Zoho Notebook vs Zim
When comparing Zoho Notebook vs Zim, the Slant community recommends Zim for most people. In the question“What is the best cross-platform note-taking app?” Zim is ranked 3rd while Zoho Notebook is ranked 37th. The most important reason people chose Zim is:
Notes can contain links to other notes, allowing you to reference important information when needed. This way the user can connect and reference many different pages in the app, keeping things clean and structured, unlike Evernote, which makes this a good Evernote alternative.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Completely free, ad-free, with unlimited devices
Zoho (the company behind Notebook) has been providing free, advertisement-free, productivity applications for over a decade, and this one is no different.
Pro Cloud sync
As an Evernote alternative, Notebook securely stores notes to the cloud, allowing you to access notes on all of your mobile devices, while the sync is seamless. Also, web app support is coming soon.
Pro Easy to use
If you've ever used Evernote, then you know it has lot's of menus and that doing simple things requires lots of taps. Notebook is designed to be more functional, and lets you take and access notes quickly.
Pro Pre-built checklist and audio notes
Rather than create a checklist within a text note, Notebook has a pre-built checklist card, which makes creating them really easy. Plus the items you check off move to the bottom of the note. Audio notes work the same way. Rather than treat audio notes like attachments (as Evernote does), Notebook has a pre-built audio note which is really nice, very similar to Evernote in that fashion, which makes it a good alternative.
Pro Great UI
Pro Allows for organized, wiki-style navigation
Notes can contain links to other notes, allowing you to reference important information when needed. This way the user can connect and reference many different pages in the app, keeping things clean and structured, unlike Evernote, which makes this a good Evernote alternative.
Pro Plain text data format rather than proprietary
If/when the app is no longer developed (or if the user simply decides to no longer use the application or view/edit it on a non-supported platform), this can still be done with any plain-text editor.
Pro Automatically manages files and folders
Zim will automatically create a folder structure that fits your page hierarchy and adds/removes files such as images to/from appropriate folders.
Pro Good export options
Zim supports HTML, LaTeX, Pandoc Markdown, and RST. This allows ones documents to be easily used in a wide selection of other apps.
Pro Support for multiple platforms
Windows, Linux, and BSD are supported with their own clients. This is nice for those that use multiple operating systems but still want to use the same app on each.
Cons
Con Migrate from Evernote non functional
The migrate from Evernote function resulted in blank notes. The headers are there but blank notes
Con Available on limited platforms
Currently there is no web app or Windows version available.
They are working on both, but there is no set release date.
Con No mobile app support
This is a desktop app and there are no mobile versions available. This can make it more difficult to use on-the-go if using cloud storage to store files from the app, as there is no mobile app version to access those files.
Con No native sync support
Zim notes don't automatically synchronize with other devices or offer built-in cloud sync support. Of course the user can add the files to Dropbox, or something similar, to then open them on another device with the app installed. But this is more of a work-around than a built-in solution.
Con Looks ancient
Zim has a very plain and outdated interface.