Evernote is a suite of software and services designed for notetaking and archiving. A "note" can be a piece of formatted text, a full webpage or webpage excerpt, a photograph, a voice memo, or a handwritten "ink" note. Notes can also have file attachments. Notes can be sorted into folders, then tagged, annotated, edited, given comments, searched and exported as part of a notebook. Evernote supports a number of operating system platforms (including OS X, iOS, Chrome OS, Android, Microsoft…
$7.99
per month
Zotero
Score 9.4 out of 10
N/A
Zotero is a free reference management tool developed as a project developed at Carnegie Mellon and supported by a small team at George Mason University.
Evernote is a good solution for note-taking and more, it supports different types of notes and sharing and discussing those notes as well. Evernote is easy to use almost for everyone, so it can be implemented pretty easily to different types of users. Before choosing Evernote as your note-taking app, check your needs and the cost (do you need the Premium or not?).
Zotero (with its good buddy Zotfile) is well suited for any researcher who wants to go completely paperless in their research process, or who wants a centralized library system to manage their research projects, including attachments, notes, annotations, sources, and bibliographies. It is geared towards academic and social sciences researchers. Zotero is a powerful tool with a learning curve, and as such it might not be worth the investment of time and energy for end-users with simple research project needs.
Zotero's MS Word and Google Docs plug-ins and Chrome extension makes the process of storing, indexing, and citing sources seamless
Zotero's automated retrieval of embedded metadata in PDFs and websites is incredibly accurate, which increases my confidence in the citations created by Zotero
The library of available citation styles is extensive and largely accurate
I love that Zotero syncs your work and citations online, which allows me to work from multiple devices (e.g., laptop, office desktop, computer labs)
The new version 10 desktop client for Windows lacks some features that were available in earlier versions such as auto start at login or the ability to open the app directly from the taskbar icon.
Sometimes the Android app is buggy when unlocking your screen and Evernote is currently open and viewing a note.
I can't really imagine how much they'd have to charge me to make me quit Evernote. I can't really think of any technology that has changed my life as much without going back to email in the 90s, or the introduction of the iPhone. I know I sound ridiculous, but it would be really tough for me to live without it. If I were forced to choose between my smart phone (and keep in mind that I get lost in my driveway) and my Evernote, I'd probably choose my Evernote.
Zotero is a fantastic software for researchers. We do pay for 6 GB of storage for each user, so their libraries can be backed to the cloud beyond the 300 MB of allowed free storage. It's low-cost, or can be free if you don't opt into that version. No other citation manager comes even close to Zotero in its capabilities, user-friendly nature, and cost, nor do they innovate their features constantly like Zotero and have open source support online
Basic visual organization - ability to create a notebook and store user notes inside of it.
Basic easy navigation - You can quickly move in and out of files and notes.
User intuitive addition - whatever you need to add to your document, it's relatively easy to understand and use.
We find overall that we still want some functionality in creating better task lists, boards, and other things that we find in Notion - which is the tool that we use as a team notebook/storage space.
once you adapt to the interface, which could feel a bit outdated and old school, its incredible intuitive. An aesthetic improvement could make it reach a whole other level, just if it does not lose any of its usability features. Its quite intuitive and the learning curve is very short.
Generally issues are by connectivity and not Evernote availability but I have had issues in the past with cross-client consistency of data which Evernote Support has ID'd as bugs that are still unresolved as far as I know
Always available. I have it downloaded on my desktop and it opens quickly/immediately, holds open the articles I was reading on the page I was at, and is always ready-to-go for something like Word integration for adding citations
Everything loads shockingly quickly. PDFs open much faster in Zotero than they do in Adobe Acrobat, all changes to PDFs are saved, the citation manager opens relatively quickly in Word, the tool updates with the online Zotero interface and automatically syncs seamlessly
I bet you won’t even need to call their support. Their product has never failed me. Simply put. But if you were to email them to gather some details or help, I bet they won’t disappoint you. Don’t worry about the support, it’s the last thing you should worry about this product.
I have never used Zotero support. I can answer the questions I need to from googling or finding others who have asked my same question in the Zotero support community forums
Make sure you think about your tags. If you end up with multiple similar tags then things aren't grouped together as you might prefer. For instance if you have a tag called Disney and Walt Disney, this will split up your articles. Evernote makes it simple to correct, but I suggest you make sure your users look closely at the existing tags before creating new ones.
Google Keep does not require 15GB of storage and stores notes in small files. OneNote works well with Microsoft Office apps like Outlook and PowerPoint. In addition to supporting handwritten, the web clipper functionality of Evernote distinguishes it from other note-taking applications. Better than any other app because it allows you to tag notes and groups them.
Mendeley isn't open source like Zotero and doesn't have well-built browser plug-ins, although it has a better, more modern interface. Zotero has limitations with PDFs, but Mendeley doesn't support them at all. For Qiqqa, it is a better alternative and is open source as well. However, like Mendeley, there isn't a good base of plug-ins like Zotero has and, as a result, suffers from ease of use.
All features of Zotero have always worked just fine to me. In my many years using it, I've never run into issues. And when I do want to maximize my use of some feature or learn more, the product support communities are helpful. It's an extremely consistent, reliable software
Evernote has allowed our school's over 3000 students and staff members to work more efficiently instead of spending time on making physical notes, clicking pictures, and uploading them to the cloud in order to share them
The investment in Evernote Premium has also allowed for heavier files to be attached in each note such as student work that allows teachers to be certain that students have followed deadlines and finished assigned tasks
Evernote has allowed our school to smoothly transition in and out of online learning as the local COVID-19 protocols change and student work requires one platform to be based on throughout
