Evernote Alternative - Free & Open Source

Evernote is a general-purpose note-taking app. Saving recipes in Evernote notes (typed in, clipped from blogs, or photographed from cookbooks) has been one of the most common home-cook patterns for over a decade, and Evernote Food shutting down in 2015 left those users on the regular note app. Since the Bending Spoons takeover in January 2023, the free plan has been capped at 50 notes total on 1 device (December 2023), and long-time paid customers have widely reported renewal increases of around 70% or more.

My wife and I made RecipeSage as a real recipe app for people in exactly this spot. Notes apps can hold the words of a recipe, but the things home cooks actually want (a shopping list that combines garlic from three recipes, a drag-and-drop weekly plan, 2x scaling, nutrition per serving) only work when ingredients live in structured fields. RecipeSage has a one-click `.enex` importer so your existing Evernote recipes come over without retyping.

How they price

RecipeSage

Free forever. No paywall, no ads, no per-device fees, no note caps, and no selling your data.

Evernote

Free plan capped at 50 notes total on 1 device. Starter around $99/year, Advanced around $250/year, with sizeable renewal increases reported since 2024.

Feature by feature

We've tried to be fair here. Where Evernote is genuinely stronger, we say so. Numbers and feature claims are sourced from each product's own documentation as of August 2026.

Feature	RecipeSage	Evernote
Price	Free, open source	Free up to 50 notes, then $99-$250/year
Free-tier capacityFree Evernote was capped at 50 notes and 1 notebook in December 2023, and limited to 1 connected device.	Unlimited recipes	50 notes total, 1 notebook, 1 device
Web app	Yes	Yes
iOS app	Yes	Yes
Android app	Yes	Yes
Firefox and Chrome extensionEvernote's Web Clipper saves the full web page. RecipeSage's clipper parses the page into a structured recipe with ingredients and steps.	Yes	Yes
Auto import recipes from a URLEvernote isn't designed for recipe parsing. The Web Clipper can save the page, but it doesn't break it into ingredients, directions, yield, or times.	Yes	No
Import recipes from a photo (OCR)Evernote's mobile scanner OCRs text in an image, but the result is a free-form note. RecipeSage's photo import parses it into a recipe with structured fields.	Yes	Partial
Import recipes from PDF and Word documentsEvernote can attach files to a note, but it doesn't read them as recipes.	Yes	No
Structured ingredient fieldsEvernote stores recipes as free text inside a note. RecipeSage parses ingredients into quantity, unit, and item, which is what unlocks shopping lists, scaling, and nutrition.	Yes	No
Drag-and-drop meal plannerEvernote isn't designed for meal planning. People type meals into a table-shaped note, or paste note links into Google Calendar events.	Yes	No
Recurring meal plan items	Yes	No
Smart shopping list with aisle categorizationEvernote shopping lists are a manually maintained note with checkboxes. No ingredient consolidation across recipes, no aisle grouping, no per-recipe add-to-list.	Yes	No
Recipe scaling and unit conversionEvernote doesn't know an ingredient from a paragraph, so it can't rescale quantities.	Yes	No
Nutrition tracking (macros, vitamins, minerals)	Yes	No
AI cooking assistantEvernote v11 added a general AI Assistant and semantic search over your notes. They aren't recipe-aware, so there's no scaling, no shopping-list generation, and no cooking mode.	Yes	Partial
Typo-tolerant searchEvernote's classic search is keyword/operator based. Semantic search exists on paid plans but isn't ingredient-aware.	Yes	Partial
Real collaboration with separate accountsEvernote does proper multi-user sharing of notes and notebooks, but free users are capped at 1 device, which makes household use without paying impractical.	Yes	Yes
Works offlineEvernote desktop apps work offline. Marking specific notebooks offline on mobile requires a paid plan.	Yes	Partial
Open source	Yes	No
Self-hostable	Yes	No
Data portabilityEvernote exports to .enex, which is a documented XML format but specific to Evernote. RecipeSage supports well-recognized standardized recipe formats like JSON-LD.	Yes	Evernote .enex
Native desktop app (Windows, macOS, Linux)Evernote has native Windows and Mac apps but no official Linux app. RecipeSage has native apps for all three.	Yes	Partial
Cook Mode (full-screen, distraction-free cooking view)Evernote is a general note app with no cooking view.	Yes	No
Built-in kitchen toolkitRecipeSage's toolkit includes a measurement converter, a pan and bakeware converter that rescales ingredients and suggests bake time and temperature adjustments, and a cooking-temperature reference for safe internal temperatures. Evernote has none of these.	Yes	No
Printable PDF cookbook generatorRecipeSage's Cookbook Generator compiles your recipes into one printable PDF with a cover page, optional table of contents, and each recipe on its own page.	Yes	No

Why people switch from Evernote to RecipeSage

Cook ModeRecipeSage's full-screen Cook Mode shows the ingredients and steps together, lets you check off each as you cook, scale servings on the fly, and keeps the screen awake with a large adjustable font. Evernote is a general note app with no cooking view.
Built-in kitchen toolkitRecipeSage has built-in converters for units, pan sizes, and cooking temperatures. Evernote has none of these.
Structure is what unlocks recipe featuresA shopping list that combines garlic across three recipes, 2x scaling, nutrition per serving, and an ingredient-aware search all require parsed ingredients. Evernote stores recipes as free text in a note, so none of those features can exist there.
A real meal planner instead of a typed tableRecipeSage has a drag-and-drop weekly calendar with recurring items and one-click add-to-shopping-list. In Evernote, meal planning is either a hand-typed table in a note or pasting note links into Google Calendar events.
An automatic shopping listClick a recipe, send it to the shopping list, and ingredients merge with what's already there and group by aisle. In Evernote, you maintain a pinned 'Shopping list' note by hand and retype ingredients every week.
No 50-note cap and no 1-device capRecipes alone exhaust Evernote's 50-note free tier for almost any home cook, and the 1-device cap means a phone and a laptop can't both be signed in for free. RecipeSage is free with no caps, on every device, for everyone in the family.
A recipe-focused clipperRecipeSage's Firefox and Chrome extension parses a recipe page into a clean structured recipe. Evernote's Web Clipper saves the whole article, including the author's storytelling preamble, the ads, and the unrelated photos.
One-click .enex importExport your Evernote notes to .enex from the Mac or Windows app, upload the file, and each note becomes a recipe. Your Evernote account is untouched.
Turn your collection into a printable cookbookRecipeSage's Cookbook Generator assembles your recipes into a single PDF, with a cover page, an optional table of contents, and each recipe on its own page with its image and nutrition. It's an easy way to print a personal cookbook or give one as a gift. Evernote has no built-in cookbook generator.

Where Evernote is honestly stronger

We're not pretending RecipeSage wins on everything. Here's whatEvernote does better than us today.

A real general-purpose note appEvernote is genuinely good at meeting notes, journals, scanned documents, and project notes. RecipeSage is recipes-only by design, so Evernote stays useful for everything that isn't a recipe.
OCR search across scanned cookbook pagesEvernote indexes text inside scanned images and PDFs, so a photo of a cookbook page is searchable. RecipeSage's photo import parses recipes into structured fields, which is a different (and we'd argue more useful) thing for cooking, but Evernote's blanket OCR over arbitrary images is a real strength.

Bringing your Evernote recipes over

RecipeSage has a dedicated Evernote importer that reads `.enex` files. Each Evernote note becomes a recipe, with the note title, content, and attached images preserved.

1In the Evernote Mac or Windows desktop app, select the notebook (or specific notes) that contain your recipes. Export is only available from the desktop apps, not the web app.
2Right-click and choose Export Notes as ENEX. Save the .enex file to your computer.
3Create a free RecipeSage account at recipesage.com.
4In RecipeSage, open Settings then Import then Evernote (ENEX), and upload the file you just exported.
5RecipeSage runs the import in the background and tags every imported recipe with a timestamped label, so the whole batch is easy to review or undo.

Because Evernote stores recipes as free text, the importer can't magically split a note into ingredient and direction fields. The content, title, and images all come across, and you can structure individual recipes afterward to take advantage of shopping lists, scaling, and nutrition. Free Evernote users with more than 50 notes can still export everything they already have.

Start importing Read the full Evernote import guide

About the people behind RecipeSage

My wife and I built and run RecipeSage. We're not a venture-backed startup. We cook every night, we got tired of paying subscriptions and losing access to recipes when an app changed hands, so we built the app we wanted to use. Hosting is funded by optional contributions and has been since 2018, and the source code is on GitHub under the AGPL.

If you ever want to leave RecipeSage, you can export everything in standard formats or run the whole thing on your own server. Your recipes are yours.

Common questions about switching from Evernote

Will my Evernote notes come over as proper recipes?

Each note becomes a recipe with its title, content, and images preserved. Because Evernote stores recipes as free-form notes, structured fields like ingredients and directions are inferred where possible, but some recipes will need a quick edit to take full advantage of shopping lists, scaling, and nutrition.

Can I keep using Evernote for non-recipe notes?

Yes. The .enex import is non-destructive and your Evernote account stays exactly as it is. Many people end up keeping Evernote for meeting notes, journals, and project notes, and use RecipeSage just for recipes.

What if a single note contains several recipes?

Each Evernote note becomes one RecipeSage recipe. If you have a note with multiple recipes stacked inside it, splitting them into separate notes before exporting gives the cleanest result. You can also split them inside RecipeSage after import.

Do tags and notebooks come across?

Tags map to RecipeSage labels. Evernote's ENEX export flattens notebook structure into a single file, so notebook names don't come through as folders, but you can re-apply labels in bulk after the import.

Do I need a paid Evernote plan to export?

No. ENEX export is available on the free plan via the desktop apps, even for accounts over the 50-note cap. You can still export everything you already have.

Is there a free alternative to Evernote for recipes?

Yes. RecipeSage is a free, open source alternative to Evernote for recipes, with no paywall and no ads. You can import your recipes, plan meals, build shopping lists, track nutrition, and use it on the web, desktop, iOS, and Android. If you ever decide to leave, you can export everything or self-host.

Evernote is a great note app. It's just not built for the recipe-specific things home cooks actually want. Try RecipeSage for your recipes, keep Evernote for everything else if you like, and see how it feels :)

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