Nodum vs Evernote
An open-source Evernote alternative built on markdown you can take with you
Nodum is a free, open-source alternative to Evernote. Evernote is a proprietary hosted notebook with rich-text notes and tiered subscriptions; Nodum stores plain markdown files, links them with wikilinks, draws them as a knowledge graph, and is MIT licensed, so you can self-host it and export everything as a folder of .md files.
What Evernote is
Evernote is the original mass-market digital notebook: notebooks and tags, rich-text notes, a well-known web clipper, OCR over images and scanned documents, and strong search. It has been through several ownership and pricing changes, which is what sends most people looking for an alternative in the first place.
Side by side
| Property | Evernote | Nodum |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Proprietary, closed source | MIT — the whole stack, frontend and backend |
| Hosting | Evernote's cloud | Hosted at nodum.md, or self-hosted with one Docker Compose command |
| Your notes are | Rich-text notes in a hosted store; ENEX export | Plain markdown files, exported as a folder-true zip whenever you ask |
| Linking | Note links and tags; no wikilink syntax and no backlinks pane | [[wikilinks]], [[path/Note]], [[Note|alias]], ![[embeds]] — Obsidian syntax |
| Graph | No graph view | Global and local force-directed graph, GPU-rendered on WebGL2 |
| Pricing model | Limited free tier with tiered paid plans | Free and open source; self-host at your own infrastructure cost |
| Platforms | Browser, desktop and mobile | Any modern browser, desktop and mobile; installable as a PWA |
| Getting out | ENEX (an XML format) or HTML — converting to markdown takes a tool | Vault zip of .md files, plus a REST API and an MCP server |
Where each one actually wins
The left-hand column is the honest part. If none of it applies to you, the switch is probably worth making; if several do, it probably is not.
What Evernote does better
- The web clipper is more mature, and OCR over photographed and scanned documents has no equivalent in Nodum.
- Handwriting, audio notes and document scanning in the mobile apps.
- Decades of polish on search across mixed media.
What Nodum does better
- Free and open source; no plan tiers and no device limits.
- Markdown files instead of an XML export format you need a converter for.
- Wikilinks, automatic backlinks and a knowledge graph — Evernote has none of these.
- Self-hostable, so your archive is not dependent on one company's pricing decisions.
- A Chrome web clipper of its own, backed by scoped, revocable tokens that can only create notes.
So — switch, or stay?
Switch to Nodum if…
- You have been repriced or feature-limited once too often.
- You want your archive in a format any text editor can read in twenty years.
- You have started thinking in links rather than notebooks.
Stay on Evernote if…
- You depend on OCR over scanned documents and photographs.
- Your notes are mostly handwriting, audio and attachments rather than text.
Moving your notes across
- 1. Export your notebooks as ENEX. In Evernote, export each notebook to an .enex file. Do it notebook by notebook so a failure is recoverable.
- 2. Convert ENEX to markdown. Use a converter such as Yarle or evernote2md to turn the .enex files into a folder of .md files with attachments alongside.
- 3. Zip and import. Zip the converted folder and import it into a Nodum vault. Folder structure becomes folders; attachments land in storage and embed as ![[file]].
- 4. Add the links. Evernote notes are rarely linked. Once inside, type [[ and start connecting them — the backlinks pane and the graph fill in from there.
Evernote and Nodum: common questions
What is the best open-source Evernote alternative?
It depends on what you use Evernote for. Joplin is the closest structural match — notebooks, tags, a clipper, AGPL licensed — and imports ENEX directly. Nodum is the better fit if you want linked notes, backlinks and a knowledge graph in a browser, with markdown files and MIT licensing.
How do I move Evernote notes to markdown?
Export each notebook as an .enex file from Evernote, then run it through a converter such as Yarle or evernote2md to produce plain .md files with attachments. Zip the result and import it into a Nodum vault, where folders and attachments carry over.
Before you move anything
Whatever you decide, run this once. It takes ten minutes and it is the difference between a migration and an incident.
- Export from Evernote first, and keep that export somewhere safe.
- Import a copy into a throwaway Nodum vault, not your main one.
- Open the graph and look for ghost nodes — those are links that did not resolve.
- Export the Nodum vault and diff it against what you put in.
- Only then delete anything.
Other comparisons
Every comparison is on the alternatives index, and the glossary defines the vocabulary these pages use.
Bring your Evernote notes with you.
Import a zip, look at the graph, export it again. Nothing about it is one-way.