For years, Evernote was the undisputed king of digital note-taking. But the digital landscape has shifted dramatically, and frankly, the ‘elephant’ has become a slow, costly, and cumbersome beast. If you are still relying on Evernote out of habit, tradition, or fear or migration, it’s time to face the facts.

This post isn’t about suggesting alternatives; it’s a necessary intervention urging you to stop using Evernote for taking notes and finally embrace a modern, efficient workflow that won’t punish you for taking too many notes.

The massive price hikes

With a ‘Free plan’ trap

I have been a paying Evernote customer for years. But looking at the current pricing, I just can’t justify (and recommend) it anymore.

Let’s talk dollars and cents. The current pricing structure is aggressive. The Personal plan costs around $130 per year. For that price, I get unlimited device syncing and decent storage, but I’m still using an app that feels slower and clunkier than almost every modern alternative.

And if I want the features Evernote is now heavily promoting – like the new AI-powered search, I’m looking at the professional plan, which can easily cost me over $170 per year.

Besides, the new limitations on the free plan were the ultimate sign that Evernote is no longer interested in building a loyal user base. The free plan has been ruthlessly squeezed down to only 50 notes, one notebook, and one device. It basically makes the free tier useless for a serious note-taker.

Even on the expensive Personal and Professional plans, there is a strange, restrictive limit of 200MB per individual note.

The performance and feature bloat

I’m still not sold on AI features

I can appreciate that Evernote has been trying to modernize (especially after the takeover from Bending Spoons). They have given us Tasks, a customizable Home dashboard, Calendar integration, and a host of other additions. But the core problem still remains the same: performance.

That’s largely due to their desktop apps being Electron-based web wrappers. Every time I launched the application, especially on my desktop, it felt like I was waiting for a full web page to load and render, not opening a native, snappy application.

When I’m trying to capture a quick thought, attend a meeting, or search for a crucial document, I don’t have time to wait 5-10 seconds for the app to finally load and sync.

Look, I have nothing against Electron apps. In fact, one of my favorite apps, 1Password, is built on the same framework. But then again, unlike a knowledge management app, I don’t spend hours in a password manager.

In a bid to justify their increasing price tag, Evernote has leaned heavily into AI features like AI-powered search and editing. Frankly, I don’t find these features compelling enough to warrant the cost of the Professional plan.

I don’t need my notes to be summarized by a bot (NotebookLM does a better job at that, anyway); I need them to be reliable, easily retrievable, and fast to create (just look at Craft, for example).

Evernote’s proprietary format

Good luck opening those ENEX files

This is another reason I suggest avoiding the Evernote ecosystem: vendor lock-in. Evernote stores everything in its proprietary format, the .enex file.

This format creates a massive, unnecessary barrier when you finally want to leave. It means your archive of years’ worth of notes isn’t stored as simple, future-proof text files, but as something controlled entirely by one company.

While the company offers a way to export these files, the process is far from perfect. The rival note-taking apps (more on that in a minute) do offer an Evernote import tool, but I have heard countless stories where formatting breaks, attachments go missing, or dates get corrupted during the transfer. So, it’s better to avoid getting locked into Evernote from day one.

The alternatives have caught up

Get more for less price

The competition has not just caught up; they have surpassed Evernote in speed, design, and value. I realized I was paying a premium to use a legacy platform when I could have a faster, more beautiful experience elsewhere.

Let me introduce you to a few of the competitors who are running circles around the old elephant.

The first one is Bear Notes, which delivers advanced formatting, supports Markdown, and packs beautiful themes across all Apple devices for around $30 per year.

Craft is another capable alternative out there. It’s more than a note-taking app and aims to replace multiple apps on your home screen.

And if you are looking for a more advanced option, try checking out Capacities or Anytype. Both are capable PKM tools with native apps on all platforms.

The great Evernote exodus

Evernote’s core issues – the cost, the bloat, and the performance – are no longer tolerable when such excellent alternatives exist. Make no mistake, it’s not about being trendy or chasing the flashy new rivals; it’s about being efficient.

Of course, being a productivity nerd, I will keep a close eye on Evernote’s upcoming updates and see if the new owners can fix the current issues. But until then, I recommend adopting one of the alternatives for your digital cabinet.

Meanwhile, check out these tips and tricks for creating an effective PKM system using any of your favorite apps.