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BusinessProductivity

What are the best services to manage ideas?

9

Options
Considered

28

User
Recs.

Oct 7, 2020

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

6 Options Considered

Best services to manage ideas	Price	Platforms	Collaborative
-- Notion	-	Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web	Yes
-- Evernote	-	Android / iOS / WP / OSX / Windows / WebOS	yes
-- SquidHub	-	Web / iOS / Android	Yes
-- TiddlyWiki	Free	Windows, Linux, Mac, iOS, Android	No
-- Google Keep	FREE	Android / iOS / Chrome / Web / Desktop	-

Notion

Top Pro

Can separate notes into workspaces

Notes can be stored on separate workspaces in which they are kept separate from others, which may be of great benefit to users and teams working on multiple projects. A user can create an unlimited amount of workspaces. See More

Top Con

"Web clipper" needs important (even urgent) upgrades

I can only talk about Evernote Web Clipper and in comparison Notion Clipper is so basic. and I consider it serious that it isn't compatible with Safari. All the customization options within Notion would be enhanced with a better Web clipper See More

CoolMaetsill's Experience

For me, a 5 years old Evernote Pro User, I wasn`t having problems moving in one month to Notion. Databases, Multiple View modes, Pages into pages, and highly visual and minimalistic look are so powerful PROs. As a Notebook (my first Evernote use) maybe need some upgrades, but as I can integrate the To-Do list that was the final decision point. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, iOS, Android, Web

Collaborative:Yes

Markdown support:Export

Local hosting:No

Top Pro

Supports embedding of multimedia content

Notion supports the embedding of a wide range of content in its notes, including but not limited to pictures, videos, audio, Twitter posts, Google Maps, PDF files, and Google Drive files See More

Top Con

Designed with teams in mind, and less formatting than Evernote

Evernote may be more individual-oriented and has more formatting and such options available, but whether that affects you is down to personal preference. Try both and see which you prefer. See More

Top Pro

Pages within pages within pages, to infinity

You can have a ridiculous amount of information within a single note. Look at how it works, you'll be surprised! See More

Top Con

No lightweight tables like Markdown

Every table is some sort of database with a default view and every row is a data set with attributes and it's own page. Simple tables as in Markdown are missing. See More

Top Pro

Amazing view flexibility

You can create different views for a page's content and easily toggle between kanban, table, etc. (As long as the content is able to allow different views.) See More

Top Pro

Does a great job with both notes and to-dos

To-dos in Notion aren't just dot point lists. You can drag and drop them into columns just like Trello (Kanban style), you can have sub-tasks, and you can easily mark things off as completed so they are no longer in your way. Notes are also powerful, with proper formatting and ways to manage and search for them, which makes it a great Evernote alternative. See More

Top Pro

Unlike anything else

One of the most complete applications one can use to build a personal dashboard (or professional) and migrate all other services to it. No more calendar, task, notes, financials, lists, writing and wiki apps, just Notion. See More

Top Pro

Highly visual, with icons next to every new page and so on

This feature makes it very easy to find certain notes and such. And great for visual people as well. You could also add images as icons instead, if you like. See More

Top Pro

Awesome for wikis

You can easily start writing a bunch of web pages, share it with co-workers and choose whether to publicize or keep your contents private. It's also easy to hyperlink pages. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Works with Android, iOS, Windows, & Mac OSX. See More

Top Pro

Full-featured on desktop, mobile and web

Even the right-click menus on the web are the same as the app. See More

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Evernote

Top Pro

Evernote is synchronized

Top Con

Steep learning curve

Since Evernote has so many features built in, it's hard to know where to find everything until reasonable amount of time has been spent with it. See More

Yanis's Experience

Been using it since the beginning... 2008 See More

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS / WP / OSX / Windows / WebOS

Collaborative:yes

Markdown support:no

Offline access:yes

Top Pro

Best web clipper

Can clip to the web from desktop or mobile, using simplified format or original formatting. Very quick and flexible, and enables you to highlight, take notes, tag, etc. See More

Top Con

Missing some basic functions

Top Pro

Flexible image manipulation

Permits photos that are taken, to be processed when in automatic mode and saved as a photo, black and white document, colour document, post it note or business card. The automated mode is also good at cropping the document effectively. See More

Top Con

No undo feature

If you erase something by mistake, you can't undo it. See More

Top Pro

Focused, uncluttered user interface

Evernote has a very clean and intuitive interface that's simple to understand at a glance. See More

Top Con

Lacks right-to-left writing support

When you write in a right-to-left language (Arabic, for example), everything looks fine in the editor but the direction changes to the left again after saving the note. See More

Top Pro

Clean UI

Evernote has a flat, uncluttered user interface. See More

Top Con

Bloated and complex

Evernote is too big, has too many features. Note taking apps need absolutely clean interface to allow unobtrusive note taking and not a struggle to search for which buttons to click. It focuses on the search feature so much that it doesn't encourage or make it immediately easy to organize your notes and thoughts. It's essentially a sophisticated notes dump with good search. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

Evernote is easy to dive into because it doesn’t overwhelm you with advanced functionality from the start. As you get more accustomed to the app, you might want to delve deeper to see what benefits the more advanced features will offer. See More

Top Con

Security issues

Evernote had their entire database hacked and compromised including customer user passwords. They responded by locking valid users out of accounts and forcing password changes but are still vague about their own security policies. They do not have a good track record for data security. They also do not offer local personal encryption of entire Notebooks as Microsoft OneNote does. See More

Top Pro

Powerful note formatting

Evernote has an extensive range of formatting options and note types. You can create checklists, reminder alerts, audio notes, or add images and attachments. It also has an awesome speech-to-text feature if you prefer to dictate aloud. See More

Top Con

Lacks search and replace capability

Top Pro

Premium allows search in attached files and documents

Top Con

Poor text formatting abilities

Text formatting in Evernote is buggy and unreliable. Bullets (outlining) are getting stuck or disappearing, tables are very static and prone to breaking and everything beyond the most basic formatting might cause an issue. See More

Top Pro

Web client has a focused, uncluttered user interface

Top Con

No recurring and snooze reminders

Perhaps because it is not truly a to-do list app, there is currently no support for recurring events or snooze reminders. The company claims to be working on this functionality. See More

Top Pro

Great selection for integrating with other apps

The Evernote app center page is nicely organized and has good quality integration of apps that can improve your productivity. See More

Top Con

No official Linux app

Evernote does not offer an official Linux app, although there are some third party alternatives available. See More

Top Pro

"Reminders" are a great way to combine your to-dos and notes

One of the note types is a "reminder," which can act as a to-do list. You can add all the usual formatting to reminders, including audio. Evernote will provide alerts when they are due and house them in a special location within the app. See More

Top Con

Different features and functions per device

Some functions can only be accessed on the Desktop app. These include changing your default notebook. See More

Top Pro

Trustworthy to store data in the long term

With many utility tools being constantly shut down by their creators, it's really important to consider the long-term risks of picking a home for all your notes. Evernote is a $1 billion company with a track record of exceptional security and goals of becoming a "100 year old" company. See More

Top Con

Great note-taking platform, but not a feature-rich to-do platform

I suppose if you had a hammer, you could nail a screw into a block of wood. But it just isn't the right tool for the job. Almost everything you would want in a to-do list app needs to be manually organized and managed in Evernote. There are no features for sorting, reviewing, scheduling, assigning priority, etc.. In effect, it isn't much better than keeping a to-do list in a Microsoft Word or OpenOffice text document. Evernote is a great note-taking app. However it isn't really designed to be a calendaring/scheduling/to-do list app – even though you could use it that way if you tried. See More

Top Pro

Skitch integration

If you're on iOS and have Skitch installed, you can quickly annotate your notes using Skitch. See More

Top Con

Buggy

A program with more features is always prone to more bugs. Evernote is definitely not the most stable note-taking program available. See More

Top Pro

Powerful features for organizing your notes

Evernote is designed to make it easy to keep your notes well organized, which aids in quickly finding/browsing old information. You can put notes into a single notebook and use search to access old notes, or if you're so inclined, organize notes extensively with hierarchical notebooks and tags. See More

Top Con

Pay for offline use, search, and other functions

The free version of Evernote is highly limited. You have to pay if you want to access your notes without internet connection, search your notes or documents, or upload large amounts of data. The free version allows you to upload 60 MB of data per month, which is about 20 to 30 iPhone camera pictures. At a certain point, they started charging you for "advanced" capability, which includes searching your own attachments. See More

Top Pro

Consolidates all your information

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 and typed), tasks, reading lists, receipts, and more. See More

Top Con

Very heavyweight for a to-do list

Evernote is a powerhouse program with many features. It uses a correspondingly large amount of memory to run. See More

Top Pro

Has OCR functionality to convert images to searchable text

A really cool and handy Evernote feature is the ability to automatically scan images for text. Below is an example of an Evernote result when searching notes for "screenshots." See More

Top Con

Free version limited to 2 devices

The free version has become very limited as a cloud based note taking app as there is now only sharing between two devices allowed. See More

Top Pro

Native and offline-capable apps on pretty much every platform

Evernote has apps for Windows 7 and 8, Windows 10, Mac, Android, iOS (both iPhone and iPad), Blackberry, and Windows Phone. It also has a fully functional web app and chrome plug-in. No matter what device or platform you're on, you will pretty much always be able to access Evernote. See More

Top Pro

Multipurpose

In addition to general note taking and to-do list management, Evernote lets you search through scanned documents, handwritten text, and images; collaborate with others through shared notebooks; record audio notes; and more. See More

Top Pro

Can include images, and snippets from the web or a whole webpage via web clipper

With one click you can clip part or all of any webpage, including text, images, and links. Especially for those who use Google Chrome, this web clipper is a very rich add-on. The “simplified article” mode strips all graphical overhead from the page before adding the information to Evernote. It's also possible to add highlighting, tags, etc. before storing the note. See More

Google Keep

Top Pro

Extremely simple

Specs

Platforms:Android / iOS / Chrome / Web / Desktop

Top Pro

Notes can be color-coded

Top Pro

Can share and collaboratively edit any item including lists

Keep allows sharing any item with other contacts and editing them together at the same time. This way a team can work together in real time, no matter their location. See More

Top Pro

Automatic saving

Automatically saves new changes so that nothing is lost. See More

Top Pro

Works as a great bookmarking tool as links added can optionally include a preview image

Keep has a great feature that allows you to save sites you visit as a special note type with a link and a preview image. See More

Top Pro

Super fast to use

The focus on a minimal interface makes everything fast to use on both web and mobile. This comes in handy for when a note needs to be jotted down quickly, as there is little to no load times or faffing about trying to get to a space where the note can finally be recorded. See More

Top Pro

Unlimited and seamless sync across all Google connected devices, from mobile to desktop

When a mobile device isn't in use, Google Keep can be accessed as a Chrome app or as a website. Basically, no matter the device being used or the OS on it, there is always a way to access the app. There is also no limitation to how many devices this can be done with, freeing up the user to always have access. See More

Top Pro

Easy to use

1-step to take a note on Android: tap 'take a note'. Web version: cursor is on the note itself. See More

Top Pro

Notes can be grouped via labels

In addition to the ability to color-code notes, they can be labeled and navigated and grouped that way. This allows for easy organization, to then be found easily at a later date. See More

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