their relevant info into Evernote. (non-proprietary info only, to comply with Evernote's Terms and Conditions!)

Vinnie

eugenes · February 13

so far i haven't really created any databases in Notion. i have migrated most of my EN notes (4000+) to Notion.
A stack in EN is a page in Notion (eg "courses" on the left). Under it is a "database" (ie a EN notebook - the middle column, "The Digital and the Analog"). Each of the columns in the database is a page (ie note - right hand column). Notion created these databases automatically when i imported my EN stacks and notebooks.
For me this is enough (and it doesn't cost $130/year). I doubt i'll be creating any new fancy databases in the near future.

ferol · February 13

2 hours ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Vďaka, @ferol. Vyzerá to, že Notion má rovnaký typ rozhrania s nízkym kontrastom, aký má teraz Evernote. Moja zvedavosť sa znížila. 🙂

The interface in terms of contrast is similar. I don't solve it because of the new interface, but I just like to optimize my work and Notion can really be better for certain things.

PinkElephant · February 13

Anybody as he wishes - and which features he may need.

The main problem with Notion arises when you have used it for a while, maybe started some databases of your own, and the like. I always prefer a tool from which I can move my content whenever I want to move it (you just proved this can be useful ...). In that moment the flexibility turns agains you: You won't find another tool that will accommodate your content, because it lacks a common structure.

ferol · February 13

5 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

Ktokoľvek, ako si želá - a ktoré funkcie môže potrebovať.

Hlavný problém so spoločnosťou Notion nastáva, keď ste ju už nejaký čas používali, možno ste spustili niektoré vlastné databázy a podobne. Vždy dávam prednosť nástroju, z ktorého môžem presunúť svoj obsah, kedykoľvek ho chcem presunúť (len ste dokázali, že to môže byť užitočné ...). V tom okamihu vás flexibilita znova otočí: Nenájdete iný nástroj, ktorý by vyhovoval vášmu obsahu, pretože mu chýba spoločná štruktúra.

Of course. This can be a complication. I'm going to test it by putting together the structure of a new website with online courses. That's what the structure works better than Evernote.

I certainly don't plan to add standard notes there. I don't see the benefit in that.

And I certainly don't plan to use their database tools. Especially the structuring and the content itself won't have thousands of notes. That's why it's relatively easy to get out.

eugenes · February 13

1 hour ago, PinkElephant said:

Anybody as he wishes - and which features he may need.

The main problem with Notion arises when you have used it for a while, maybe started some databases of your own, and the like. I always prefer a tool from which I can move my content whenever I want to move it (you just proved this can be useful ...). In that moment the flexibility turns agains you: You won't find another tool that will accommodate your content, because it lacks a common structure.

very true. while there is a path from EN to Notion and other similar apps, there is no path back, you're locked in the tool.

ferol · February 13

45 minutes ago, eugenes said:

very true. while there is a path from EN to Notion and other similar apps, there is no path back, you're locked in the tool.

I wouldn't see it as tragic...

Earlier the path may be more complicated, but there is always a way.

During my practice as an architect I have changed the design software at least 4 times in more than 20 years and each time it was quite a leap. And every time it was a step for the better and it succeeded.

delawaredave · February 14

I moved to Notion. 4000 notes. Conversion easy.

What I care about most: notetaking and information organization. Not sharing, making websites, web clipping, emailing, etc.

For my needs, Notion is better. You can create "notes inside notes inside notes" - the "Toggle" heading is awesome - make a bunch of subnotes on a page, click a toggle and collapse it. Links between pages / notes / sections is easier.

Evernote has no "multilevel hierarchy" On a big project - I'd either have to use 5-10 notes or "big long notes". Yuk.

My only Notion gripes are the phone app is weak and the "pages look boring" - even bolding isn't bright, don't think can highlght text. But I'm boring too, so that's OK.

Good luck for whatever works for you.

FrankC · February 14

I use Notion for one purpose only - Gallery View. I think this used to be available in Evernote a while ago, but not now.

I manually mirror a specific Evernote notebook in Notion.
For one set of photos, it's the most useful view for me to find an image (and associated text) quickly.

gazumped · February 14

19 minutes ago, FrankC said:

I think this used to be available in Evernote

There's still a 'gallery view' within a single note (in Windows/ Android v10) - if a note has several images, clicking on any one will bring up that image fullscreen, plus a scroll option to page through all of them in order.

eugenes · February 14

16 hours ago, ferol said:

I wouldn't see it as tragic...

Earlier the path may be more complicated, but there is always a way.

During my practice as an architect I have changed the design software at least 4 times in more than 20 years and each time it was quite a leap. And every time it was a step for the better and it succeeded.

it is not tragic it is what it is. in the end i want to move away from EN to something where i can stay as long as i stayed on EN (24 years).

eugenes · February 14

thanks @ferol for updating the spreadsheet.

last night i tried UpNote. very nice, light and good looking, just notes. reminded me of the EN of old. imports EN well, but not at the stack level like Notion. cheap. in the end tho, if a company doesn't have dragging notebooks into notebooks and a web-based client as priorities, i can't go with them.

FrankC · February 14

4 hours ago, gazumped said:

There's still a 'gallery view' within a single note (in Windows/ Android v10) - if a note has several images, clicking on any one will bring up that image fullscreen, plus a scroll option to page through all of them in order.

Not quite what I want though. The Notion Gallery View allows me to see all the thumbnails for each note in a notebook in an easily viewable/scrollable format. I can view 20 thumbnails on a page at a time.
I know the notes column is also scrollable - but it's a lot slower to use it. And while I'm here - will we ever be able to choose the image used for a note thumbnail (when the note has more than one image - and I do know about the clunky workaround 🙂 ) ?

gazumped · February 14

19 minutes ago, FrankC said:

will we ever be able to choose the image used for a note thumbnail

No clue - it's a hugely popular request, but I assume if it were easy or feasible they would have done it. Evernote altered the way notes are coded, and are introducing/ using a new database backend so I'd assume its backwards compatibility that's the problem. The new system could (or will be able to) do it, but the Legacy hangers-on may be a factor. I'm sure it will happen - there's an obvious need. When is the issue...

AlbertR · February 14

7 minutes ago, gazumped said:

but the Legacy hangers-on may be a factor.

Would be nice - but not in this case ;-). AFAIK thumbnail images are part of note metadata (once processed, reused ever for speed). So they're retained on environment changes. A new command to define a specific image to be used as a preview thumbnail has been a big with forever and will continue to be...

TK0047 · February 17

After 36,314 notes and 10+ years of Evernote usage as well as being an Evernote fanboy....I am making the switch to Notion.

Everything users have been asking for from Evernote in the forums are already in Notion. And it is so fast to make a reference/connection to a page in Notion by using @ and you can cross reference everything so quickly.

The databases, gallery views, board views, markdown, being able to change the color of a text or the style on the fly etc....many many nice features that just work.

I still pay for my subscription but now I am definitely using Notion as the hub of my system. What is sad to me that it feels like all the features we have been asking for, for years, already exists in other apps and makes me question what they are doing at Evernote to stay ahead of the competition.

We are still debating about the new looks, colors etc. while the functionality suffers. This issue had come up when the new logo and new branding were announced couple of years ago. All the users were like..hey we need features, who cares the ear of the 🐘 is now different, work on the fundamentals. I feel a similar issue with the new UI too.

In the end, this is not one of the posts where people feel like someone should say "oh no he is leaving, please stay" lt is just where I stand after so many years of sticking with Evernote and having all my life in there, I will be a paid member for a while but I finally mentally let Evernote go as the hub of my system, and Notion is a really powerful alternate that I realized.

Cheers!

thefryhole · February 17

Notion has really moved ahead. I'm sure you'll get great use out of the platform and its quickly expanding feature set!

Two issues initially kept me from embracing Notion, but things are changing.
1 - No way to email notes into the platform. The Skiff acquisition might fill that gap in the coming months, just like they rolled out a well-developed calendar feature soon after acquiring Cron.
2 - No/very limited mobile offline capabilities. Since Evernote's mobile offline hasn't worked properly in 8+ months (and customer support is now gone), that's no longer a mark against Notion or any other app. If I can't have offline using EN, then solutions like Notion start looking a lot better.

Notion is also actively pursuing enterprise customers. Once they have some good visibility into the needs and expectations in that more mature space, I expect they will apply those learnings at individual-level tiers and all of their users will benefit.

eugenes · February 17

34 minutes ago, thefryhole said:

Notion has really moved ahead. I'm sure you'll get great use out of the platform and its quickly expanding feature set!

2 - No/very limited mobile offline capabilities. Since Evernote's mobile offline hasn't worked properly in 8+ months (and customer support is now gone), that's no longer a mark against Notion or any other app. If I can't have offline using EN, then solutions like Notion start looking a lot better.

I haven't had any issues with offline EN on Android. To my mind, the lack of offline capabilities is a significant strike against Notion, especially on the desktop where EN is solid. Granted, sync is a difficult nut to crack, but in the current international climate the threat of major internet disruptions has grown to a level that makes me nervous having all my notes online with only manual ability to back them up.

ferol · February 18

Probably the biggest drawback with NOTION is the problematic backup and recovery..

With Evenote, I'm used to working with ENEX and I know that if I export ENEX out and import into another account, it will be perfectly put together.

This is actually not the case with NOTION. You can export Makrdown subfiles, of course, but importing them into Notion afterwards is desperate...

It makes more sense to me to show this export as a fallback solution to, for example, Obsidian or Zettlr.

eugenes · February 18

31 minutes ago, ferol said:

This is actually not the case with NOTION. You can export Makrdown subfiles, of course, but importing them into Notion afterwards is desperate...

why desperate?
i tried the export-import for a couple pages so far. it imports back fine, but loses certain things, like toggle lists (the content is preserved, but it's a bulleted list, not a toggle any more).
i have exported all my notion workspace and will test the import soon.

ferol · February 18

11 hours ago, eugenes said:

why desperate?
i tried the export-import for a couple pages so far. it imports back fine, but loses certain things, like toggle lists (the content is preserved, but it's a bulleted list, not a toggle any more).
i have exported all my notion workspace and will test the import soon.

I have not yet managed to get it to preserve the entire page structure after import. I don't use databases.
It put all the pages together in one page and after the titles there were ID numbers of individual pages...

delawaredave · February 18

3 hours ago, TK0047 said:

After 36,314 notes and 10+ years of Evernote usage as well as being an Evernote fanboy....I am making the switch to Notion.

Everything users have been asking for from Evernote in the forums are already in Notion. And it is so fast to make a reference/connection to a page in Notion by using @ and you can cross reference everything so quickly.

The databases, gallery views, board views, markdown, being able to change the color of a text or the style on the fly etc....many many nice features that just work.

Good points.

ferol · February 18

11 minutes ago, ferol said:

I have not yet managed to get it to preserve the entire page structure after import. I don't use databases.
It put all the pages together in one page and after the titles there were ID numbers of individual pages...

Green was exported like Makrdown + CSV

And Red is reimport back from this exported ZIP...

Structure is no here... all in one folder and complicaded Names...

HTML export - import have same problem...

eugenes · February 18

6 hours ago, ferol said:

Structure is no here... all in one folder and complicaded Names...

thanks for the demonstration, restoring from Notion backup seems like a solution for the desperate indeed.

Dave-in-Decatur · February 19

On 2/17/2024 at 2:11 PM, TK0047 said:

Everything users have been asking for from Evernote in the forums are already in Notion. And it is so fast to make a reference/connection to a page in Notion by using @ and you can cross reference everything so quickly.

The databases, gallery views, board views, markdown, being able to change the color of a text or the style on the fly etc....many many nice features that just work.

Looking at this again, I wonder if you could give a fuller list of the "everything" that Evernote users have asked for and Notion has. Much of what you list here works as well or better in Evernote:

Ctrl+Alt+K, then start typing any word from a note's title (without having to remember it all accurately) to insert a note link
Cross reference via note links and back links (but no, not to a specific section of a note, if that's what you mean)
Changing text color, highlighting, or style is just select and click--as "on the fly" as I need, anyway

It may be I haven't understood exactly what you were saying. But I will say that I have no interest in learning to type in a formatting language (Markdown).

OTOH, I agree 100% that Evernote's decision to create and foist on users a revamp of the app's look, which practically no one was asking for, and absolutely no one was asking for this new look, rather than fix things that were broken or add new functionality, is a miserable misjudgment of what existing users want.

eugenes · February 20

thank you @ferol for improving and updating the EN vs Notion comparison list in your first post.
your "winner by color" is interesting (of course, my choices would be different).

one thing i want to mention: you can change the font size in Notion, but in a limited way (Small, Medium, Large)
however, you cannot change the font itself. i see this as a problem, since the default font color is not black but a dark gray which makes text look washed out compared to EN.

ferol · February 20

7 hours ago, eugenes said:

thank you @ferol for improving and updating the EN vs Notion comparison list in your first post.
your "winner by color" is interesting (of course, my choices would be different).

one thing i want to mention: you can change the font size in Notion, but in a limited way (Small, Medium, Large)
however, you cannot change the font itself. i see this as a problem, since the default font color is not black but a dark gray which makes text look washed out compared to EN.

...

I looks, that for me is final winner Evernote again. From yesterday for my needs... thanks for this old post from @PinkElephant here about Nested Tags:

https://discussion.evernote.com/forums/topic/130377-notebooks-vs-tags-revisiting-debate-post-evernote-v10/?do=findComment&comment=586240

I knew there was an option to nested tags in Evernote, but I never placed much importance on it. What attracted me to Notion in the first place was the ability to structure articles in trees structures...

But last night, after that old post, I started testing Evernote's capabilities with nested tags more intensively. And to a large extent it provides similar functionality to Notion. Except you have to completely rearrange your thinking. I'm straight up switching from a multi-notebook system to a minimized notebook system now. Mainly just for the sake of shared or not shared.

And I'm going to sort everything more honestly by tags.

It's not quite as convenient as Notion, but it's much more flexible as a result for one significant reason:

- In Evernote, thanks to tags, a single note can be in multiple places in such a structure.

- In Notion, a single article is always in only one of its places.... If I need it elsewhere, I need a duplicate of it, or another page from which to link to it.

The tags in Notion are special. They can only be used in databases, which bothers me, because for what I need the content is enclosed in specific databases and tags don't work across the whole Notion. So the tags there are meaningless to me.

The only stupid thing about Evenote tags is that they are always sorted alphabetically.
This can be partially worked around if the structure is transferred to Shortchuts, where at least the "top level" can be sorted manually.

And then the order of the tags can be solved by numbering, or alphabetizing...

I made a short video on this (without sound)

So briefly. Notion has a number of things that are really great compared to Evernote. But at the same time, it also has a lot of things that aren't... And for my purposes of use, with the current state of both systems, Evernote is subtly better.

I'll be watching the development of Notion. The system looks very promissing. But I'll be really happy if Evernote doesn't fall behind in improvements.... After all, I've been using it as a paying client for 12 years

.

And I found one video on web:

ferol · February 20

On 2/14/2024 at 11:20 AM, delawaredave said:

Evernote has no "multilevel hierarchy" On a big project - I'd either have to use 5-10 notes or "big long notes". Yuk.

I also didn't think Evernote was capable of this..
But see my note above. Maybe we just haven't properly understood yet the possibilities of nested TAGS ...

PinkElephant · February 20

There are 2 tricks with nested tags:

1 - Define the naming strategy. Some do it this way

Financial (Level 1)
Financial-Bank
Financial-Bank-FirstGlobal
   Financial-Bank-SecondToNone, … (Level 3)
      Financial-Insurance
   Financial-Broker
   Financial-… (Level 2)

You can see directly, where a tag belongs. But you can‘t switch the hierarchy easily (because you need to rename all), and it leads to very long tag names, with the real information hidden at the end.

So I prefer not to repeat. I do it like this (without indenting) Level 1 - Financial / Level 2 - Bank, Insurance, Broker, … / Level 3 - FirstGlobal, SecondToNone, …

2 - Search strategy:

Important for searching is to include or exclude child tags from a search. This is connected to the question if you only use the bottom level of tagging, or use the level in between as well. If you don‘t use the upper levels, a search for „tag:Financial without childs included“ will result in zero notes.

With the feature of including or excluding child levels, you can use all levels of the tagging hierarchy as real life tags. The note with all your Financial interests can be tagged level 1, the one with all your bank accounts on level 2.

This post is not intended to describe tagging in full, it‘s just 2 aspects I found important when thinking about how to build a good nesting concept.

delawaredave · February 20

Nested tags looks complicated and requires advanced planning.

I used to use Evernote table of contents feature. It would make a table of contents from several pages, I'd like to find that functionality in Notion.

but I just love the toggle command in Notion to quickly and easily collapse sections

PinkElephant · February 20

Actually they are not complicated, and you can nest without planning too far ahead.

Since you can move nested tags to other places easily (but see my remark about naming them), it is quite flexible. For searching you should have an idea of how your tree is looking, however.

ferol · February 20

17 minutes ago, PinkElephant said:

There are 2 tricks with nested tags:

1 - Define the naming strategy. Some do it this way

Financial (Level 1)
Financial-Bank
Financial-Bank-FirstGlobal
   Financial-Bank-SecondToNone, … (Level 3)
      Financial-Insurance
   Financial-Broker
   Financial-… (Level 2)

You can see directly, where a tag belongs. But you can‘t switch the hierarchy easily (because you need to rename all), and it leads to very long tag names, with the real information hidden at the end.

So I prefer not to repeat. I do it like this (without indenting) Level 1 - Financial / Level 2 - Bank, Insurance, Broker, … / Level 3 - FirstGlobal, SecondToNone, …

2 - Search strategy:

Important for searching is to include or exclude child tags from a search. This is connected to the question if you only use the bottom level of tagging, or use the level in between as well. If you don‘t use the upper levels, a search for „tag:Financial without childs included“ will result in zero notes.

With the feature of including or excluding child levels, you can use all levels of the tagging hierarchy as real life tags. The note with all your Financial interests can be tagged level 1, the one with all your bank accounts on level 2.

This post is not intended to describe tagging in full, it‘s just 2 aspects I found important when thinking about how to build a good nesting concept.

For me, so far, the strategy with "zero notes" id better.
And duplicates structure in names only if needed...

ferol · February 20

10 minutes ago, delawaredave said:

Nested tags looks complicated and requires advanced planning.

I used to use Evernote table of contents feature. It would make a table of contents from several pages, I'd like to find that functionality in Notion.

but I just love the toggle command in Notion to quickly and easily collapse sections

once one understands how it all works and how it can be moved and renamed, it ends up being quite simple and highly flexible... Maybe a bit more laborious when moving and renaming, but once you've stabilized your main structure it's fine.

delawaredave · February 20

1 hour ago, ferol said:

once one understands how it all works and how it can be moved and renamed, it ends up being quite simple and highly flexible... Maybe a bit more laborious when moving and renaming, but once you've stabilized your main structure it's fine.

Found a Table of Contents function in Notion. Looks good for long notes. Doesn't "span several notes" like I used to do in EN, but I can use @ references to other notes.

https://www.notion.so/Table-of-contents-50de58f824bf4100a4a9fa5b6f783c2b#d88f2cad06f949a8b6c4cb846a18f1fa

ferol · February 20

One tip - Blue links in Notion in chrome Browsers:
... grey is really bad

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/blue-notion/jffhjoedhmpmkoeilaeagfdelfaciebc

Doministry · February 20

Can you transfer data easily to Notion from Evernote? Is there a Android app?

After the major f.... Evernote did today I will not use this cr.... anymore.

PinkElephant · February 20

Already told you the problem is looking a lot like being with yourself. But since you only rant along without telling ANYTHING to create an idea what may help, you are welcome to go wherever you like.

eugenes · February 20

2 hours ago, ferol said:

One tip - Blue links in Notion in chrome Browsers:
... grey is really bad

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/blue-notion/jffhjoedhmpmkoeilaeagfdelfaciebc

nice. and with Tailored Notion i also got the text and font to look like i want it.

ferol · February 20

10 minutes ago, eugenes said:

nice. and with Tailored Notion i also got the text and font to look like i want it.

This is prefect !

We want somethink like this to Evernote

delawaredave · February 20

49 minutes ago, ferol said:

This is prefect !

We want somethink like this to Evernote

Nice- hate gray links.

i'm learning a lot here about Notion in the Evernote forum...

ferol · February 20

1 hour ago, eugenes said:

nice. and with Tailored Notion i also got the text and font to look like i want it.

I sent email the developers to see if they would make a similar add-on for Evernote... you never know if just this one mail will help..

delawaredave · February 20

2 hours ago, Doministry said:

Can you transfer data easily to Notion from Evernote? Is there a Android app?

After the major f.... Evernote did today I will not use this cr.... anymore.

Yes the converter worked well for me. Only exception was EN "internal links" referencing another EN note.

no big deal

ferol · February 20

On 2/13/2024 at 6:28 PM, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Thanks, @ferol. So it looks as if Notion has the same low-contrast type of interface as Evernote now has. My curiosity has diminished. 🙂

look... with chrome addon you can customise NOTION... little example:

ferol · February 20

or... "colorised" version...

Dave-in-Decatur · February 20

Thanks, @ferol. I can't say I'm tempted toward Notion now, because there is so much about Evernote that I prefer (including not having to manage a bunch of add-ons to get what you want). But this is a nice feature.

ferol · February 20

1 hour ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Thanks, @ferol. I can't say I'm tempted toward Notion now, because there is so much about Evernote that I prefer (including not having to manage a bunch of add-ons to get what you want). But this is a nice feature.

I'm just teasing a little bit .. 😉

Mishkafofer · February 20

The Evernote experience with page rendering...

Haven't the Evernote users suffered enough?

ferol · February 20

1 hour ago, Mishkafofer said:

The Evernote experience with page rendering...

Haven't the Evernote users suffered enough?

this is problem with tables only.... And I dont optimalise my table...

ferol · February 24

My table is updated - for copy prepared text direct to Wordpress posts/pages

... and Evernote is again winner...

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s36/sh/451aca90-7903-4bc3-bc30-33ef6a94f4d8/G4NtRHd9gu8dJvUVx8AvBompLe95KTgrYwYnt_EAAEULVV7rlByUeIqfvg

ferol · February 24

I'm going to uninstall Notion. Enough with the testing, although I thought it might be able to help me in some way, the more I dug into it, the more I figured out that it was very minimal. And it's not worth splitting up and getting used to two different systems..

So who wants to test and compare further, write here, I'll just follow it...

James Longley · February 27

I'm not a Notion fan for a number of reasons ranging from aesthetic to the fact that I find the infinite nesting overwhelming and confusing. I tend to lean more towards the more structured approach Evernote defaults to. Though the topic is specifically about those two tools, I will add Coda.io into the mix here for those who are looking for a really versatile tool with a beautiful UI in which to do certain types of work.

In my case I treat Evernote as my single source of truth for all research, journalling, Readwise imports etc and then use Coda as a kind of Google Docs on steroids to actually do the work (e.g. content writing, strategy planning, drafting website copy etc.). The "hard edges" between the two tools (essentially broken down into reference and implementation) makes sense for the way my brain seems to prefer working (likely because I've programmed it for GTD thinking).

Note: If Notion's to your liking, all of the above would still apply to Notion.

Dave-in-Decatur · February 27

6 hours ago, James Longley said:

I'm not a Notion fan for a number of reasons ranging from aesthetic to the fact that I find the infinite nesting overwhelming and confusing. I tend to lean more towards the more structured approach Evernote defaults to. Though the topic is specifically about those two tools, I will add Coda.io into the mix here for those who are looking for a really versatile tool with a beautiful UI in which to do certain types of work.

In my case I treat Evernote as my single source of truth for all research, journalling, Readwise imports etc and then use Coda as a kind of Google Docs on steroids to actually do the work (e.g. content writing, strategy planning, drafting website copy etc.). The "hard edges" between the two tools (essentially broken down into reference and implementation) makes sense for the way my brain seems to prefer working (likely because I've programmed it for GTD thinking).

Note: If Notion's to your liking, all of the above would still apply to Notion.

Interesting viewpoint. I'm not familiar with Coda, but I've used Scrivener in much the same way: gather information and preliminary thoughts in Evernote, organize and draft in Scrivener.

Feitz · February 27

2 minutes ago, Dave-in-Decatur said:

Scrivener

+1 🙂

jpaz · March 8

On 2/13/2024 at 7:15 PM, eugenes said:

so far i haven't really created any databases in Notion. i have migrated most of my EN notes (4000+) to Notion.
A stack in EN is a page in Notion (eg "courses" on the left). Under it is a "database" (ie a EN notebook - the middle column, "The Digital and the Analog"). Each of the columns in the database is a page (ie note - right hand column). Notion created these databases automatically when i imported my EN stacks and notebooks.
For me this is enough (and it doesn't cost $130/year). I doubt i'll be creating any new fancy databases in the near future.

What about tag importing?

Using Tags in Notion does not seem simple. As Ferol referred before. Looked up some solutions to try

https://matthiasfrank.de/global-tags-in-notion/

ferol · March 8

24 minutes ago, jpaz said:

What about tag importing?

Using Tags in Notion does not seem simple. As Ferol referred before. Looked up some solutions to try

https://matthiasfrank.de/global-tags-in-notion/

looks complicated... but will be fine use global tags

eugenes · March 8

4 hours ago, jpaz said:

What about tag importing?

Using Tags in Notion does not seem simple. As Ferol referred before. Looked up some solutions to try

https://matthiasfrank.de/global-tags-in-notion/

Yet another lame aspect of the Notion global search: can't search by tags (I don't consider this BS about creating a global tags database a "solution", more like pushing backend development work onto the user).

jpaz · March 9

This tag problem is one of the things that kept me from moving straightforward to Notion. It ticks most of the other features...

It also does not have graph view but that is something that EN also does not have.

ferol · March 9

40 minutes ago, jpaz said:

This tag problem is one of the things that kept me from moving straightforward to Notion. It ticks most of the other features...

It also does not have graph view but that is something that EN also does not have.

for me this is problem...

I dont need separate databases, like in Notion and tags works there best and easy only in databases..

Soapm · March 10

Question about Obsidian I may be missing, what other devices, and OS can you sync your notes to? I used 3 computers, android phone and tablet, and a iPad mini.

Boot17 · March 10

Obsidian runs on iOS, iPadOS, MacOS, Windows, Android, and Linux. The paid Obsidian sync ($99 per year) can sync to all of them. You can also set up a bunch of other kinds of sync outside of Obsidian (some paid, some free) but there are various tradeoffs that you'd have to research. One example - I was using iCloud Drive for Mac, Windows, and iPhone and it was working ok but I didn't have many notes into it and I've read that Obsidian can be slow to open on iOS using iCloud if you have a lot of notes. (iCloud offloads downloaded files and I believe Obsidian then redownloads them when it is launched -- not sure though.)

kiwiads · March 10

thanks ferol for the comparison, I'm getting thru it since indeed I am desperately looking for an alternative.

apart from detailed comparison, fact is - after I've been forced to upgrade from lagacy - NOTION is certainly too much structured and based on templates to give you teh freedom of jotting that is expected from a note program. I am now testing it to see if in some way I'm able to get accustomed to NOTION.

On the other side, EVERNOTE is now absolutely unreliable and unstable. In particular, they removed MANUAL SYNC that for years was the only afordable way to make the program work. Now the software is almost unusable and very slow. Maybe they will force everybosy to work via browser. I also noticed that some waythey slowed down the flood of templating, trying to guess how you gonna use notes while you JUST WANT TO JOT quickly something and have a good means of archiving them. That is good, apart form the pain in the ass of the pushing HOME/DASHBOARD, a classic home paranoia of old stuffy designers that do not understand how web interaction has changed.

Let's keep updating with NOTION versatility, so we can finnaly migrate to somethjing that is more stable. I see the old drawbacks of evernote are here to stay, just covered up by some fancy design. I assume they do not care about users and their data. thanks for writing tables. andrea.

Jon/t · March 10

12 hours ago, Boot17 said:

The paid Obsidian sync ($99 per year) can sync to all of them

From what I can tell the sync comes with 10GB of data. Can you buy more or do you need another $8 a month for another 10GB.

I'm well over 10GB storage with Evernote and I think it could end up getting expensive.

ferol · March 10

5 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

From what I can tell the sync comes with 10GB of data. Can you buy more or do you need another $8 a month for another 10GB.

I'm well over 10GB storage with Evernote and I think it could end up getting expensive.

For me, Notion lost its meaning as I got deeper into Obsidian...
I can sync it to Dropbox for example, which I pay for 2000 GB anyway...

In addition, I have already added Obsidian to that table and it has completely outdone Notion in what I need..

VincentC · March 10

Not to imply any criticism of people asking for help nor of other helpful people providing the assistance, but isn't it interesting that there are so many questions on the Evernote Forum about how Obsidian works? Does Obsidian not have its own forum? :rolleyes:

Vinnie

AKARJLUK · March 10

https://forum.obsidian.md/

Dave-in-Decatur · March 10

4 hours ago, kiwiads said:

On the other side, EVERNOTE is now absolutely unreliable and unstable. In particular, they removed MANUAL SYNC that for years was the only afordable way to make the program work. Now the software is almost unusable and very slow. Maybe they will force everybosy to work via browser. I also noticed that some waythey slowed down the flood of templating, trying to guess how you gonna use notes while you JUST WANT TO JOT quickly something and have a good means of archiving them. That is good, apart form the pain in the ass of the pushing HOME/DASHBOARD, a classic home paranoia of old stuffy designers that do not understand how web interaction has changed.

Always worth repeating.... There is manual sync in Evernote v. 10: Ctrl+R. But v. 10 syncs constantly; by the time you could click a Sync button, the sync would be done. (I was doing some work in Evernote 10 on my phone when the phone died; I switched to my laptop, and it was all there, down to the word I was typing when the phone died--because Evernote was always syncing, not waiting for a manual signal from me.) Evernote 10 will be slow at first because it is downloading your notes database in the background, and converting every note to the new structure when it is opened. All that eventually gets finished, and the app speeds up. If you don't like the Home page, you don't have to use it. Just use the Notes list, or whatever, and Evernote will always start with the view that you last had open.

ferol · March 10

2 hours ago, VincentC said:

Not to imply any criticism of people asking for help nor of other helpful people providing the assistance, but isn't it interesting that there are so many questions on the Evernote Forum about how Obsidian works? Does Obsidian not have its own forum?

Vinnie

And what? People can talk about the weather and where to go on a trip if they want... is that forbidden?
If someone doesn't care, they'll just ignore it

PinkElephant · March 11

@kiwiads True, the old client using a syncing method from the years 2000 needed a syncing button. It was build like that, and it had no reliable sync. The sync caused note conflicts and duplicates, just as a reminder.

Since May 2023 EN uses RTE, a real time syncing method. No sync button, no conflicts (except you provoke them), changes made on one client show in near real time on all other clients with the same note open.

VincentC · March 11

17 hours ago, ferol said:

Not to imply any criticism of people asking for help nor of other helpful people providing the assistance,

"And what?" I don't understand.

I am unable to tell, @ferol, whether you mean to criticize me for asking the question or not -- it feels that way. For clarity, and not to be defensive or get in a back-and-forth discussion about it, I carefully and courteously prefaced my question with the line above hoping that my comment would not raise the ire of Obsidian fans. And perhaps fellow posters here would be interested to know that there is a place where many passionate users of Obsidian hang out and respond to questions. @AKARJLUK responded with a brief, appropriate and helpful post.

Okay, I will move on, now.

Vinnie

ferol · March 11

5 minutes ago, VincentC said:

"And what?" I don't understand.

I am unable to tell, @ferol, whether you mean to criticize me for asking the question or not -- it feels that way. For clarity, and not to be defensive or get in a back-and-forth discussion about it, I carefully and courteously prefaced my question with the line above hoping that my comment would not raise the ire of Obsidian fans. And perhaps fellow posters here would be interested to know that there is a place where many passionate users of Obsidian hang out and respond to questions. @AKARJLUK responded with a brief, appropriate and helpful post.

Okay, I will move on, now.

Vinnie

Sorry, it wasn't meant to be about what it sounded like. I'm a strong supporter of Evernote. I use other tools as well and am interested in what the competition does better.

VincentC · March 11

No problem and no need to apologize. I appreciate all of the time you spend here helping people think about what might work best for them, and the relative strengths of the two programs.

Vinnie

ferol · March 11

5 minutes ago, VincentC said:

No problem and no need to apologize. I appreciate all of the time you spend here helping people think about what might work best for them, and the relative strengths of the two programs.

Vinnie

I've already eliminated Notion from consideration... Of everything I've ever tested, Evernote still stands out to me as the top tool and Obsidian as a super add-on for specific activities on the PC without having to have the content on mobile all the time.

VincentC · March 11

I'm not nearly as technical as you, so for me Evernote is the best by far. I have a client who has resources in Notion that I need to access sometimes, and I find the interface very unfriendly. I can see the utility of Obsidian, but my sense is it is better for people with some coding abilities.

Vinnie

ferol · March 11

17 minutes ago, VincentC said:

I'm not nearly as technical as you, so for me Evernote is the best by far. I have a client who has resources in Notion that I need to access sometimes, and I find the interface very unfriendly. I can see the utility of Obsidian, but my sense is it is better for people with some coding abilities.

Vinnie

Depending on how one needs to use it. The main issue is formatting and tables. And one needs to set it for about 2-3 days at the beginning...if one wants to have it set up the way one wants it. (more technically savvy)
The less technically proficient won't set anything up because they'll get lost in it So then he won't get the most out of it... and it will be unpleasant for him...

Jon/t · March 11

Not sure if its been mentioned in this thread, not read all of it, but Notion can get expensive!

£7 mth for 30 days of version history... Evernote does better than this plus £7 mth for the Ai stuff.

You can get Evernote Professional for £8.75 a month.

Plus they only charge in USD so for some countires that's gonna be a lot!

Sayre Ambrosio · March 11

8 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

Not sure if its been mentioned in this thread, not read all of it, but Notion can get expensive!

£7 mth for 30 days of version history... Evernote does better than this plus £7 mth for the Ai stuff.

You can get Evernote Professional for £8.75 a month.

Plus they only charge in USD so for some countires that's gonna be a lot!

It gets tricky when you want to share as well. Guests can be added at no cost but inviting people to your workspace is the monthly cost per person. I learned that the hard way when I tested the app a while back. AI is 10 bucks a month (though it is more comprehensive than EN's current offering).

ferol · March 11

14 minutes ago, Jon/t said:

Not sure if its been mentioned in this thread, not read all of it, but Notion can get expensive!

£7 mth for 30 days of version history... Evernote does better than this plus £7 mth for the Ai stuff.

You can get Evernote Professional for £8.75 a month.

Plus they only charge in USD so for some countires that's gonna be a lot!

price is not the deciding factor for everyone. If something is to help me earn money efficiently, I will pay 500 euros a year for the application.

It's simple math. Here everyone has to calculate for himself.

TK0047 · March 11

On 3/9/2024 at 7:41 AM, jpaz said:

This tag problem is one of the things that kept me from moving straightforward to Notion. It ticks most of the other features...

It also does not have graph view but that is something that EN also does not have.

I have been a HUGE tag guy. All my notes had more than 5 tags on average and I am a firm believer in tags vs. notebooks. I believe tags is the new way of thinking vs. the folder structure we all have been used.

With Notion, I realized I could use @ symbol and then use it within the note so now I could cross reference everything. Basically, I had to change the way I thought about notes, and when I figured out that these "pages" (notes) were actually kind of websites where I can do links, it opened my eye to many possibilities.

In essence, now my old tags are "pages" in databases or pages in Notion. So if I used to have a "Bank of America" or a "Statement" tag, now those live as individual pages or items in databases and I can still access all of those without having to remember where things are.

This was the biggest challenge I had to overcome.

delawaredave · March 11

34 minutes ago, TK0047 said:

I have been a HUGE tag guy. All my notes had more than 5 tags on average and I am a firm believer in tags vs. notebooks. I believe tags is the new way of thinking vs. the folder structure we all have been used.

With Notion, I realized I could use @ symbol and then use it within the note so now I could cross reference everything. Basically, I had to change the way I thought about notes, and when I figured out that these "pages" (notes) were actually kind of websites where I can do links, it opened my eye to many possibilities.

In essence, now my old tags are "pages" in databases or pages in Notion. So if I used to have a "Bank of America" or a "Statement" tag, now those live as individual pages or items in databases and I can still access all of those without having to remember where things are.

This was the biggest challenge I had to overcome.

Good points. After 10 years of EN and 3 months of Notion - for organizing information - I don't know how anyone could pick EN over Notion. The tagging, the @ symbol cross referencing, the backlinks, the Toggle Headers, the hierarchial folders, table of contents, and more. You can even sync a portion of a page/note on other pages - edit one place, updates in other places automatically.

No need to reply with "Notion webclipper sucks" or "Notion mobile sucks" (it does).

I can't use Obsidian because all my work is on Chromebooks via browsers (theoretically could load Linux version).

eugenes · March 11

3 hours ago, delawaredave said:

No need to reply with "Notion webclipper sucks" or "Notion mobile sucks" (it does).

Notion webclipper sucks
But Save to Notion saves the day.

eugenes · March 11

3 hours ago, delawaredave said:

Good points. After 10 years of EN and 3 months of Notion - for organizing information - I don't know how anyone could pick EN over Notion.

That's true, tho probably not for everyone. For me all the core features that I need are in the free version of Notion and so far I didn't even find the much maligned Notion search to be so bad. The biggest downside is the absence of offline capabilities, but for me this is only a redundancy issue, I haven't been using local EN for the last year or so anyway.

delawaredave · March 11

18 minutes ago, eugenes said:

Notion webclipper sucks
But Save to Notion saves the day.

Thanks - this works great !

jpaz · March 12

22 hours ago, TK0047 said:

I have been a HUGE tag guy. All my notes had more than 5 tags on average and I am a firm believer in tags vs. notebooks. I believe tags is the new way of thinking vs. the folder structure we all have been used.

With Notion, I realized I could use @ symbol and then use it within the note so now I could cross reference everything. Basically, I had to change the way I thought about notes, and when I figured out that these "pages" (notes) were actually kind of websites where I can do links, it opened my eye to many possibilities.

In essence, now my old tags are "pages" in databases or pages in Notion. So if I used to have a "Bank of America" or a "Statement" tag, now those live as individual pages or items in databases and I can still access all of those without having to remember where things are.

This was the biggest challenge I had to overcome.

@TK0047 We seem to think alike :-). Have you tried to import tags from Evernote?

TK0047 · March 12

18 minutes ago, jpaz said:

@TK0047 We seem to think alike :-). Have you tried to import tags from Evernote?

Since I am tag guy, I had very few notebooks so when I tried to IMPORT FROM EVERNOTE, it was taking too long. Yet, I did do a notebook and imported into Notion just to try it.

The gallery view of that looked pretty good and I liked how you can filter with multiple filters very quickly.

But in the end, since the tags are not universal in Notion and they are specific to the database in which it is created, I am not seeing a huge value yet. I am a newbie with Notion so this may change (or may not be even correct) of course.

What has been your experience ?

jpaz · March 13

I have not tried it yet. Still getting to know Notion. Will report when tried.

surfshark · March 13

在 2024/2/13 在 PM10點22分, ferol說:

I'm comparing the capabilities of Evernote and Notion. Based on preliminary testing, I don't think Notion can completely replace Evernote in my usage pattern. But the Notion system is interesting, and for certain activities I am considering moving some of my work from Evernote to Notion and using them in parallel. It looks like the two systems can complement each other nicely.

I'm posting my comparison table here, where I keep a running tally of what I've figured out through testing:

https://www.evernote.com/shard/s36/sh/451aca90-7903-4bc3-bc30-33ef6a94f4d8/G4NtRHd9gu8dJvUVx8AvBompLe95KTgrYwYnt_EAAEULVV7rlByUeIqfvg

I'm not starting this thread for the reason that I want to walk away from Evernote. Evernote is a top tool for me. So let's have a reasonable discussion about how and why to use which tool. Post constructive ideas and tips on what Notion is better at and what Evernote is better at.

If you have any comparisons of your own, let me know, I'll include them in the shared spreadsheet 😉

Hello~ferol

I accidentally added your note to my evernote
I can't delete him or exit sharing
Can you kick me out?
Thanks

TK0047 · April 1

Question for you guys:

If you go to free from professional, since there is a notebook and note limit in the free, what happens?

Jon/t · April 1

2 minutes ago, TK0047 said:

If you go to free from professional, since there is a notebook and note limit in the free, what happens?

Nothing gets deleted and you can edit and export.

You can't add anything unless you bring things down within the limits.

ferol · April 1

2 hours ago, TK0047 said:

Question for you guys:

If you go to free from professional, since there is a notebook and note limit in the free, what happens?

save some empty notes in your notebooks, which you will be able to rename and edit... But you won't know how to move them to other amps...

And you can edit them and edit them...

That's still a possibility 😏

Evernote vs. Notion

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