Have you ever had that experience in a car lot, where the salesman is trying to upsell you on everything? He’ll convince you that you need backseat screens (when you don’t even have kids), heated cup holders, or a luggage rack on top (and when’s the last time you’ve used that?). Yes, some of it might be nice—but none of them of thing you’ll ever use, and you’ll just waste time and money on them.
Productivity apps can be the same way. You get ads for a hundred different ones, all promising different things—but do you really need them all? Which ones are best for what you need? If productivity is a struggle for you, finding the right app can make a world of difference.
In this comparison, we’re going to jump into two of the most common productivity apps: Evernote and Todoist. These tools focus on slightly different parts of organization and productivity—but with some of the updates Evernote is integrating, the lines are overlapping. We’ll lay out the differences, and which one works best for you in this comparison of Evernote vs. Todoist!
Evernote vs. Todoist: Meet the Sites
Evernote
Evernote, at its core, is “designed for note-taking, organizing, task management, and archive.” It is a virtual notebook, with a few extra bells and whistles. You can note down text, but you can also include different things like scans, PDF’s, audio recordings, and sketches—things a normal paper book wouldn’t be able to have!
Evernote also offers features an ordinary notebook wouldn’t—being able to share notes with others, and see updates in real time. Simply type in their email and your friends and coworkers will get in invitation to collaborate with you. You can give them access to edit the note itself—or you can allow certain people in with a “view-only” mode as well.
However, Evernote is incorporating features to make it more like Todoist. Their newest feature is Tasks. When you hit the green + button to take a note, you have the option of making it a task—specialized checklists that are kept separate from the rest of your notes. They’re less likely to be lost in old notes, though you can still add them to notes. However, this feature is just now rolling out—so we’ll have to see whether it will make any impact on your note-taking abilities.
Todoist
You can understand what Todoist is from the pun of its name—an interactive to-do list. Its parent company creates “tools that promote more fulfilling ways to work and live.” So it’s more than just a to-do list, it allows you to delegate work to others, schedule tasks ahead, and organize all your projects and tasks into one place. And it’s a quality tool as well—it has won the Editor’s Choice award in the Google Play Store, and is used by NASA employees.
Start your to-do list by hitting the plus button, giving a deadline, and your first task is ready to go. Todoist has a natural-language system that can easily schedule tasks, start typing “mon” and it will know to schedule it to Monday. With a single button you can schedule a task for today, tomorrow, this weekend, next week, or a specific day on the calendar. You can also do more complicated scheduling, like next Thursday, or every second Friday. You can also create reoccurring tasks—one like paying bills, or daily habits—that will appear on their own in your daily to-do-list.
You can make specific topics to include tasks in, whether that’s for a presentation, ordering supplies, or cleaning schedules. You can also add sections to delineate between different parts of your project—have a section for research, for branding, and another social media.
You can delegate tasks to different people as well. Simply start typing @theirname, and they’ll be assigned to the task, and you’ll get notifications when they complete their tasks.
Evernote vs. Todoist: Ease of Use
The last thing you need is an app that is clunky and hard to use. Let’s see how these two apps integrate into your life.
Evernote
Evernote should be very simple—it is a note taking app, and all you do is take notes. Click on “add new note” to start, and just start typing, talking, or take a photo. At the bottom is a navigation bar that allows you to make a checklist, and templates to get you started—but the process is very intuitive.
However, Evernote has recently rebranded their dashboard—and it works against the ease of use. It’s a bit more cluttered, with a random background picture and your notes all squished into one place (and you can’t see them all unless you click through), and other items like a “scratchpad” taking up room. There’s not much difference between a scratchpad and just creating a new note—so there’s some clutter to deal with.
But Evernote does help you keep the different parts of your life connected. It syncs across your devices, but it can also integrate with Google Drive, Gmail, Slack, and Outlook.
Todoist
Todoist wants you to succeed from minute one—and so they have a built-in beginners guide, that walks you through everything you need to know about creating tasks, projects, scheduling, and even gives insight into some of the finer tips of subtasks and reoccurring tasks. Todoist also offers templates for your needs—letting you jumpstart your to-do lists, whether you’re a student, hiring agent, or just making a packing list!
Todoist allows you to integrate apps as well, from Calendar to DropBox to Alexa. In fact, you can integrate it with almost any app or program, because Todoist can connect to IFTTT. If you upgrade to Premium, you can also get alerts on your email and phone.
But Todoist also holds another little perk that makes accomplishing tasks easier—it has a built-in reward system, Karma. Your brain has natural risk-reward pathways, that encourages you to complete certain tasks, and Todoist hacks into that to help motivate you to complete your goals. You earn points by adding tasks, completing your goal-number of tasks each day, and by creating streaks—several days in a row where you’ve crushed your goals!
Conclusion: Ease of Use
While simply taking notes and creating tasks are incredibly easy on both apps, Todoist makes it just a tad simpler. Both apps sync with other apps such as Slack to help make your days easier, but Todoist syncs across more apps, as well as hacks into your brain’s productivity with Karma points.
Evernote: 4.2/5
Todoist: 4.8/5
Evernote vs. Todoist: Accessibility
If a tool is to help you be more productive, you need to be able to access it everywhere you go! Can these two sites keep up?
Evernote
Evernote allows you to access your notes on any device—web, Android, or iOS. But there’s a limit—on Evernote’s free plan, you can only access it on two of your devices, and have to upgrade to add in more.
Todoist
Todoist actually focuses on the mobile app—and is accessible for both iOS and Android devices. It syncs reminders with your phone, so they will pop up on your notifications whenever you most need them! However, you can always access Todoist on the web as well.
Conclusion: Accessibility
Both are accessible wherever you are—but Evernote will only allow a certain number of devices on its free plan, while you can access Todoist from most anywhere.
Evernote: 3.8/5
Todoist: 4.8/5
Evernote vs. Todoist: Pricing
When it comes down to it, you want the most bang for your buck—and an app that fits into your budget. Let’s see how these two apps compare, and which one is cheaper!
Evernote
Evernote offers a free plan, that allows you to take almost as many notes as you may need. While you cannot use Tasks and are limited to two devices, the 60 MB monthly upload limit works for most everyday uses.
Evernote’s Premium costs a little more than Todoist, though it is still reasonable. The Premium Plan costs $7.99 per month, and allows you to access your notes offline, annotate PDF’s, use custom templates, and has a 10 GB monthly upload limit. Evernote’s Business plan costs $14.99 per user per month, and gives you shared spaces, business data ownership, and activity history.
Todoist
You can also use Todoist without spending a dime—and that free plan is well worth the price. Todoist’s free option allows you to make lists, and assign tasks to different team members, and most other things that you would want to do in everyday activities.
But if you’d like to unlock Todoist’s full capabilities, Premium costs about as much as a cup of coffee. Costing $4/month (or $3/month if you register for an entire year), Todoist Premium offers several tools to help you take more advantage of the app. You can set reminders to alert you on your phone or email. You can use templates to make creating tasks more efficient. You can take advantage of different labels and filters, upload files, and see your tasks displayed in your Calendar App. You’ll also have access to a productivity trends report, so you can see how many tasks you’ve accomplished, and where you’re making progress.
They also offer up to 70% off for students and educators, so you can apply for more discounts as well.
Conclusion: Pricing
Both of these apps stand out by having great free versions—you can use both for most of your needs without spending a penny. Both are reasonably priced in their paid versions as well. But when it comes down to it, Todoist is cheaper—and they offer more for their price too. Productivity reports are great to bill clients, or even just to motivate yourself! Ultimate, Todoist is better priced.
Evernote: 4.5/5
Todoist: 4.9/5
Evernote vs. Todoist: Which is the Better Productivity App?
Todoist and Evernote are different types of apps—the first for helping you stay on task, and the second for helping you remember. Both are also high-quality apps—with free versions that work well for everyday usage, and great tools to help you. But when it comes down to it, Todoist pulls ahead. It is easier to use, has better tools, is more easily accessible, and is better priced. If you need something to help keep you on-task and your life in order, Todoist is the way to go.
Not convinced? Both apps offer 30-day free trials of their premium versions, that allow you to try them out and see which is best for you! Want to learn more about Todoist? Read our full Todoist review here!
Final Scores
Ease of Use
- Evernote: 4.2/5
- Todoist: 4.8/5
Device Accessibility
- Evernote: 3.8/5
- Todoist 4.8/5
Pricing
- Evernote: 4.5/5
- Todoist: 4.9/5
Customizations
- Evernote: 4.5/5
- Todoist 4.5/5
