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40 self-hosted Evernote alternatives

Evernote is a commercial note-taking app for capturing notes, web clippings, and documents with search and organization. It offers apps across platforms with a subscription model. These open-source apps let you replace Evernote with software you host and control yourself.

Best self-hosted Evernote alternatives

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 430 words

Joplin is the closest thing to a drop-in Evernote replacement — web clipper, notebooks, tags, to-dos, end-to-end encrypted sync, apps on every platform — and it imports Evernote's ENEX export files directly. Start there, unless what you actually use Evernote for is scanned paperwork and PDFs. That use case is better served by a document management system than by any notes app.

What you gain and what you give up

You gain ownership: notes as Markdown you can grep, back up, and move between apps, instead of a database behind a subscription that ran about $15 a month at last check, with a free tier capped at 50 notes. You gain encryption — Joplin's sync is end-to-end encrypted, which Evernote never offered.

You give up Evernote's best trick: OCR search inside every image and PDF you ever tossed at it. Joplin searches note text, not attachment contents. You also give up effortless sync — you'll point Joplin at a self-hosted Joplin Server, Nextcloud, or WebDAV, which is a one-evening job but a job. Shared notebooks with non-technical collaborators get harder everywhere in this list.

Which replacement fits which user

For the typical Evernote user — clip, tag, search, across phone and desktop — Joplin (56,113 GitHub stars, runs in 256 MB) is the default. For power users who outgrew notebooks and want a scriptable knowledge tree, Trilium Notes is stronger; the Joplin vs Trilium comparison covers that split. SiYuan suits people who wanted Evernote to be more like Notion, with block references and bidirectional links, though its documentation is strongest in Chinese. And if your Evernote is really a filing cabinet, Paperless-ngx does the OCR-tag-search loop better than Evernote ever did — budget 2 GB of RAM and some initial tuning.

Migration is the easy part

Export each notebook as ENEX from the Evernote desktop app, then File → Import in Joplin. Text, tags, attachments, and creation dates carry over; notes convert to Markdown. What degrades: complex web clips lose layout fidelity, and tasks, reminders, and shared-notebook permissions don't transfer at all. Do a test notebook first, and keep the ENEX files — they're the archival copy of your old life.

The default pick

Joplin, with encrypted sync through whatever server you already run. It covers 90 percent of Evernote for 100 percent fewer subscriptions, and the ENEX import means the switch costs an afternoon, not a weekend. Add Paperless-ngx later if the scanned-documents itch returns.

Choosing well

How to choose notes app: the Notes & Knowledge Base buyer's guide

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