Free Evernote Personal alternatives
Evernote Personal is a paid note-taking plan for Evernote, used by individuals to store notes, clips and documents across devices. The paid plan adds sync and storage features that light users may not need. Obsidian stores notes as local Markdown files and is free for personal use, while Joplin is open source.
Best free alternative to Evernote Personal: Obsidian. Local Markdown notes with backlinks, graph view and community plugins, stored as plain files.
Side by side
| Option | What you get | What you miss |
|---|---|---|
| Obsidian | Local Markdown notes with backlinks, graph view and community plugins, stored as plain files. | Evernote's web clipper, OCR search of images and attachments, and built-in cross-device sync. |
| Joplin | Open source notes with Markdown, end-to-end encryption and sync to your own storage. | Evernote's polished web clipper, image OCR and an official hosted sync service. |
| Simplenote | Fast, simple plain-text notes synced across devices with version history. | Rich formatting, notebooks, attachments and OCR search that Evernote supports. |
Questions people ask
What is the best free alternative to Evernote Personal?
Obsidian. Local Markdown notes with backlinks, graph view and community plugins, stored as plain files.
Is there a free version of Evernote Personal?
Not a full one, but Obsidian, Joplin and Simplenote are free and cover most of what Evernote Personal does.
What do you miss with a free Evernote Personal alternative?
Evernote's web clipper, OCR search of images and attachments, and built-in cross-device sync.