So true. I've used Evernote for years and recently started using Notion. Notion works much better for organizing and structuring stuff, but when it comes down to jotting down a quick note, I istinctively open Evernote. Just recently I've realized it's because of the speed, both on desktop and (even worse) on mobile, Notion just takes too long to start up.
Just now while writing this comment I tried to open both of them on my Windows laptop: Evernote took ~1s, Notion ~5s between launching and loading the content.
I abandoned EN around the time everyone else did for a Dropbox synced folder full of markdown files. I use Sublime Text as my client on the desktop.
For my particular use case (I never really used the advanced EN features) it's worked well. I never really created notes on mobile, but I can read them using the Dropbox app.
I favor the same approach. In my case, I use org-mode instead of markdown as it offers a few niceties when editing from Emacs. But irrespective of that, IMHO plain text overrules any other choice as it is future-proof and can be composed with your favorite tools. For example, a VCS like Git.
I have many files in a flat zettelkasten-like structure [1]. That means, essentially, having one file per concept and using links to chain them.
That assumes that the text in your notes uses the vocabulary you'd expect, and isn't misspelled. Neither of those are guaranteed if your notes are snippets of other documents (a common EN use-case) rather than text you wrote yourself. Especially not guaranteed if the snippets are images where their textual representation is the output of an OCR algorithm.
Is there something like ripgrep for fuzzy search?
My folder tree is fairly flat and folder/file-naming is self-explanatory, so when I have to use the dropbox client on mobile, finding stuff isn't too bad.
I'm always back to Evernote within a week.
Notion and Joplin were my most recent attempts.
In general, Notion has the same feel to me that Slack did when it first came out: Just the right balance of cutesy, thoughtful detail in the UX, but in a way that doesn't feel superfluous because the underlying abstractions are also very well considered.
Choosing the emoji icons for pages, being able to /page to make a new linked page inline, @referencing pages, the interchangeable table and calendar views... none of it is particularly novel, but they're the best I've ever used at making it feel effortless to compose.
Joplin looks good. I am going to give it a shot.
The lack of tags support on mobile and the proprietary storage format is what drove me away from OneNote.
Also the offline support isn't great which is a dealbreaker in the subway where internet goes in and out.
That's super sketchy about the author.
So far I've been trying to use Gitlab with a bunch of text files. That works, sort of, for more long form notes, but not quite captures the UI.
I'm looking harder and harder on TODO.txt (I didn't know it was open-source). http://todotxt.org/
But even so, I hear it is limited in functionality.
But some note services are the backbone of some people's workflow. I personally require one and if Evernote shutdown, it will create massive disruption to my life.
Isn't that just a fancy way of searching notes? Seems like full text search and/or a wiki linking interface is most of that functionality.
It's a hard problem; I don't mean to demean the work of the people on the product. But notes apps have been more or less the same for 30-40 years now barring features like OCR that I'd never use: the main difference is that you pay to sync them somewhere.
Yes a full text search and wiki linking interface would get a fairly large chunk of the essential functionality done. But there are MASSIVE gaps there. For one, a wiki is a web interface. Those are slow and suck on mobile. I've yet to see one that doesn't. Attaching media is painful. Theres no web clipper support. You'll have to roll your own infrastructure including backups. Capturing anything outside of a traditional desktop context is going to suuuuuck. Capturing TEXT is a fairly trivial problem. So much of what I capture in a given day is much more than that. I regularly scan documents and use EN to manage a paperless office for instance. You can do that with a wiki I suppose but it's more friction than is worthwhile IMO.
If you practice GTD like me, you need a trusted repository for capturing your thoughts, items, todos, etc. It should be fast and easy and available everywhere. Thats The value prop that EN brings to the table. No matter what it is you want to capture and store, no matter what platform, they have a way to quickly and easily do it. You can even email notes right into it (they give you a special email address) which I use for things like tech newsletters and stuff. So while you are right that notes apps have been around, its the little things that really make the difference here.
https://i.imgur.com/X0qbxg3.png
OneNote's Android app is still a bit iffy of an experience for surfacing notes and reading content (the scrolling can be a bit jittery sideways, and there's no separate edit/read modes), something where Evernote's steady scrolling has it beat. ON Android is amazing for capture, though, but I don't imagine Evernote falling behind much on that count.
OneNote is the only thing I've seen that pretty closely matches EN in features. Its missing the email to inbox feature that EN has (unless they've added that since I last checked).
I've been an EN user since 2010. Yes they have had some problems and I have even tried to jump ship (as recently as last fall when I gave DEVONThink a go). I keep coming back though. I've yet to find anything that touches it in terms of features and functionality. Only ones that come close are OneNote and Notion. OneNote is fine but I don't like they way it handles organizing data. I prefer a nested hierarchy which I can get with tags in EN. Notion covers most of the bases but its an electron app and its SLOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW if you have a lot of notes in it. Takes 30 seconds for the mobile app to open and be useful for instance. Thats a dealbreaker for me. I need to be able to get a piece of knowledge on the go fast. If you can't give me what I want in less than a few seconds you go in the bin.
EN has the advantage of being available on Mac and Windows (and Linux w/ Wine), allows you to capture from literally anywhere and has a fantastic and fast search. You can encrypt notes. You can schedule notes. You can make todo's. Capture emails. Scan documents (and then find them with OCR). It's got a very usable api to integrate it into any part of your workflow they don't cover. I dunno, I've tried em all and EN is still the best IMO.
ps. I've been using org mode lately too. That _might_ be what finally gets me off EN but the mobile experience just isn't there yet. Beorg (iOS) is great but still pretty short on features. Especially capture and search.