Evernote vs OneNote? It’s a simple yet complicated question that has plagued humanity since the dawn of the Internet — let’s get to the bottom of it. In this article, we cover features, similarities, differences, pricing, plus some other options if you are thinking neither 😫
Evernote vs. OneNote — a bit of background
These two apps are so similar that you might wonder why you need both…
And just so you know, we definitely did our research (72+ hours of it in fact). More than any person should ever spend analyzing Evernote vs. OneNote.
Quick notes
Evernote is a tool that works for quick notes, and so is OneNote.
You can use either of them for any type of note. Whether you’re taking quick notes about your grocery list or writing down the details of your next big project, these are two apps that will get the job done.
Handwritten notes
OneNote supports handwritten notes, and Evernote does, too. Both offer support for smart styluses that can record and convert your handwritten notes into text. In OneNote, you can also convert your handwriting to text by using the optical character recognition (OCR) feature in Word or Outlook.
Both note-taking apps also allow you to draw on top of pictures stored within their respective notebooks.
Digital notes
While digital notes are easy to access, share and search in both Evernote and OneNote, neither is great at helping you read and write notes with all your materials side-by-side. The good news is that you can still make your digital notes more efficient with a little bit of effort.
- Create folders by topic or project
- Use tags to keep track of specific information
- Use keywords in your notes
Personal notes
Personal notes are a great way to keep track of things you need to remember. Evernote, OneNote, Apple Notes, and Kahana are all good options for this. Moleskine has a few smart notebooks that can act as a digital notepad in conjunction with your phone or computer. They also make a set of pens specifically designed for their notebooks so you can write notes naturally on the screen.
Mobile versions
Both Evernote and OneNote are available on mobile devices, so you can take notes from your phone or tablet, however, there is a catch. OneNote has an easier time with this than Evernote does: it’s available on as many devices as you want for free, whereas using Evernote on more than one device is a paid feature. You can’t sync Evernote from mobile to desktop unless you’re a paying customer.
Evernote does make its own note-taking app for both Apple and Google phones, but it’s not as polished or intuitive as the system-wide integration of OneNote (or Kahana).
If you want to use a third-party note-taking app on your phone, Kahana is your best bet since its design is similar to that of other apps while being available across browsers and devices.
Desktop app
OneNote is available on all platforms. If you have a Windows computer, Macbook, or any other device that can run Microsoft Office, then you can use OneNote.
Evernote is also available on all desktop platforms. You can download the app and access your notes from your phone or tablet.
Version histories
Evernote supports version histories of your notes, which means you can easily see and restore previous versions of your notes. You can also restore deleted or trashed notes, along with versions from specific dates and times. This feature requires a Premium, Personal, Professional, or Teams subscription.
According to this GroovyPost article, this feature is currently available in the OneNote desktop application but doesn’t include OneNote for Windows.
- Open OneNote and select the notebook you want to view.
- Go to the History tab (only visible on supported versions of OneNote).
- Click Recent Edits in the ribbon. In the drop-down list that appears, choose the timeframe. You can pick from options like today, since yesterday, or the last several days or months.
Premium version
Notebooks are the most basic way to keep your notes organized in OneNote. Evernote has no equivalent for notebooks, but you can use tags and notebooks to organize your notes in a similar way.
Evernote offers a Premium version that lets you sync your notes across multiple devices, search them faster and share them with others via email or other platforms such as Twitter and Facebook.
The premium version also allows for more storage space than the free version does (15 GB instead of 2 GB).
However, if you want to upgrade from the free version to premium, Evernote will cost you $7.99 per month or $69.99 per year if paid annually.
OneNote has no premium service like Evernote’s paid offering; instead, it offers it through an Office 365 subscription which includes access to all of Microsoft’s productivity apps including Word and Excel along with 1 TB of storage space on OneDrive (formerly known as SkyDrive).
Pricing plan
Evernote offers three pricing plans:
- free (for a limited version)
- $6.99/month for Personal
- $14.99/month for Teams (collaboration)
OneNote’s pricing is free, but to unlock premium features you need to purchase Microsoft 365, which starts at $6.99/month.
Conclusion
We hope you’ve found this analysis helpful. We’d love to hear from you, so please leave us a comment with your thoughts on either app and let us know if there’s something we missed or got wrong 🙈
If you are still thinking about Evernote vs Onenote, we recommend checking out this amazing Evernote vs OneNote article from Rigorous Themes that inspired our research!
As an alternative, you can always sign up for Kahana for free to start out if you are unsure about Evernote vs. OneNote, since it offers unlimited collaboration across all devices 🙃
If there are specific features or characteristics of other apps that interest you, we’re happy to do more research and write about them in the future — just leave a comment and let us know.
If you’re a technology junky and are curious about Kahana or learning more about other cloud collaboration apps, check out our hub with a complete breakdown of everything from Evernote, to OneNote, to Notion, to Coda, plus more.
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