Lately, I have spent a lot of time with Evernote and have mixed feelings about it. In the past two years, I have had a chance to review many note-taking apps to put Evernote into perspective. And I want to share my experience with you in this Evernote review.
I will show everything you need to know about this note-taking app, from features to pros and cons of utilizing this, plus two years of personal experience and my knowledge in the note-taking space.
Let’s dive into this Evernote review and see whether it is still worth it for new users!
What is Evernote?
Evernote is a note-taking app that helps you to capture and store ideas, notes, tasks, and documents. It offers numerous tools for creating and organizing notes quickly and syncing them across multiple devices.
Evernote has a desktop version for Mac and Windows, but you can also access your notes from your mobile regardless of whether you use Android or iOS. It also has a web app, and it has the ability to sync unlimited devices.
Evernote is a popular note-taking solution among students, professionals, and teams who want to keep their thoughts and tasks in an organized place.
Evernote’s key features
Here, I collected all the essential features I found during my Evernote review.
Note-taking app
Evernote has powerful note-taking features. When writing notes, you can choose different font formats. I especially loved here that you can use handwritten notes.
It also offers some color and alignment alternatives, and you can highlight text or use bold, italic, or underlined options. However, there are more formatting options, and you can create lists with one click.
Evernote adopted a drag-and-drop function, so you can move your text around relatively freely. If you hit the slash button, you can choose from numerous formats like headings, tables, or calendar events.
Another valuable feature is the tags. Utilizing tags, you can categorize your notes way more easily.
To further structure your notes, you can create notebook stacks to organize notes in a way that fits you. When using the pinned note, the note will stay on top of the notes list in every notebook, which is also useful.
Furthermore, Evernote recently implemented the spaces feature. Essentially, it provides an additional layer to organize and structure your notes in addition to notebooks or tags.
Finally, Evernote has robust search functionality. It provides a search dropdown menu with quick access to search suggestions, saved searches, filters, individual notes, notebooks, and even spaces.
Audio notes
Another exciting Evernote feature is the audio notes. You can record discussions or just capture ideas, and Evernote will transform them into text-based notes.
For me, it took a couple of minutes to transcribe such an audio recording. But an interesting thing happened. Evernote transcribed it for the Chinese language, and I had to translate it using its AI tool. Maybe it’s just me, and this only comes up occasionally.
Share functions
If you click on the “Share” tab in the top right corner, you can send an invite to others to access your notes. It is great that you can restrict access so you can only allow others to view your notes.
Project and task management tools
In terms of project management, Evernote has very limited options. It has way fewer use cases compared to Notion or Coda.
Nevertheless, you can create or import a project tracker where you can overview your projects. It is nothing special, but it can do the work.
Furthermore, you can create to-do lists using Evernote. You can assign tasks and add due dates, comments, and more.
Overall, it is a straightforward productivity tool for project and task management. However, its current project and task management capabilities might be sufficient for individuals or smaller teams.
Templates
Evernote offers some templates for school, like, and work. You can simply insert these templates into your workspace with a few clicks. What I discovered during my Evernote review is that it offers way fewer templates than Notion or other apps.
On the other hand, Evernote allows you to create a custom template that you can use anytime in the future. It is a valuable feature that helps to save time with your future notes on the same topic.
AI assistant
Similarly to other note-taking apps, Evernote implemented AI features as well. You can summarize, write, and translate text. Also, it can help you fix typos or change your writing tones.
Although it is a useful feature, it is more limited compared to Coda, Taskade, or Notion. I miss some additional tools, like asking the AI to create a table or flowchart or just having the option to brainstorm ideas.
Built-in calendar
Evernote offers an in-built calendar, so you can see your notes, to-do lists, and calendars in one place. The fact that you can integrate it with your Google Calendar or Outlook makes it a valuable feature when using Evernote.
Web Clipper
The web clipper is a useful tool to save articles, web pages, and screenshots in your workspace. When taking a print screen, you can add annotations, highlight parts, or write text.
It is an easy-to-use tool that comes in handy when you want to centralize your notes and information in one place.
Evernote’s integrations
Evernote is strong when it comes to integrations. Besides Outlook and Google Calendar, which I mentioned previously, it offers Google Drive, Salesforce, Zapier, Slack, and Microsoft Teams integrations.
The Zapier integration is especially great news, as you can connect Evernote with more than 7,000 third-party apps through this integration.
Evernote’s user interface
Evernote’s user interface has changed a lot in a good way. It has a much cleaner user interface than it was, and you can easily navigate through its features.
On the left sidebar, you can find every relevant feature like notebooks, search function, or adding a new note. On the right sidebar, you can find some widgets that you can customize if you bought paid plans.
My Experience with Evernote
I mostly used the desktop app, which is very similar to Evernote’s web interface. Learning the features and navigating its pages did not take too long. So, the learning curve is quite short.
I particularly enjoyed the customizable widgets you can add to your home dashboard. Although they are not part of the free version, they are great features to personalize your home dashboard.
During my Evernote review as a massive Notion user, I also noticed that it is more challenging to interact with the elements in your notes. This was not a problem when I only used Evernote to write notes and worked with text only. However, I had some issues when I prepared my project tracker and I wanted to use icons, add priorities, etc.
When I downloaded the app or used the mobile version, Evernote was very aggressive in upgrading my plan. Just to give you an example, when using it on mobile, there was a “What’s New” and “Try this new feature” pop-up, and I could not simply skip it. Also, before I tried Evernote’s paid plan, it took me 1-2 minutes to find the button that allows me to use the free version. So, it was pretty annoying.
Ultimately, Evernote is a relatively easy note-taking app, and its features work great when interacting with texts. However, it is very clumsy to handle if you want to use it for project management.
Evernote’s pricing
Evernote has a free version and four paid plans. Let’s start with the free plan!
Evernote’s free plan includes 50 notes, 1 notebook, 250 MB monthly uploads, 200 MB maximum note size, and you can connect Evernote with one device. Furthermore, you can use the web clipper, calendar, and task management tools to access some more advanced features.
Since Evernote is a note-taking app, let’s focus on these features when considering its free plan.
Honestly, I think the 50 notes are just a few, even for individuals. You will probably reach the 50 notes in a year, and after that, you will be forced to upgrade to a personal plan. To put it simply, you will need to upgrade your plan; the only question is when.
The Personal plan includes 150,000 notes, 2,000 notebooks, and 10 GB monthly uploads, and you can use Evernote on unlimited devices. You can get this plan for $129.99. It is ideal for individuals who want to utilize Evernote to the fullest.
The Professional plan is $169.99 yearly, and you will access the AI features, 20GB monthly uploads, and 20% from Adobe Acrobat Standard. The thing is that Adobe is the most expensive PDF editor on the market, and this 20% off will not change anything about this.
For teams, Evernote offers two pricing plans.
Its Teams plan allows you to create 500,000 notes, 10,000 notebooks, 20 GB monthly uploads + 2 GB per user, centralized account administration, company ownership of all data, and, most importantly, shared team spaces. If choosing the Teams plan, it will cost $249.99 annually per user.
For bigger teams and businesses, Evernote offers an Enterprise plan in which you can get custom pricing.
To summarize, Evernote’s pricing plans are very expensive. The premium plans would be expensive even if Evernote had great project management features.
Considering the pricing of other similar note-taking apps and their feature set, I discovered that during my Evernote review, this note-taking app is very pricey. Just to put it into context, it almost cost two times more than Notion.
Evernote’s pros and cons
Let’s see the pros and cons I found during my Evernote review!
Pros of Evernote
I noticed during my Evernote review that it is a powerful productivity app where you can centralize all your notes, tasks, and calendars in one app.
I also enjoyed the customizable widgets. They offer the flexibility to personalize your dashboard on the homepage.
Another Evernote pro is available on desktop, web, and mobile devices.
Lastly, Evernote’s web clipper feature is great. You can save articles, images, and web pages easily.
Cons of Evernote
The major concern with Evernote is the high pricing. It is very expensive compared to other note-taking apps on the market.
Secondly, Evernote has limited AI features, and even these tools come with premium versions.
Furthermore, it would be great if Evernote would offer more templates. I think this note-taking app offers the fewest templates on the market.
Evernote’s alternatives
If you feel like this note-taking app is not for you, here are some Evernote alternatives you should check:
- Notion: An all-in-one app for data, task, project management, and note-taking.
- Xtiles: An easy-to-use note-taking app with visual boards.
- Obsidian: A powerful note-taking app with massive backlink functions.
- Anytype: An excellent but more complex Evernote alternative.
- Coda: An all-in-one collaborative workspace with project, task management, and note-taking tools.
- Taskade: A simple but effective note-taking app with a focus on project management.
- Google Keep: A free and easy-to-use note-taking app.
- Bear: A simple markdown note-taking app to organize your notes.
Wrap-up: Evernote review
During my Evernote review, I discovered that it is still a powerful note-taking app and offers many values. You can structure and organize your notes, to-do lists, files, and thoughts in one centralized app. Also, I loved that it supports many integrations with third-party apps and that this tool is accessible.
On the other hand, it is a very expensive note-taking app compared to other tools. Honestly, I do not feel that Evernote can offer such a valuable service that it would make sense for me to switch from Notion.
So, all things considered, I had a mixed experience with Evernote.
Related readings:
- Evernote vs Obsidian: A REAL Comparison With No Fluff (2025)
- Evernote Vs Notion: An Easier Decision That You Think (2025)
Frequently asked questions
What is the disadvantage of Evernote?
Evernote’s main disadvantage is the high pricing. Its premium plans are very pricey, and the free plan is limited to 50 notes, which is simply not sufficient. During my Evernote review, I also experienced that it has limited AI features and offers fewer templates than other note-taking apps.
Is Evernote reliable?
Based on my experience, Evernote is a reliable note-taking app. However, I found some user reports saying they lost their notes when using Evernote on mobile.
Is Evernote completely free?
Evernote has a free plan, but it is limited to 50 notes, 1 notebook, 250 MB monthly uploads, and 200 MB maximum note size, and you can connect it with one device. Ultimately, the 50 notes and 1 notebook make Evernote’s free plan quite limited. Based on my experience, even an individual can exceed 50 notes in one year.
Can you connect Evernote with Google Calendar?
Evernote is very solid in terms of integrations, and you can connect it to Google Calendar. Also, it supports Zapier integration, which allows you to connect Evernote with more than 7,000 apps.
Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I created Thebusinessdive to help you elevate your productivity to the next level. It is a place where you find the best tools, ideas, and tips to supercharge your productivity and performance. Subscribe to my YouTube channel to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!
