Evernote: the category pioneer people keep leaving
Still the second most rated notes app, and the one users search for alternatives to most. We look at what changed and whether it still makes sense.
Evernote invented what most people picture when they think "notes app": clip a web page, search inside images, find it three years later.
It still has 77,364 ratings, second only to Notion. It also has the lowest score in this category at 4.4, and it is the app whose name appears next to the word "alternatives" more than any other.
What it still does better than anyone
Web clipping. Saving a page with its formatting intact remains best in class.
Search inside images. Handwriting and text in photos are indexed. Few rivals match this.
Why people leave
The complaints in reviews cluster around pricing history and app weight rather than missing features. Free tier limits have moved repeatedly, and each move sent a wave of users looking elsewhere.
266 MB does not help.
Should you move
If clipping and image search are the reason you use it, nothing here replaces those cleanly. If you mostly type notes, almost everything else in this category is lighter and cheaper.