Which is the perfect tool to jot down your genius 3 a.m. ideas? Which platform lets you brainstorm strategies with your work buddies? And which software transforms the messy whirlpool of your thoughts into a neat and orderly plan?
Well, the answer to all your questions is a note-taking app.
Whether you’re recapping a meeting, creating a killer marketing plan, or saving those must-read articles, a top-notch note-taking app is important.
And if you’re on the hunt for one, we’ve got your back.
We’ll compare two popular note-taking legends—Evernote and GoodNotes—breaking down their features, pricing, and user reviews.
Explore the key features, weigh the pros and cons, and find your perfect note-taking companion. Plus, we have a wildcard alternative that might steal the show.
Let’s get started!
Evernote Vs GoodNotes: Which Note-Taking Tool Is Best?
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Is Evernote?
Evernote is a popular note-taking app that’s been around for a long time. It’s renowned for its collaboration and task management features, and you can use it for keeping daily notes, setting reminders, or even bullet journaling.
Evernote keeps you organized with a central dashboard to track and categorize notes using stacks and tags. It lets you quickly retrieve things without searching the entire database.
Moreover, you can sync notes across devices, making them accessible anywhere. It promotes collaboration in team projects without worrying about device incompatibility.
Let’s look at some of Evernote’s best features and pricing plans.
Evernote features
Here are the top Evernote features:
1. Web Clipper
Evernote Web Clipper is a browser extension that lets you grab entire web pages, articles, pictures, or just selected text from the internet and save them directly to your Evernote account.
So, if you discover an interesting article, you can easily clip it to Evernote without all the extra ads and headlines.
These clips are then stored neatly in your Evernote account, so you can quickly go back to them whenever you want.
2. Templates
Choose from over 50 pre-formatted, ready-to-use Evernote templates to save time and streamline your tasks.
Whether you need a daily log for your schedule or a project management template to track milestones, Evernote has you covered.
For instance, Evernote’s Gratitude Journal Template comes pre-filled with tables for your morning journal, life lessons, and expressions of gratitude. It lets you focus directly on your content and not worry about the design.
3. Note reminder
Evernote’s note reminder feature allows you to set dates and times for your tasks to receive email alerts and stay on top of time-sensitive activities.
Once you complete a task, mark it with a simple tap, managing tasks efficiently without losing the original note.
Evernote also helps you stay focused by displaying reminders at the top of the notes list, giving easy access to essential tasks.
4. Audio recording
Evernote offers handy audio notes or an audio recording feature if writing isn’t your preferred method. Open a new note, tap the record button, and capture notes in your voice.
This feature becomes invaluable when you need to quickly note something during a conversation or when your mind is too preoccupied to write. Plus, you can access this feature on both your desktop and phone.
Besides these capabilities, Evernote also boasts optical character recognition (OCR) technology, which converts handwritten notes and adds them to the app in a digital format.
Evernote pricing
- Free version: Free
- Personal: $14.99/month
- Professional: $17.99/month
Summarize this article for me pleaseWhat Is GoodNotes?
GoodNotes is a powerful note-taking platform that turns any device into a virtual notebook.
Designed to replicate the feeling of writing on paper, it has a simple user interface, works well with different styluses, and lets you extensively customize your notes.
Besides note-taking, the app stands out for its accurate handwriting-to-text conversion, document annotation, interactive study, and customizable templates.
Your notes are kept up-to-date across all your Apple devices through cloud syncing. GoodNotes is now available for Android and Windows devices, making it even more accessible.
GoodNotes features
Here are the top GoodNotes features:
1. Handwriting-to-text conversion
GoodNotes accurately turns handwritten notes into typed text. Use the Lasso Tool to select what you want, click ‘Convert,’ and see your notes become typed words.
You can smoothly move this text to other apps, such as a task-list app, making your workflow more flexible.
Since GoodNotes supports a variety of styluses, you can write or draw with your preferred tools. It also has features like palm rejection and support for left-handers.
2. Lasso Tool
GoodNotes’ Lasso Tool is a convenient feature for managing content within the app. With this tool, you can easily select specific content by drawing a loop around it.
Once selected, you can choose among various actions, such as moving, cutting, copying, deleting, resizing, and rotating the chosen content.
The Lasso Tool provides a versatile and efficient way to handle and edit your notes and drawings without having to rewrite or retype everything.
3. Document annotations
The document annotations feature allows you to highlight, draw, and write on PDFs. You can zoom in to add notes precisely, draw arrows and shapes quickly, and adjust and move your marks as needed. Write anywhere on the document and easily share your thoughts with others.
And sharing your edited PDFs is super simple, too; you can email them, save them, or share them with other file-sharing apps.
4. Presentation Mode
GoodNotes offers a handy ‘Presentation Mode’ that turns your device into a digital board for clear demonstrations. When connected to a larger screen, it keeps viewers engaged and focused.
There are three display options: ‘Mirror Entire Screen’ for comprehensive visibility, ‘Mirror Presenter Page’ for zooming and movements, and ‘Mirror Full Page’ to showcase broad content.
Additionally, the Laser Pointer feature, available in Dot or Trail modes, allows you to emphasize specific points. This mode is especially useful during board meetings and team discussions.
GoodNotes pricing
- Free: 3 notebooks
- All Platforms Yearly: $9.99/year
- Apple One-time Payment: $29.99/one-time
- Android & Windows Yearly: $6.99/year
Summarize this article for me pleaseEvernote Vs. GoodNotes: Features Compared
While both Evernote and GoodNotes have solid capabilities and a dedicated set of fans each, they’re far from identical.
Here is a quick comparison of the Evernote vs GoodNotes features:
| Feature | Evernote | GoodNotes |
| Handwriting recognition | Yes | Yes |
| Audio recording | Yes | No |
| PDF annotation | Yes | Yes |
| Note syncing | Yes | Yes |
| Cross-platform compatibility | Yes | Yes |
| Organization | Notebooks, tags, and search | Notebooks and folders |
| Templates | Yes | Yes |
| Collaboration | Yes | No |
| Sketching | Yes | Yes |
| Price | Free and paid plans | Paid app |
Note-taking features
Note-taking involves various actions—from jotting down thoughts to scanning hard copies. Then, there’s the task of organizing heaps of information. A solid note-taking app should be able to do all of that without a glitch.
Both Evernote and GoodNotes are pretty good at these actions but in slightly different ways.
Evernote
Whether you’re typing or taking notes by hand, Evernote goes the extra mile. It lets you save Slack messages and notes from emails and tweak image alignments to keep your text and media in order.
It also does a good job of scanning and turning your notes into a neat PDF. But the catch is you can’t annotate this PDF.
All your notes are organized in a hierarchy of 3 layers in this platform: notes, notebooks, and notebook stacks. This style of organization, however, can be a little complicated, making it challenging to locate your notes quickly.
GoodNotes
GoodNotes adds a creative twist to its note-taking features with the ability to add shapes—rectangles, circles, triangles, you name it. It also has a bookmark icon. One-click and your specific notes are saved in your bookmarks or favorites section.
Like Evernote, GoodNotes is also handy for scanning documents and turning them into PDFs. However, unlike Evernote, it lets you annotate the PDFs just fine.
Organization is simple with GoodNotes—it has special, customizable folders where your notes are stored. Want to find a note from months ago? One-click, and it’s there.
Collaboration
When working with multiple teams, it’s inevitable to collaborate on the notes you’ve taken. That’s why understanding the collaborative features of your note-taking platform is crucial.
Both Evernote and GoodNotes allow team collaboration in their distinct ways.
Evernote
Evernote provides many features that make collaboration easier and give you complete control over how others view and edit your notes.
In addition to basic link-sharing, the Premium and Business versions of the platform have tools for task and workflow management and brainstorming. These mainly help you to handle large tasks and responsibilities while managing deadlines.
GoodNotes
GoodNotes also offers valuable collaboration features for working with colleagues and team members.
Its primary collaboration feature is link sharing, allowing you to share multiple links to all your notes and documents in the app with a single click.
Additionally, you can save links shared by others directly to your notes, making it a convenient platform for easy collaboration.
Integrations
If you’re juggling tasks across different platforms, you want your note-taking app to play nice with them. Who wants to switch apps all day, right?
A note-taking app with solid integrations saves time and streamlines your work efficiently.
Both Evernote and GoodNotes offer support for useful integrations.
Evernote
Evernote understands the importance of integrations, especially in a work environment.
It can integrate with popular work-related platforms like Microsoft Teams, Gmail, Outlook, and Slack so that you can access information from them without having to switch between tasks manually.
GoodNotes
Similarly, GoodNotes offers cross-platform integration support, allowing you to view GoodNotes from various devices using browsers like Safari, Firefox, Google Chrome, and more.
Additionally, it supports integration with apps like Microsoft PowerPoint, Microsoft Word, and iCloud.
However, compared to Evernote, the integration support from GoodNotes is limited. It only connects with a handful of general platforms.
Summarize this article for me pleaseEvernote Vs. GoodNotes: Who’s the Champion?
Picking a champion between GoodNotes and Evernote is tricky because both note-taking apps come with their own set of limitations.
Evernote is great for professional settings. It can handle large documents, manage tasks efficiently, and seamlessly integrate with popular work platforms like Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Gmail.
Plus, it offers tools to simplify workflows and spark creative ideas.
On the other hand, GoodNotes is more suitable for academic and personal use. It has tools like in-built flashcards to improve interactive studying, making it a great companion for students.
Summarize this article for me pleaseEvernote vs. GoodNotes on Reddit
We explored what Redditors had to say about GoodNotes vs. Evernote. Many of them use both Evernote and GoodNotes but for different use cases.
Some users can’t get enough of Evernote.
“I love the web clipper, organizing my notes with notebooks and tags, ability to find notes from the contents within attached documents, ability to send emails to Evernote to designated notebooks, and the document camera is pretty cool. Syncing is seamless.”
Another user mentions how GoodNotes is an ideal academic solution with its customization, organization, and compatibility with Apple devices.
“I use GoodNotes 5 for academic notes and…
I like the wide variety of paper types available in GoodNotes (e.g., squared paper, lined paper, plain paper) and how easy downloading different templates (e.g., chemistry paper) from different sources is. I also like how the app allows you to organize your notes into folders and ‘notebooks’. It works incredibly well with the 2nd generation Apple Pencil and has many useful features…”
There’s no clear winner; users try to pick a tool that aligns the most with their day-to-day work. Both note-taking apps have their own fanbase. But there’s one app that can give ‘em both a run for their money.
Summarize this article for me pleaseMeet ClickUp—The Best Alternative to Evernote Vs. GoodNotes
So Evernote best suits professionals, and GoodNotes works well for students. What if you’d like qualities of both in one tool?
Meet ClickUp— a powerful productivity platform that is the perfect alternative to Evernote and GoodNotes.
ClickUp is not just another glorified app; it’s your all-in-one solution for note-taking and project management.
Imagine replacing multiple tools with one user-friendly platform jam-packed with features like rich text editing, robust task management, and strong integrations with 1000+ apps, helping you complete tasks well ahead of deadlines, streamlining workflow, and boosting productivity.
ClickUp is designed to cater to multiple personal and business use cases, whether you’re working on a school project or strategizing a new product launch. With ClickUp, you can effortlessly visualize, collaborate, and track the progress of your projects—all under one roof.
Manage ideas and tasks with ClickUp Docs
ClickUp Docs are ideal for managing your notes, creating wikis, adding tables, embedding bookmarks, and linking your tasks or to-dos to notes. This tool allows you to work on, write, and edit documents collaboratively with your team in real-time, ensuring everyone’s on the same page (quite literally!). You can also tag members, assign them action items, request updates, and leave comments on the Docs created.
Meanwhile, the built-in editor allows you to add widgets for updating project status, assigning tasks, and changing projects. And if you’re worried about confidential information leaking outside, fret not. Privacy is the top priority with ClickUp Docs. You can create shareable links and manage permissions for access control, too.
Beyond this, time-saving features like ClickUp templates and the focus mode improve your writing experience.
Write faster with ClickUp AI
Unlike many other AI writing tools, ClickUp stands out for its AI assistant for note-taking, which can wrap up your 30-minute tasks in 30 seconds.
Whether you’re outlining a project, preparing status reports for customer support, or planning the next email for a marketing campaign, ClickUp AI has you covered.
It helps you write notes more efficiently, assists in editing content, and ensures perfect formatting with pre-structured tables, headers, and more. There’s no better tool for document automation, really!
Organize everything with ClickUp Notes
Creating checklists from your notes doesn’t have to be tedious anymore.
ClickUp Notes simplify organizing and tracking tasks, even if you haven’t done it before. The editor allows you to easily convert your notes into trackable tasks and organize them as action items in a checklist.
Since the notes automatically sync between the mobile app and Chrome extension, you can create them on the go and effortlessly access them wherever you work.
ClickUp pricing
- Free Forever
- Unlimited: $7/user per month
- Business: $12/user per month
- Enterprise: Contact for pricing
- ClickUp Brain: Available on all paid plans for $5/Workspace member/month
Summarize this article for me pleaseStart Taking Notes with ClickUp Today!
If you’re seeking an all-in-one note-taking solution for your busy professional or academic life, ClickUp is the way to go.
It simplifies note-taking and provides comprehensive features for collaborating on projects and managing tasks effectively.
With ClickUp, you can boost your note-taking experience, organize your thoughts, and effortlessly stay on top of all your activities.
Get started with ClickUp’s Free Forever Plan today!
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