versus
Overview
Nimbus Note is a serious competitor to Evernote, particularly the latest (as of 21 November 2020) versions of Evernote’s clients. It is faster, and has 90-95% of Evernote’s feature set available. However, it does not possess nearly as many integrations as Evernote, neither to web apps nor to Mac/iOS apps. If a stand-alone note database works for you, Nimbus may be your Evernote replacement. If you depend heavily on Evernote’s many integrations, however, you may need to search further.
Feature Comparison between Nimbus Notes and Evernote:
(Reference: Nimbus v. Evernote Comparison on the Nimbus website, as well as Compare Plans, from the Evernote site. I’ve left off business plans and free plans—the free plans are closely comparable, save Nimbus has no device limits, preferring to limit the total number of notes in its free plan. So this table compares individual paid plans—apples to apples, as it were.)
Executive Summary: Nimbus has clearly built its feature set around competing with Evernote. Its table has an exhaustive list of tiny features which it has but Evernote does not, but unaccountably misses some features Evernote has that it lacks. (I’ve dropped a vast number of lines from the table that simply said Evernote-Y, Nimbus-Y.) Here are the high points:
- Nimbus doesn’t support handwriting indexing. This is a bummer for me, but Evernote’s handwriting indexing is hardly of any use if I can’t use Evernote.
- Nimbus does not yet support PDF annotation. Of course, that’s why you have Evernote Skitch…
- Nimbus has more restrictive upload/traffic limits than Evernote, but then it’s also cheaper.
- Nimbus has more table support than Evernote, and table-based database capabilities which Evernote lacks.
- Nimbus “folders” are equivalent to Evernote “notebooks.” Nimbus can nest folders, but Evernote can’t nest notebooks.
- If you want to share a thing that was a notebook in Evernote without sharing your entire database, you’ll have to put it into a separate workspace in Nimbus.
- “Nimbus Capture” is a browser-based technology. At least on Mac, the equivalent is “Evernote Helper” which is accessed via the menu bar. Evernote Helper is easier to access, but is more limited in what it can capture.
- Nimbus can embed video in a note, which Evernote can do only by attachment.
- In general, even at the individual paid level, Nimbus is more oriented towards collaboration than Evernote. Collaboration features that in Evernote are reserved to Business accounts are available in the Nimbus Pro Plan.
- The editor differences boil down to “Nimbus has block editing and Evernote doesn’t.” This is no longer true with the new Evernote clients, but since those clients are unusable as of this writing, who cares?
- I find the web clipper browser extensions comparable, despite Nimbus’s bragging about how theirs are better.
- The “Sharing and Security” differences add up to some of those collaboration features I mentioned above.
- Nimbus’s table to the contrary, Evernote has many key integrations in the Apple and Web universes that Nimbus simply lacks.
- Nimbus supports several education privacy compliance standards that Evernote evidently does not.
Nimbus Note v. Evernote Features Table
| Premium Plan (Evernote) | Pro Plan (Nimbus) | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | ||
| Monthly Pricing (USD) | $7.99 | $4.99 |
| Annual Pricing (USD) | $69.96 | $24.99 |
| General Features | ||
| Team Members (Including Owner) | Unlimited | Up to 5 |
| Total Notes You Can Store | Unlimited | Unlimited |
| Monthly Upload/Traffic Size | 10GB (upload) | 5GB (traffic) |
| Total Workspaces 1 | Only in business version | 5 |
| Support Access 2 | Email and Live Chat | Priority Support |
| Note Taking and Complementary Products | ||
| Image Capture 3 | Y | Y (Nimbus Capture) |
| Video Capture | N | Y (Nimbus Capture) |
| Screenshots | Y | Y (Nimbus Capture) |
| Screen Recording | N | Y (Nimbus Capture) |
| Folder and Subfolder Hierarchies | Only folders | Y (Unlimited Nesting Levels) |
| Workspaces | N | Y |
| Color Coding | N | Y |
| Commenting | N | Y |
| Spreadsheets | N | Y |
| Databases | N | Y |
| Password Protected Public Sharing | N | Y |
| Note Editor Capabilities | ||
| Outliner / Table Of Contents | N | Y |
| Insert Quotes | N | Y |
| Convert Table Into A Simple Database | N | Y |
| Insert Date and Date Edit (Calendar) | N | Y |
| Insert Date Reminders In A Note | N | Y |
| Tables and Database Features | ||
| Create Rows and Columns | Y | Y |
| Duplicate Tables | N | Y |
| Duplicate Columns | N | Y |
| Hide/Show Row Numbers | N | Y |
| Set Column Names | N | Y |
| Sort Columns | N | Y |
| Insert Dates And Edit (Calendar) | N | Y |
| Insert Ratings | N | Y |
| Web Clipper Capabilities | ||
| Clip Page Fragments | N | Y |
| Clip Images Only | N | Y |
| Save Yahoo Emails | N | Y |
| Edit Clipped Content Before Sending To Note-Taking Service | N | Y |
| Create Tasks | N | Y |
| One-Click Page Saving | N | Y |
| Sharing and Security | ||
| Access Permissions | N | Y |
| Sharing Permissions | N | Y |
| Editing Permissions | N | Y |
| Real-Time Editing | N | Y |
| Real-Time Collaboration | N | Y |
| Server Backup and Restore | N | Y |
| Education Compliance | ||
| FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) | N | Y |
| COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection) | N | Y |
| CSPC (California’s Student Privacy Certified) | N | Y |
| iKeepSafe (Privacy Compliance Organization) | N | Y |
| Integrations | ||
| i(Pad)OS Shortcuts app | Y | N |
| i(Pad)OS Widget 4 | Y | N |
| WatchOS App | Y | N |
| Zapier.com | Y | N |
| iOS URL scheme | Y | N |
| Many iOS, PC, Mac, Android, and Web apps including but not limited to Noteshelf, Daily Notes, and Spark Mail. See the Evernote App Center for a somewhat complete list. | Y | N |
| Google Drive 5 | Y | Y (Embed) |
| YouTube | Y | Y (Embed) |
| Vimeo | N | Y (Embed) |
| Github | N | Y (Embed) |
| Google Map | N | Y (Embed) |
| Typeform | N | Y (Embed) |
| Figma | N | Y (Embed) |
| N | Y (Embed) | |
| Invision | N | Y (Embed) |
| Other Features | ||
| Live Chat | Y | N |
| PDF Annotation | Y | N |
| Screen-to-Text Recognition (OCR) 6 | Y | Y |
| Document Search and Image Recognition | Search for text inside images, PDFs, and Documents |
- Individual Evernote doesn’t need workspaces, because you can share a folder with someone else. The smallest thing you can share in Nimbus is a workspace. ↩
- I can’t see the difference between Evernote’s “Email and Live Chat” and Nimbus’s “Priority Support”. On the other hand, Nimbus’s support is astonishingly prompt. ↩
- Nimbus Capture is browser based. ↩
- Okay, Evernote lost its widgets and Watch app with the update. But if you haven’t updated, these features are still in Evernote. They might return to the new clients! And Nisus doesn’t have them at all. ↩
- Nimbus will embed a lot of file types that Evernote will add as note attachments. ↩
- Nisus doesn’t support handwriting recognition and indexing, which Evernote does. ↩
A Study In Silver 