When Evernote capped its free plan at 50 notes and one notebook, a lot of longtime users found themselves priced out overnight. The Personal tier pushed past ten dollars a month, the Professional tier climbed higher, and threads across Reddit filled up with people asking where to move ten years of clipped articles, meeting notes, and receipts. If that is the corner you are in, this piece walks through seven Evernote alternatives for Android that we tested on real notebooks with real clutter.
We covered free options, paid ones, open-source picks, and one lifetime purchase. Every recommendation below includes migration notes, honest weaknesses, and download links, so the switch stops feeling like a leap into another lock-in.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Free plan | Starting price/mo | Standout feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Notion | All-in-one workspace | Unlimited pages, 7-day history | $10 per user | Databases and kanban boards |
| Microsoft OneNote | Free forever | 5 GB via OneDrive | Free | Handwriting to text and free OCR |
| Obsidian | Local-first Markdown | Full app, personal use | Free (sync add-on $4) | Bidirectional links and graph view |
| UpNote | Closest to old Evernote | 50 notes | About $2 (or $39.99 lifetime) | Notebook and tag structure |
| Bear | Apple writers | Limited themes | $2.99 | Elegant Markdown editor |
| Joplin | Own your data | Full app | Free | Optional end-to-end encryption |
| Standard Notes | Long-term privacy | Plain text only | About $7.50 ($90 per year) | End-to-end encryption on every note |
Why people leave Evernote
Price is the loudest complaint. Through 2024 and into 2025, Evernote raised its Personal and Professional tiers again, pushing monthly costs above ten dollars for many users who had been grandfathered on older plans. The free tier took the harder cut, dropping to 50 notes and one notebook, which is the kind of ceiling you hit in an afternoon of clipping recipes.
Sync is the second complaint. The app got faster after the 2023 rewrite, but users on Reddit still report noticeable lag on notebooks past ten thousand notes, especially on Android. Search inside long notes can miss hits until a background reindex catches up.
The last two frustrations are structural. The two-device limit on the free plan sends anyone with a phone, laptop, and tablet straight to the checkout page. And a wave of forced logouts in early 2025 pushed users to look for an app that respects a stable session.
Notion, best for an all-in-one workspace
Notion is the strongest overall alternative for people who want more than a notebook. Its blocks let a page be a wiki, a database, a kanban board, or a simple text note, and its native Evernote importer pulls URLs and tags across on the first try. The free tier is generous for solo use, with unlimited pages, 7-day page history, and 10 MB per upload.
Where it falls short: mobile note capture is slower than Evernote, and offline access is limited to pages you have recently opened. If you clip five things at a bus stop, expect a beat of loading each time.
Pricing:
- Free: unlimited pages and blocks for personal use, 7-day page history, 10 MB per file upload
- Paid: Plus at about $10 per user per month, billed annually
- vs Evernote: cheaper for a single workspace, more expensive if you scale to multiple teammates
Migrating from Evernote: Notion’s built-in importer handles ENEX files and the direct Evernote connection. Notes, URLs, and tags come across cleanly. Formatting on richly styled notes can drift, especially colored highlights and tables. Budget an evening to reimport and clean up a mid-size notebook of roughly a thousand notes.
Bottom line: Pick Notion if you want databases and boards next to your notes. Skip it if you mostly clip pages on the go.
Microsoft OneNote, best for free forever
OneNote is the closest structural match to classic Evernote. It uses notebooks and sections, ships free OCR on images, converts handwriting to text, and gives you unlimited notes as long as they fit under the 5 GB OneDrive quota that comes with a free Microsoft account. The web clipper still works and syncs to the mobile app in seconds.
Where it falls short: sync gets slow on very large notebooks, and the mobile UI has not seen a real refresh in years. Search across sections can also miss hits inside PDF attachments until you open them once.
Pricing:
- Free: full app, 5 GB combined OneDrive storage
- Paid: Microsoft 365 Personal at about $6.99 per month adds 1 TB and Office apps
- vs Evernote: free, unless you outgrow the 5 GB
Migrating from Evernote: Microsoft’s official Evernote importer was retired, so most people now use the free ever2onenote community tool or a paired export via Notion. Text, images, and tags survive. Reminders and encrypted notes do not. Expect two or three hours for a five-thousand-note migration.
Bottom line: Pick OneNote if free matters more than a modern interface. Skip it if you dislike living inside a Microsoft account.
Obsidian, best for local-first Markdown
Obsidian stores your notes as plain Markdown files on the device, which means you can back them up, edit them in any text editor, and read them in twenty years. Bidirectional links and the graph view make it a good fit for anyone building a personal knowledge base rather than a receipt drawer. More than four thousand community plugins cover almost every niche.
Where it falls short: there is no first-party web clipper on mobile, so you either paste and format manually or install a plugin that adds a share-sheet target. The learning curve is steeper than Evernote.
Pricing:
- Free: full app for personal use, unlimited notes
- Paid: Obsidian Sync at $4 per month for encrypted device sync, or bring your own via Syncthing, iCloud, or Google Drive
- vs Evernote: much cheaper if you skip Sync, similar cost if you subscribe
Migrating from Evernote: The Importer community plugin reads ENEX files and rebuilds notes as Markdown with tags preserved. Embedded PDFs move as attachments. Complex tables sometimes need light cleanup after import. A mid-size vault of a few thousand notes finishes in under an hour.
Bottom line: Pick Obsidian if you want to own the files. Skip it if you need a polished mobile clipper on day one.
UpNote, best for keeping the old Evernote feel
UpNote is the alternative most Evernote refugees settle on when they want the same mental model without the price. It uses notebooks and tags, supports Markdown, works offline, syncs across Android, iOS, Windows, macOS, and Linux, and exports to PDF. Nothing about it will surprise you if you have used Evernote for years.
Where it falls short: there is no browser extension for web clipping, and the ecosystem around it is small compared to Notion or Obsidian. You will not find a wall of community plugins.
Pricing:
- Free: 50 notes cap, all core features
- Paid: about $2 per month, or a one-time $39.99 lifetime purchase
- vs Evernote: dramatically cheaper, especially the lifetime option
Migrating from Evernote: UpNote imports ENEX files directly. Notes, notebooks, and tags come across. Handwriting layers and reminders do not. A few thousand notes import in about twenty minutes, and formatting stays close to the original.
Bottom line: Pick UpNote if you want Evernote’s structure at a fraction of the cost. Skip it if a web clipper is non-negotiable.
Bear, best for Apple writers who tolerate Android on the side
Bear is the prettiest Markdown notes app of the group, but it lives inside Apple’s ecosystem. There is no first-party Android app, so the entry here is for people who write on an iPad or Mac and want a way to read those notes on Android through export or a third-party viewer. As a pure writing tool, Bear vs Evernote is a night-and-day upgrade in typography and focus.
Where it falls short: without an Android app, Bear cannot be your primary mobile notes tool. You will end up bridging with a Markdown reader like Markor for Android access to exported files.
Pricing:
- Free: full editor with limited themes, no sync
- Paid: Bear Pro at about $2.99 per month, or $29.99 per year, unlocks sync and export
- vs Evernote: cheaper on the annual plan, but only useful if you spend most of your time on Apple hardware
Migrating from Evernote: Bear imports ENEX files on macOS. Notes and tags come across. Attachments over a size threshold get dropped and need a second pass. On a mid-size notebook the whole flow takes an hour, most of it on the Mac side.
Bottom line: Pick Bear if your daily driver is a Mac or iPad and Android is your secondary device. Skip it if Android is your primary.
Joplin, best for owning your data
Joplin is open source, free forever, and lets you point sync at your own storage. It works with Nextcloud, Dropbox, WebDAV, OneDrive, and S3, and optional end-to-end encryption sits behind a single toggle. If Evernote’s business model is what pushed you out, Joplin is the antidote.
Where it falls short: the UI is functional rather than pleasant, and the web clipper needs the Joplin desktop app running to receive clips. On mobile that translates to more manual capture.
Pricing:
- Free: full app on every platform, unlimited notes
- Paid: Joplin Cloud starts at about $2.99 per month if you do not want to run your own storage
- vs Evernote: free if you already use a cloud storage service you trust
Migrating from Evernote: Joplin ships a native ENEX importer on desktop. Notes, tags, notebooks, and most attachments come across. Handwritten strokes and Evernote-specific reminders do not survive. A large notebook of ten thousand notes takes about an hour on a laptop.
Bottom line: Pick Joplin if you want zero vendor lock-in and can live without a polished web clipper. Skip it if design matters as much as capability.
Standard Notes, best for long-term privacy
Standard Notes takes the encrypted-first idea further than Joplin. Every note is end-to-end encrypted by default, and the free tier deliberately keeps only plain text so the encryption boundary stays simple. The paid tier unlocks rich text, Markdown, spreadsheets, code editors, and daily encrypted backups to your storage of choice.
Where it falls short: the free tier is minimalist to the point of feeling spartan, and there is no web clipper. Users who clip constantly will hit a wall on the free plan.
Pricing:
- Free: plain text notes, unlimited on all devices
- Paid: about $90 per year for the Productivity tier
- vs Evernote: comparable annually on the paid tier, dramatically better on privacy
Migrating from Evernote: Standard Notes accepts an ENEX import through its desktop app. Text and attachments come across; Evernote-specific formatting is flattened. A mid-size migration finishes in under thirty minutes, though rich notes will need a rewrite pass if you want the formatting back.
Bottom line: Pick Standard Notes if you want notes readable in twenty years and encrypted the whole time. Skip it if you rely on rich formatting on the free tier.
How to choose
Pick Notion if you want your notes app to double as a project tracker or team wiki. The importer is the smoothest of the group, and the paid tier earns its price when you start building databases.
Pick Microsoft OneNote if you refuse to pay for note-taking and already have a Microsoft account. It is the only pick here that stays free with real depth, and the free OCR still saves hours on receipt or whiteboard captures.
Pick Obsidian or Joplin if lock-in is what pushed you out of Evernote. Obsidian wins on design and plugin community; Joplin wins on being open source and letting you pick your storage. Either one lets you walk away with your files intact.
Pick UpNote if you want an easy landing that feels like Evernote from 2018. The lifetime purchase pays for itself in about two years compared with any subscription option here.
Pick Bear or Standard Notes for niche cases: Bear if your writing lives on Apple hardware, Standard Notes if privacy is not a preference but a requirement.
Stay on Evernote if you rely on its advanced OCR across handwritten notes and PDFs at scale, or if your team already runs on shared Business notebooks that would take weeks to move. Otherwise, one of the seven above will fit better than the current pricing does.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a truly free alternative to Evernote?
Microsoft OneNote is the most complete free option, with unlimited notes bounded only by your 5 GB OneDrive quota. Joplin is free forever and adds encryption, though the polish is lower. Obsidian is free for personal use if you can live without cloud sync or bring your own via Google Drive or Syncthing.
Can I import my Evernote notes into another app?
Yes. Export your notebooks as ENEX files from the Evernote desktop app, then import into Notion, UpNote, Joplin, Obsidian, or Standard Notes. Notion also offers a direct Evernote connection that skips the export step. Complex formatting and handwriting layers can drift, so plan for a short cleanup pass.
What is the cheapest Evernote alternative for Android?
UpNote’s $39.99 lifetime license is the best long-term deal if you want a paid app. Among free options, OneNote and Joplin both cost nothing and cover most Evernote use cases. Obsidian is free if you skip the optional $4 per month sync.
Which Evernote alternative is best for privacy?
Standard Notes is the strongest pick because every note is end-to-end encrypted by default. Joplin comes next with optional end-to-end encryption and self-hosted sync. Obsidian is also strong because notes never leave your device unless you configure sync yourself.
Is Notion better than Evernote?
For structured knowledge and team work, Notion is a clearer upgrade. For quick capture, web clipping, and offline access on the phone, Evernote still edges it. If you mostly write, plan, and reference documents rather than clip pages, Notion is the better fit.
Do any Evernote alternatives support handwriting or OCR?
OneNote has the strongest free handwriting-to-text and OCR of the group. Notion added AI-powered image text search on paid tiers. Joplin, Obsidian, and Standard Notes rely on external OCR tools rather than shipping their own.
