Which is better? Notion or Evernote?

Notion and Evernote are two of the leading organizational and note-taking tools in the market. With so many productivity tools available and similar functionality and features across platforms, it can be tough to decide which platform will work best for you. 

Today, we’re digging into Notion and Evernote to help you decide which platform is better! Read on to learn:

• Why their founders built Notion and Evernote
• Pricing plans 
• Which tool is easier to use 
• How customizations and integrations compare 
• What real-world users have to say 
• If you can use Notion and Evernote together if you can’t decide 

First up, let’s look at each tool and what its founders designed them for. Notion, you’re up!

What is Notion?

Notion is an all-in-one workspace designed to connect teams, projects, documents, and to-dos in one centralized space. Think of it as the ultimate productivity tool, combining typical project management software features and note-taking systems. Its purpose is to break down silos and allow users to view and access their work and knowledge side-by-side, using fewer tools and being more efficient. Use Notion in a web browser, download the desktop application for Mac or Windows, or go mobile with iOS or Android apps.

With Notion, you can customize your workflows. There are tons of pre-made templates you can choose from as a foundation. Then, make it your own by dragging and dropping elements around. And there are hundreds and thousands of use cases for Notion. Take the ADHD life planner, Buffer’s OKRs, and Remote standups templates as a few examples.

Some of Notion’s key features include:

• A large template library to choose from
• Easy-to-use “Blocks” 
• Drag-and-drop customizations
• Real-time collaboration for better teamwork

What is Evernote?

Evernote is a top-rated note-taking app designed to store notes, tasks, and schedules all in one place. Founders created it for better note-taking and to make it easy to add text, images, audio, scans, PDFs, and documents to your notes. Think of it as the note-taking best friend that seamlessly integrates with your other favorite work apps, including Google Drive, Slack, and Microsoft Teams. Use Evernote in your web browser, download the desktop app, or take Evernote on the go with the iOS or Android mobile apps. 

In addition to adding files to one’s notes, users can add tasks and due dates within their notes for an integrated organization system. With Evernote, you can scan important documents, save clips from the web, and choose from a selection of note templates for various use cases. Grab a Project Tracker, Interview Scorecard, or Brainstorming Session template, to name a few.

Some of Evernote’s key features include:

• The Web Clipper feature they’re well-known for
• In-depth search functionality within PDFs and scanned documents (on certain plans)
• Audio notes for times you need to get away from the keyboard

Has Evernote or Notion been around longer?

If you’ve been part of the productivity space for a while, you might already know that Evernote is much older than Notion. Stepan Pachikov founded Evernote and launched an open beta in June 2008. Ivan Zhao founded Notion in 2013, with the initial release in 2016 followed by the release of Notion 2.0 in 2018. Evernote has quite a few years on Notion. 

Which tool is more budget-friendly?

At a glance, pricing is comparable across the two platforms. Let’s dig into the plans available and how much they cost (at the time of writing) to determine which platform is more budget-friendly.

Notion pricing

Notion offers four pricing plans to meet the needs of various users and team sizes. Here’s the scoop:

• Personal plan ($0): Unlimited pages and blocks, the ability to share with five guests, device sync, and API access.
• Personal Pro plan ($4/month billed annually or $5/month): All the features included in Personal plus unlimited file uploads, unlimited guests, and 30-day version history.
• Team plan ($8/user/month billed annually or $10/month): Everything in the Personal Pro plan, plus unlimited team members (keep in mind you’re paying per user), a collaborative workspace, sharing permissions, and admin tools.
• Enterprise plan (custom pricing upon request): All the features included in the Team plan, plus SAML SSO, advanced security, unlimited version history, a dedicated success manager, and a custom contract.

Evernote pricing 

Similarly, Evernote offers four pricing plans for different needs. Check out the breakdown of the plans below:

• Free ($0): Sync great notes on two devices, clip web pages, add in-note tasks, attach receipts, files, images, and documents to your notes, and enjoy a Home dashboard with three widgets. This plan includes 60 MB monthly uploads and a 25 MB maximum note size. 
• Personal ($5.83/month billed annually or $7.99/month): All the features included in the Free plan plus a customizable Home dashboard with extra widgets, Google calendar connection, more detailed tasks, a search function for text inside images and PDFs, custom templates, PDF markup, and more. This plan includes 10 GB monthly uploads, 200 MB maximum note size, and users can access information across unlimited devices.
• Professional ($8.33/month billed annually or $9.99/month): Everything in the Personal plan, plus access to all widgets for the Home dashboard, more connections to Google Calendar accounts, task tracking, Boolean terms for refined searches, notebook export to PDF, and integrations with Slack, Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, and other applications. And this plan offers 20 GB monthly uploads — so you can save twice the amount of content as you can on the Personal plan.
• Evernote Teams ($14.99/user/month with two users minimum): With the Teams plan, team members can manage notes and tasks in one place, capture critical information with ease, have visibility into team projects and documents, build company wikis, and use SSO integration. Users can enjoy a customizable Home dashboard, connect their account to Google Calendar accounts, create unlimited Spaces for information and knowledge sharing, and more. And with an annual plan, teammates receive a complimentary Evernote Personal account.

Which tool is easier to use?

When comparing ease of use, the verdict depends on the user. However, Notion has a steeper learning curve compared to Evernote. After some practice and poking around the platform, users can get the hang of Notion and how to create templates, files, and customizations to meet their needs. Some users have reported that learning to use Notion requires a hefty time investment. Evernote’s interface is slightly more intuitive and easy-to-follow. The sidebar makes it easy to track down notes and tasks. New users may be able to get the hang of Evernote much more quickly (and with less training) than Notion. 

That’s not to say that each interface doesn’t have its own benefits. One platform might appeal to you more than the other. It’s really about what your needs are, how much time you have to invest in learning a new platform, and which tool will help you achieve your productivity goals.

Which tool offers more customization?

Let’s talk about customizations! Notion is the clear winner for a customizable workspace experience. With Notion, users have control over how they organize their information, the modifications they make to pre-defined templates, and how they want to combine various Blocks. There’s a lot of flexibility built into Notion. On the other hand, Evernote is more structured and less flexible. It’s great for organizational purposes, particularly for users looking for a pre-defined structure and who care less about customizing their work and files. 

How do integrations compare?

With Notion, users can connect many of their favorite workspace tools to Notion for less app switching. Notion integrates with Trello, Figma, OneDrive, Dropbox, Zoom, Jira, GitHub, Asana, Slack, Google Drive, and more. You can check out the full integrations guide to learn more. Remember that Notion strives to be an all-in-one workspace, so these integrations allow you to embed your content from tools that Notion can’t replicate (full project management tools like Asana and Jira, for example). There are some tools that Notion could potentially take the place of, such as Google Docs. 

Evernote also integrates with workspace tools like Google Calendar, Gmail, Google Drive, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Salesforce. You can link your notes to your Google Calendar events, share notes via Gmail with one quick click, and combine Slack messages with related notes. These integrations aim to elevate the connection between your notes and other tools for a more efficient workflow. 

What do users have to say?

Are you still unsure which tool is best for you? Let’s see what users of both applications have to say.

At the time of writing, Notion has 4.6 out of 5 stars on the independent review site G2. Other noteworthy mentions from user ratings include:

• 8.7 out of 10 for Ease of Use 
• 8.9 out of 10 for Quality of Support 
• 8.9 out of 10 for Ease of Setup

Evernote comes in right behind Notion with 4.4 out of 5 stars on G2. It’s important to mention the difference in the number of reviews as Evernote has been around longer and has almost four times the number of Notion reviews. Here’s a breakdown of the additional user ratings:

• 8.9 out of 10 for Ease of Use 
• 8.5 out of 10 for Quality of Support 
• 9.1 out of 10 for Ease of Setup

Although the ratings are close, Evernote takes the cake for Ease of Use and Ease of Setup, which likely reflects the initial learning curve we mentioned for Notion.

Can I use Evernote and Notion together?

Evernote and Notion’s strengths are inherently different, which begs the question as to whether you can use the tools together rather than choose either or. One user shared a great explanation and example of how to use the tools together. The user uses Evernote for note-taking, a document repository, and web clipping. And Notion for project management, reading lists, and database management. This setup creates a more efficient overall workflow while leveraging the strengths of each of the tools. 

In another vote for using the tools together, Zapier can help you connect Evernote and Notion. So, for example, when you create a new note in Evernote, the Zap can automatically create a database item in Notion. If you’re stuck and unsure which tool to choose, try them both and use them together!

Evernote vs. Notion

Let’s stack the tools side-by-side. Here’s the TL; DR version:

Our final thoughts

Is Evernote or Notion better? Only you can decide! What’s most important to remember is that the tools each have unique strengths. We recommend making a list of features you need and what you’re hoping to get out of the tool to help you decide. When it comes to Evernote, it’s the powerhouse of note-taking and perfect for individuals in heavy administrative roles (Evernote helped me thrive as a former executive assistant!) And if you’re in a collaborative role and looking for a project management solution, such as a marketing team member, Notion might be ideal for you. But don’t feel like you have to choose either or try using both tools together if you’re still unsure. Happy organizing and note-taking!

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Read next, The Best Note Taking Apps for Mac.