European alternatives to Evernote

The note-taking pioneer, now owned by Italy's Bending Spoons after years of decline. Ownership has moved to Europe, but the service's reliability and pricing upheavals have driven many users to look elsewhere.

Company information about Evernote
Company
Evernote Corporation
Headquarters
Redwood City, United States
Founded
2008
Data jurisdiction
United States
Ownership
Acquired
GDPR
No
Open source
No
Infrastructure
Unknown

Why people switch away from Evernote

Subject to US CLOUD ActProprietary softwareNot covered by GDPR

European alternatives to Evernote

1
Top Pick

France 100 · Certified European

Open-source note-taking app created by French developer Laurent Cozic. Supports end-to-end encryption, Markdown, web clipping, and sync via Joplin Cloud (France-hosted) or self-hosted. Available on all platforms with a rich plugin ecosystem.

Open-core · from Free Free tier Open source Bootstrapped Own infrastructure EU
2

Germany 100 · Certified European

End-to-end encrypted note-taking built into Tuta Mail by German company Tutao GmbH. Post-quantum TutaCrypt encryption. Notes stored on own German servers. Included in all Tuta plans including free.

Freemium · from Free Free tier Open source Bootstrapped Own infrastructure EU
3

Switzerland 95 · Certified European

End-to-end encrypted note-taking app acquired by Proton AG in April 2024. Now running on Proton's Swiss infrastructure. Open source, independently audited four times, self-hostable. 300,000+ active users. Continues operating as a standalone product under Proton ownership.

Freemium · from Free Free tier Open source Non-profit Own infrastructure Part of Proton Foundation EFTA

Want more options? Browse all European Note-taking alternatives →

Start somewhere.

Switching everything overnight is not realistic. Start where it matters most: your email, your cloud storage, your business tools. Replace one thing at a time.

The European Alternative already exists.
Pick Europe.

Why avoid United States-owned services?

CLOUD Act

Forces US companies to hand over data stored anywhere in the world upon government request, including data on European servers.

FISA Section 702

Authorises mass surveillance of non-US persons using data held by US tech platforms, without a warrant or notification.

GDPR vs US law conflict

EU courts have repeatedly found that US surveillance law conflicts with European fundamental rights. Schrems I and II both invalidated EU-US data transfer agreements.

Here are alternatives for services from United States →