Alternative to Evernote?

**1clue** · August 14th, 2018

Hi,

My wife and I use Evernote a lot. The thing is, though, it only allows sync to 2 devices unless you get their paid account, and we sync to more than that. I wouldn't mind but my wife is pretty adamant about not doing it.

So I'm wondering about existing solutions which allow shared editing of check lists.

The most complicated application we have is the shopping list. This is a list with check boxes, containing the things we buy. If we need something we check the box, and then the person shopping can go down the list and get everything. Frequent easy syncing is the key here, and Evernote gets a mediocre score. With the number of devices set to 2 they get a fail.

A good point of Evernote is that you can check or uncheck boxes without "editing" the list. If you want to alter the text you need to edit it, which is an additional button to click. This prevents unwanted text changes.

So, what I would like to find is an alternative with the following qualities:

Syncs to 5 or more devices
Linux
Android
Amazon Fire
Windows 10
Multiple language support would be nice, for menus and stuff.
Multi-user editing rather than a shared account.
Easy frequent syncing in the two-people-shopping scenario.

If someone has something that works well for them, please let me know so I can try it.

Thanks.

**DuckHook** · August 15th, 2018

Though it doesn't hit all of your buttons, I use Google Keep. It is not nearly as full-featured as Evernote, but it succeeds at what I need it for. In particular, the lists function that you are describing exists. I have similar needs for checking off a list of travel items and then clearing the checkmarks for the next trip. The items themselves are mostly static, but with just enough one-time items needed only for specific trips to necessitate editing of the list as well.

AFAIK, it can be opened in as many appliances as needed, and in its web app form, it is available everywhere you can run a browser, which makes it ideal for Linux. I haven't explored its multi-user capabilities, but because it is server based it is automatically synced every time you open it.

Its biggest drawback is that it is part of the Google ecosystem with all of the privacy and tracking issues that that entails. This is not a small matter and I am always second guessing my use of the app because of that, but since I'm already committed with Gmail and a host of other Google apps, I suppose that one more offering at the foot of the Google altar is not going to make much difference.

**1clue** · August 15th, 2018

Yeah, google creeps me out a bit too. Actually it creeps me out a lot, but there's some things I just can't keep away from it. My family posts crap on facebook, which google pillages. My work uses a google commercial product, my phone is android. The list goes on.

One of the creepiest things is that even though my phone and computer have all voice recognition turned off, I can be talking with somebody about some topic that I don't normally talk about, and then I google that topic to get facts straight. The number of characters before the topic I was talking about is visible in auto-complete is scary AF.

Pardon me if I keep looking. I may circle back around to google keep if nothing else shows up, but I'd like for them to not have a monopoly on all my info.

**Geoffrey_Arndt** · August 15th, 2018

For simple note taking and to-do lists (including checkboxes), one alternative is Zim Wiki. Youtube has several good tutorials: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBZpWgzO9Ps

This app has been around for a while and is very stable. Plugins and full support for wiki markup also enhance the feature set. For syncing, I just keep my master "notebooks" in Dropbox (or any good cloud system like Sync.com) will keep your notebooks synced in seconds (for unlimited devices (PC, Tablet, Phone, etc.). The only caveat is Zim doesn't provide data encryption so you'd have to keep sensitive data elsewhere or use 7zip or other encryption tools and encrypt at the top folder layer.