
Ask HN: Evernote alternatives for research? - Spooky23
I do alot of research for both product&#x2F;market evaluation and general interest type stuff. Evernote&#x27;s tagging features have served me well for a long time and make it easy for me to find stuff.<p>Their web-clipper is also an amazing tool that is super-useful, but not essential.<p>I&#x27;m getting involved in a project where the nature of some of the data I&#x27;ll be handling is such that I can&#x27;t host it with Evernote. So I need an alternative.<p>I use mostly Mac&#x2F;iPhone. I don&#x27;t like OneNote. Would prefer desktop software, but I&#x27;m fine with something with a server requirement. Open source is preferred.
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sandij
For academic research, I find
[https://www.zotero.org/](https://www.zotero.org/) useful. AGPLv3 license,
good integration with web browsers, and good sync. It has tagging and custom
notes although I prefer using folders and a separate note taking app.

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ValleyOfTheMtns
Zotero is good. I've also used [http://mendeley.com/](http://mendeley.com/),
which is a good alternative to Zotero.

~~~
bcjordan
If going this route I'd also recommend checking out my brother's reference
management tool Paperpile [http://paperpile.com](http://paperpile.com) [0]

It's kind of like Gmail for your papers—keyboard shortcuts, fancy Google Docs
integrations, auto-downloading etc. He spent a couple of years after finishing
his PhD to make his dream reference management tool with a couple of friends.

[0]: I also voiceovered the video on the homepage. A Redditor noted my natural
voice is too cartoon-y for the subject matter which I found hilarious, and
have since accepted.

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wodenokoto
It wasn't super clear from the page, but can I easily annotate PDF's from my
iPad and use the summary of the annotations on my PC?

~~~
bcjordan
Sorry I missed this yesterday! They have a pretty amazing PDF annotator
[https://paperpile.com/features/pdf-
annotator](https://paperpile.com/features/pdf-annotator) but not sure how it
looks on an iPad.

Here they suggest that using iAnnotate synced with Google Drive files works
like a charm: [http://forum.paperpile.com/t/tip-sync-with-goodreader-on-
ipa...](http://forum.paperpile.com/t/tip-sync-with-goodreader-on-ipad/49)

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motti
Try CopyCopy. We do bookmarking and article saving but more broadly let you
keep anything for later just by copying it (using normal copy and paste). So
we handle not just web articles, but any information that's copyable in any
app! See [https://www.copycopy.com/](https://www.copycopy.com/)

If our homepage isn't clear enough, check out
[https://www.copycopy.com/product](https://www.copycopy.com/product) (excuse
the unfinished wording on that page as it's not live yet).

You can go to
[https://www.copycopy.com/account](https://www.copycopy.com/account) and turn
on experimental features which will enable tags (called "labels"). From our
webapp [https://www.copycopy.com/clips](https://www.copycopy.com/clips) you
can search clips, or filter them by label.

Oh, and we're quietly releasing our Mac OSX app tomorrow.

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fuzzythinker
You need a working live demo. Can't bring myself to signup just to try.

~~~
motti
You're right, and thanks for the feedback.

We thought animations would be good enough but people do like to see the real
live thing. Here's a live demo, albeit one with rather poor sound and editing:
[https://vimeo.com/140990404](https://vimeo.com/140990404). Password is
"disrupt".

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nazgob
Former Evernote user here. I use
[http://tiddlywiki.com/](http://tiddlywiki.com/) and its quite amazing. Self-
hosted, small, fast, tons of features, superb tagging support. There is no
mobile app, I use Dropbox and view it in Safari. Highly recommended!

~~~
knight17
Another vote for Tiddlywiki. It support tags, search, easy authoring, export
to static html or plain text, hosting on a server or on your hd. All in a
single file. There is Tiddlyclip plugin to clip pieces of text to your notes.

[http://tiddlywiki.com/#TiddlyClip%20by%20buggyjay](http://tiddlywiki.com/#TiddlyClip%20by%20buggyjay)

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lsiebert
You may need to explain more about your work flow and data types.

Like if you were preparing a paper (you presumably aren't) Zotero is a super
cool set of tools for citation and bibliography management.

If you are doing data science, Ipython for python and RCloud for R.

Command line geek? Both vim and Emacs have relevant tools.

A lot of code and large data files? A git repo and git annex may be what you
are looking for.

~~~
Spooky23
There's a lot of PDF files, clippings from websites or applications, reports
from databases, as well as plain text.

A big part of my workflow is annotation of the source data and tagging it with
various categories.

Honestly, my perfect tool would probably be OneNote's engine with evernote's
tagging bolted on.

~~~
NaOH
I haven't used it myself, but Yojimbo from the makers of BBEdit is worth a
look based on your criteria.

[http://www.barebones.com/products/yojimbo](http://www.barebones.com/products/yojimbo)

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nextos
I'd go plain text with org-mode, if you are willing to learn a bit of Emacs.

Plain text has the advantage of being completely open to scripting. So it can
satisfy any requirements you have down the road. Also easy to version control,
etc.

Org-mode supports an immense amount of things already, including tags and it
derives from an outline mode so it's great for note taking.

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adamnemecek
I use Quiver a bunch
[http://happenapps.com/#quiver](http://happenapps.com/#quiver)

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moonlighter
Thank you for mentioning this app! I've been searching for a great native
note-taking app with support for code-formatting and rich text (not just
markdown), and Quiver is fantastic! Clean UI, completely configurable UI via
CSS, blazing fast, and the full screen presentation mode is awesome! And for
only $10, it's a steal!

~~~
adamnemecek
I know! I could not live without it at this point. It's funny how one guy
(he's actually on HN
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683597](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8683597))
can totally own a niche and blow Evernote and OneNote and all the other note
taking apps out of the water.

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corbinpage
Simplenote has tags, a desktop and iOS app, and a "good enough" feature set.

[http://simplenote.com/](http://simplenote.com/)

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freerobby
For better and worse it's not cloud-based, but check out DevonThink:
[http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/devonthink/overvie...](http://www.devontechnologies.com/products/devonthink/overview.html)

~~~
randallman
+1. For me, and I have used orgmode, onenote, and evernote and for me, there
is nothing better.

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brechmos
To be honest, I use plain old email. If you have a decent client (I use
Thunderbird) you can put any text, links, images etc in there. Searching is
built-in. Tagging isn't quite as good but there are ways around it.

I then use procmail for putting into the right folder.

It has worked really well for me.

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lips
Eaglefiler might be an interesting alternative. Closed source, OS X only, but
actively developed, and from a one-person shop.
[http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/](http://c-command.com/eaglefiler/)

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Walkman
Orgmode is really good for this kind of stuff.

~~~
zmir
i second org-mode, criteria mentioned in request is available on org-mode. the
only negative note to be mentioned is that it has steep learning curve

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pookieinc
I'm also curious as to Evernote alternatives. One of the features they cut a
while back is the ability to have nested notebooks and notes, a feature I
loved dearly, but was cut several versions ago. I know some people who are
still on the very first versions of Evernote due to this feature. There are
other features that try to compensate for this (tags, keywords, etc), but I'm
looking for genuine hierarchy of notes.

My main intention is for cataloguing, studying, and understanding many deeper
contexts in religious studies.

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seshagiric
Try Microsoft One Note. You may find the following useful: \- track history of
edits made to a page \- easy to insert images, videos etc. \- search works
decent \- do complex sums etc inline without loading calculator or Excel \-
Quite handy to write math equations.

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tirathbansal
We are just launching myorb.com which is the excel of information sharing. You
can upload any type of content files, bookmarks, links and pretty much
anything else. Info goes into separate spaces where you can invite
collaborators and then communicate with Chat, Email and Notes. It does what
Evernote does but with a lot of other services which are currently in separate
products. We are a web application and hence available on any device with a
browser. I can give you a full demo as your use case is basically what we are
aiming to provide.

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joolze
github + jupyter notebooks is what I use for my research notes... can put
links and pictures and shit in it.

~~~
Spooky23
I don't think that does what I need, but it's amazing. I'll spend an afternoon
with it someday!

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bennesvig
It's worth looking at AirStory -
[http://www.airstory.co](http://www.airstory.co) I like their web clipper more
than Evernote's.

~~~
bachmeier
Not sure I'd put professional data into a site that requires you to request an
a beta invite.

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kaolinite
I made Trunk as an Evernote alternative. It's open-source and web-based, using
Markdown to store notes. It might be too simple for your needs however.

You can try it at [http://trytrunk.com/](http://trytrunk.com/) or get the
source at
[https://github.com/timdavies/trunk](https://github.com/timdavies/trunk)

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jchendy
> I don't like OneNote.

It might help to be a little more specific here.

~~~
Spooky23
OneNote is powerful, but it's way of organizing things just doesn't work for
me. I end up with a sprawl that I can't find anything in.

~~~
aylons
Also, the web application is very poor on features. You can't even make a
search in all your notes. This renders it useless to me.

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huac
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10802046](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10802046)

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gnkchintu
You can try out Cubeit - You can collect all type of information into
Collections which is similar to tagging. But its only on mobile for
now.[https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gridants.c...](https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.gridants.cubedroidbeta&hl=en)

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changosmuertos
It would depend on the requirements. There are several Open Source programs,
some will index locally, some won't. There are also evernote tools for command
line such as GeekNote.

Oddly, if its public. I have had clients use a wiki; or even Wordpress. (has
mobile sharing app)...

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lcall
[http://www.onemodel.org](http://www.onemodel.org)

It's the best info organizer (for my style at least) that I know of, though
(so far) less feature-rich than many products. I hope the About page at that
link explains the present and future well.

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iampims
I have been using NationalVelocity on Desktop + Simplenote on iPhone and I
couldn't be happier about it.

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ilian
If you don't like your research to be in the cloud, take a look on the open
source desktop app of [http://tagspaces.org](http://tagspaces.org)

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lesya
I am doing lots of PDF reading and highlighting what's important. Using this
tool to extract the highlights later when I need to summarize my highlights:

[https://www.sumnotes.net](https://www.sumnotes.net)

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dade_
Evernote has always supported offline /local notebooks without the cloud. You
lose some features such as OCR, but the search feature works otherwise. Is
there some reason that won't work?

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2pointsomone
I am incredibly happy with Google Keep. Set it up like a Chrome desktop
application and you can tap into all the awesomeness of Drive also. It's very
simple, syncs with your phone app, etc.

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gijsbos
Try out Workflowy. Browser based, iPhone app. Crazy fast and super structured.
I'm in the midst of shifting from Evernote and doubt that I'll ever look back.

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jtth
Tinderbox and DEVONthink.

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jackbwheeler
try dscout.com - refreshing take on user research.

