When comparing Google Keep vs Minute, the Slant community recommends Google Keep for most people. In the question“What is the best cross-platform note-taking app?” Google Keep is ranked 9th while Minute is ranked 78th. The most important reason people chose Google Keep is:
1-step to take a note on Android: tap 'take a note'. Web version: cursor is on the note itself.
Specs
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Pros
Pro Easy to use
1-step to take a note on Android: tap 'take a note'.
Web version: cursor is on the note itself.
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.
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.
Pro Automatic saving
Automatically saves new changes so that nothing is lost.
Pro Useful Android home screen widget
The Keep widget lets users quickly see existing notes and add new ones.
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.
Pro Notes can be color-coded
Pro Cross platform
This app can be used seamlessly across all platforms including Android, iOS, and desktop computer platforms.
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.
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.
Pro Really well implemented speech-to-text
Google has a lot of experience with speech-to-text functionality and they did a fantastic job with Keep. This means you can easily record spoken notes that can then be changed to a text based note.
Pro Notes can include photo and audio attachments
Notes can include multimedia attachments in addition to text.
Pro Supports drawing or writing notes by hand
Newer version of Google Keep now supports drawing on either a blank page, existing notes or in an image attached to the note.
Pro Both location- and time-based reminders
You can set reminders that bring certain notes to your attention when you arrive at a specified location or when it’s a specified time or date. Unfortunately you can only do one or the other for each note.
Pro Includes character recognition for text in images
Google Keep lets users take pictures of physical notes and makes the contents searchable within the app. This can be a convenient time saver for those that do not want to type out the necessary info, but rather take a quick snapshot of it.
Pro Drag and drop sorting
You can move cards manually, which is great for prioritizing to-dos. Within a card, you can also drag and drop items.
Pro Archives finished tasks
Any finished task is archived and can be searched at a later date.
Pro Real-time collaboration
Collaborate on notes, todo's & other documents.
Pro Addition to your current workflow
Minute can be seamlessly integrated with most workflows and online services currently on the market, in every functional aspect.
Calendar
Minute works great with iCalendar on your iPhone or iPad. Turn calendar appointments into meetings with the press of a button. You can invite people to join meetings by email and Minute automatically invites them again when when you create a follow-up meeting.Documents
Import documents directly from your computer before and during meetings. Import them using Dropbox, Google Drive, Microsoft OneDrive, iCloud or Evernote. After the meeting, it’s just as easy to save documents, along with any notes made during the meeting. Everyone will always have the most up to date information.Scrumming
Do you use scrum and sprints? Minute works great with that too, creating a seamless integration with your workflow. Turn on timers for different agenda items and instantly divide tasks during the meeting. Items and tasks that couldn’t be discussed in the allocated time will automatically be transferred to the next meeting.
Pro Syncs across iOS & webversion
Pro Simple to use
Pro Minute mission
Makes meetings easier and more efficient.
Pro How meetings are more efficient when using Minute
At Minute, we’ve looked long and hard for ways to facilitate meetings in the easiest way possible. Like how to save on paper, by creating an easy to understand digital environment. Or how we can make meetings more efficient, while at the same time using the simplest and most minimal technological tools at our disposal. How to make sure every single employee is able to access all the important information out there. And how to make an app that everyone instantly understands, whether they’re using their iPhone or iPad, or just using the web. We’ve let people from outside the company test our application, and the response we got was amazing. That’s why we’ve made our app publicly available, so it can be used by any company or office.
Pro Why meetings should be more efficient
Using Minute saves 16 trees each year - that’s equal to one metric ton of paper.
In the Netherlands alone, 0.24 tree is cut down per employee, just to keep up with the demand for printing paper. That comes down to one tree per 400 employees every year. And when you do the math for the total of 7.2 million people currently employed in the Netherlands, it means the loss of 18.000 trees every year.
Research done by PriceWaterhouseCoopers shows that an average business:
makes 19 copies of every single paper document
spends 25 dollars to file one paper document
spends 130 dollars euros looking for a single misplaced document
spends 25 hours restoring one lost document
loses 10% of its yearly revenue just by processing information on paper
spends 7 minutes looking up and refiling one paper document
Cons
Con Google can access and mine your data
You have to be okay with Google analyzing and using your data in order to use Keep.
Con Messy if you have lots of notes
It can be difficult to organize notes because you can only create labels and not, for example, separate projects.
Con Organization is limited to just multiple tags for notes
There are no folders in Keep that you can move notes into. It makes the user interface more cluttered, and navigation gets more difficult.
Con Can be taken down some day
As Google is notorious for taking down services, you may end up with just a backup of your notes in XML format and a need to look for a substitute.
Con No ability to undo changes
There is no way to revert changes or restore text you may have accidentally deleted (however, you can restore entire notes for up to 7 days after deletion).
Con Synchronization bugs
There are some issues with synchronizing data including laggyness and returning old/deleted items.
Con No text formatting
No basic formatting like bold, italics. Makes it harder to do things like meeting notes. Keep is intended as a minimal and quick note taking app, but sadly for those that are looking for something more robust, the features are just not there.
Con Scrolling through notes is horrible
There are no options to decrease the surface area of the notes to make it easier to get an overview. Compare this to something like the Apple Notes or Evernote UI, for example. You can't organize nor have a glance of what you have.
Con Not free/libre
This application is proprietary, and thus cannot be modified or freely distributed.
Con Can be difficult to discover the features
Google Keep has slowly been introducing new features, but doesn't do a good job of helping you discover them.
Con Google account required
You're required to have a Google account in order to use the app.
Con Does not offer themes
There is no option for changing the color theme (such as a dark theme) unless you use a 3rd party extension.
Con Does not integrate with Google Calendar or Tasks
It does not integrate with Google Calendar or other Google Apps with the exception of "Google Now." Keep reminders can appear on Google Calendar, but you can not get reminders and use Tasks at the same time.
Con Too simplistic of an approach
Con No integrated social media sharing
There is no integrated social media sharing if you directly want to post your note to Twitter, Facebook, etc.
Con Not good at all for longer notes
With almost no formatting options whatsoever it's hard to actually use Keep for long-form notes.
Con Sharing within team doesn't work that well
You can share separate notes but not Projects, Wordspace, or Teams.
Con Not distributed
Cannot run on own servers as Keep will only run on Google's own servers. This increases the risks which are normally associated with handing over critical applications to a large (US) corporation.
Con No notifications when tasks are added to shared lists
Although the ability to collaborate on lists is advanced, Keep will not let you know when another person adds an item to a list you share.
Con No API
Con There is a label limit up to 50
Con No dedicated app for windows, linux, mac (except unofficial)
Con Cannot share groups of notes (e.g., labels)
Google's equivalent of groups are labels, which can't be shared. By comparison, Trello allows you to share boards with others. Trello also supports grouping through teams. Google Keep has no such concept.
Con Slow to save the updates
Saving is delayed by a moment and the saving status UI is unclear. You can lose updates if you close the tab too quickly.
Con Delay between to-do entries
The keyboard closes and reloads between to-do list entries, so the first letters or words may be missed if you’re trying to quickly create a list.
Con Notes get lost/deleted and can NOT be recovered
Since nothing is stored locally on the phone, everything can go missing. Google can't recover any of it.
Con No BlackBerry 10 app
No BlackBerry support apart from web.
Con No Windows Mobile app
No Windows Mobile app, and it is unlikely to ever be produced.