OneNote al­ter­na­tives: A com­par­i­son of digital notebooks

Outline requires a fee – which is not that sur­pris­ing con­sid­er­ing the wide range of functions. With its at­trac­tive OneNote com­pat­i­bil­i­ty, many users are happy to pay for it. Even though the app is extremely reliable, there are oc­ca­sion­al­ly syn­chro­niza­tion errors. In par­tic­u­lar, the trans­fer­ring of hand-written notes is not always suc­cess­ful. Even though Outline has many con­vinc­ing aspects, the program only catches the interest of Apple users.

Evernote offers many in­ter­est­ing features, such as offline mode or search­able PDF files. However, the majority of the ad­di­tion­al functions are only available in the paid versions Evernote Premium and Evernote Business. The free of charge basic rate on the other hand, is massively re­strict­ed. With this rate, only the search function, the passcode lock, as well as the ability to share and comment on notes by friends and ac­quain­tances are in­te­grat­ed. Also, you have access to 60MB per month for uploads, and you can only syn­chro­nize between two devices. In the fee-based, premium version you receive 10GB or 20GB per month, and you can syn­chro­nize your notes lim­it­less­ly between all devices.

A further short­com­ing is its user-friend­li­ness. Since the software can be connected to countless apps and web ap­pli­ca­tions – for example, the daily weather report – the notebook can quickly become over­loaded. However, those who work regularly with Evernote will become ac­cus­tomed to how it operates.

Even though Notion is primarily aimed at companies and larger teams, the OneNote al­ter­na­tive could also be in­ter­est­ing for in­di­vid­u­als - es­pe­cial­ly since the basic edition is com­plete­ly free of charge and allows an unlimited number of pages and notes. The syn­chro­niza­tion of data across all devices (macOS, Windows, iOS and Android) can also be enjoyed by non-paying users.

Pur­chas­ing a paid Notion sub­scrip­tion is rec­om­mend­ed if you need features for col­lab­o­ra­tion like a shared workspace, an access rights system, or ad­min­is­tra­tor tools. Version man­age­ment, security mech­a­nisms like SAML SSO or the pos­si­bil­i­ty to add an unlimited number of team members and guests are only available to paying Notion customers.

For the design of the workspace, the al­ter­na­tive to OneNote provides over 40 content blocks and more than 50 starter templates. Whether you want to access your notes and planning via desktop ap­pli­ca­tion, app, or via the Notion web ap­pli­ca­tion is up to you. One downside is that there are lim­i­ta­tions with the size of the file upload - users of the Personal plan have to be content with a maximum of five megabytes.

In terms of the range of functions, Sim­plenote offers very little in com­par­i­son to its com­peti­tors. This suits people who prefer a notebook with a simple text format – es­pe­cial­ly because the program supports the popular Markdown language, which allows for simple design options. However, mul­ti­me­dia features or the ability to insert or edit documents is not available.

Another downside is that you have to log into your Sim­plenote account every time you use the program if you want to create or share notes.

Google Keep doesn’t just let you make notes and check­lists, it also allows you to save photos and documents which you can then share with other users. Use the in­te­grat­ed search bar to find all your notes and content. A plus: the memory function, so you will never forget another ap­point­ment.

Memonic is also a very popular digital notebook amongst users. There is a free of charge and a paid version of the program. In the free version you can create up to 100 notes, as well as 3 group projects per month. On top of that, you are permitted 2MB per file at­tach­ment. If you opt for the Premium version, you can make un­re­strict­ed use of all the features. The file at­tach­ment size allowance increases to 20MB per file. Premium users can also use the “col­lec­tion mode”, which is helpful when un­der­tak­ing extensive web research.

One of the unique aspects of Memonic is that, similar to social networks, you can choose to make your entries private and visible only to yourself, your friends, or public to all users. You can also make groups and create shared notes. Discuss your projects together directly using the in­te­grat­ed mail function or share your notes over social networks such as Facebook or Twitter. You can save content from the web directly into Memonic using the ad­di­tion­al tool Web Clipper.

Memonic also scores big points in terms of mul­ti­me­dia. Not only do you get a mul­ti­func­tion­al text tool, but you can also embed documents, graphics, videos etc. at the same time. Tags help you pri­or­i­tize your notes and locate things quickly on the search list. Last but not least, there is a wide variety of back­ground themes available to choose from.

Memonic has the potential to shine as a OneNote al­ter­na­tive, however, you only get un­re­strict­ed access to all the tools and features with the paid version. Since Memonic works as a social network, you should be careful of what notes you want to share with the public: be sure to check the privacy settings. Those who are cautious with security should opt for the private setting and then manually share in­di­vid­ual notes.