ClickUp vs Evernote

ClickUp is an all-in-one productivity platform founded in 2017 by Zeb Evans and Alex Yurkowski and based in San Diego. Its pitch is to replace a stack of separate tools, including project management, documents, whiteboards, goals, chat and time tracking, with one application, at a lower per-seat price than Asana or monday.com.

Work is organized in a deep hierarchy of workspaces, spaces, folders, lists, tasks and subtasks, with more than 15 views, custom fields, dependencies and recurring tasks. Docs, whiteboards, forms, dashboards, goals and native time tracking live alongside tasks, and Chat brings team messaging into the same workspace. Automations handle status changes, assignments and notifications, and ClickUp Brain, the AI layer, answers questions about work, writes summaries and updates, and drafts content. The Free Forever plan allows unlimited tasks and members with limited storage and feature uses; Unlimited and Business plans add storage, integrations, dashboards, timelines, workload and advanced automations, and Enterprise adds SSO, white labeling and HIPAA support.

ClickUp suits agencies, startups and small to mid-sized businesses that want maximum functionality per dollar and are willing to invest in setup and conventions. The breadth is also the main drawback: the interface is dense, and performance in large workspaces has been a frequent complaint. Asana offers a cleaner, more opinionated experience, monday.com is more visual and easier to adopt, and Notion is stronger when documents and wikis come first.

Evernote is one of the original cross-platform note-taking apps, launched in 2008 and known for capturing everything from web pages and PDFs to scanned receipts in one searchable archive. Italian app maker Bending Spoons acquired it in early 2023, cut staff and reworked the product and pricing.

Notes live in notebooks and spaces with tags, and Evernote is still strong at capture: a Web Clipper for Chrome, Firefox and Safari, document scanning, email-to-Evernote, OCR search inside images and PDFs, and offline notes. Tasks and a calendar that connects to Google and Microsoft calendars sit next to notes. Evernote v11 adds AI features including an AI Assistant, semantic search, transcription, rewrite and a meeting note taker, plus an MCP connection for AI tools. The Free plan is now tight at 50 notes and one notebook, so most users need Starter or Advanced; team plans are quoted.

It fits long-time users with large archives and people who clip and scan heavily. Notion is more flexible for structured databases and team wikis, Obsidian keeps notes as local Markdown files for free, and Apple Notes or OneNote cost nothing on their platforms. Many users left after the 2023 price rises and free plan limits, and Evernote's collaboration is weaker than Notion's.

Buying tip: the 2026 plan reshuffle replaced Personal and Professional with Starter ($99 a year) and Advanced ($249.99 a year). Monthly billing costs much more, and prices can differ when bought through Apple or Google, so pay annually on the web.