I love where Cryptee is going...

The world needs an encrypted Evernote replacement

The world needs a privacy-respecting Evernote replacement. Evernote is the market leader in note-taking apps and has some tremendous features. However, it stores user data unencrypted on web-facing servers, it's been hacked and lost user data, and the CEO only reversed a after a massive outcry. To this you can add that, since Evernote are under US legal jurisdiction, they can be forced by three letter agencies (e.g. the NSA and FBI) to give away your data, whilst at the same time being unable even to tell you about it. In short, Evernote is a security and privacy disaster and you should not store on there anything you wouldn't want to be made public.

Incidentally, all this applies to services like Google, Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and Dropbox as well, which is why I rant and rave on here about how important privacy-oriented apps and services are. And so no, you shouldn't be any happier if you're a OneNote user.

Evernote claim to be too small to offer a client for Linux, despite having over 150 million registered users.

While we appreciate and value the Linux community, we are a relatively small organization without sufficient resources to build and maintain a native Linux client for Evernote, particularly given the relatively small number of users of the platform in a desktop context.

Given how inconsistent is the Evernote experience between Mac, Windows and browser (the browser client is so slow it's virtually unusable), perhaps the fact they've stayed away from Linux is a blessing in disguise. Single individuals have created free, open source software like Nixnote, a stand-alone desktop Evernote client, so how tough can it be for Evernote to put something sensible together?

Evernote are also known for releasing weird, unpopular features instead of sorting out the bugs in their core product, which seems to have hurt their business in the past.

So the market has been crying out for a long time for a secure, encrypted, note-taking app that can reproduce Evernote's key functionality and offer a cross-platform experience.

Cryptee is the closest yet (perhaps)

Cryptee is a (largely) open-source cross-platform note taking app that offers many, many of Evernote's core features, and implements 'zero-knowledge' encryption. The latter means that only the user has the key to access his/her data; Cryptee's servers do not keep any human-readable version and cannot unlock it. That's the way it should be!

Everyone's use of something like Evernote varies, so it's unlikely that it can replace Evernote fully for everyone. For example, some people use Evernote to store absolutely everything, almost as a file manager (which isn't a good idea for security reasons at the very least). Others rely on OCR (optical character recognition in text files), others need the browser plugin or scan function.

But, as a note-taking app, Cryptee, which was released only a few weeks back (summer 2018), already completely rocks. Below, I list the features it already has and which it doesn't yet have compared to Evernote. But I must emphasize, the fact Cryptee comes with zero-knowledge encryption is fabulous: finally, a usable note-taking app that treats its users' security and privacy correctly! More than that, Cryptee is EU-based, and developed and run by two people. It's an excellent start-up and I whole-heartedly recommend them!

Which Evernote features are already available in Cryptee?

As of the time of writing (2018-07-04), Cryptee has:

• creating notes
• tagging notes
• search by notes, tags or text
• embedding of files into notes (any format)
• resize images in the note
• embed files via drag-n-drop into the note
• embedding online videos
• export to pdf or html
• export all your data
• within notes: fonts, font sizes, text highlighting, bullet points, checklists, quotes, headings, sub-headings, text color, highlighting, bold, italic, strikethrough, underlined text, etc.
• folders
• change folder colors
• preview of embedded and/or uploaded pdf and image files

Features Evernote doesn't have but Cryptee does

• "zero-knowledge" encryption model; only you can read your stuff
• ghost folders/notes (a mechanism for hiding stuff even if you're forced to give up your password!)
• organizable photo galleries
• code blocks in notes (with support for 30 different languages!)
• write directly in markdown, if you want
• a better, faster search than Evernote, that finds tags, notes, folders and files within them in an intuitive way
• consistent experience on all platforms (see below for more on this)
• not based in the US (can't be subpoenad by FBI, NSA, etc.)
• parts of it are open source, the rest will be open source once the anti-abuse system is fully tested

Evernote features not yet in Cryptee

• 2nd factor authentication
• cross linking notes (copy a note link)
• publishing a note to make it public
• share notes with another user
• browser plugin (web clipper) or create a note by email
• recording audio (although you can embed recorded audio)
• document scanner (but Evernote's isn't very good anyway)
• ORC (optical character recognition)
• tag hierarchies
• task reminders

Criticisms

For such a young, ambitious and important project, Cryptee it has done amazingly well. Well enough that it deserves 5 stars. It does have limitations, however, and if they aren't addressed in a year or two, I'll be lowering the score. Here is where Cryptee does less well:

Reliance on Progressive Web Apps for cross-platform

Cryptee achieves cross-platforms support (same Windows, Mac and Linux desktop experience and Android/iOS experience) via Progressive Web Apps, which basically a way of displaying a web page in a 'wrapper' that seems like it's a native app on your desktop / phone. This technology is a good idea, but presently supported primarily by Chrome, which is proprietary Google spyware, which I despite on privacy grounds and advise people to stay away from.

In Cryptee's defence, it is obvious that maintaining separate apps for 5 different platforms is beyond their present means, so the choice is understandable. Moreover, as Firefox and other non-Chrome browsers begin supporting Progressive Web Apps properly, this will become less of an issue.

Share to Cryptee in Android

As an Android user, it would be nice to open a file or take a picture, click "Share" and directly select Cryptee. Because of the PWA situation (see above), this is presently unavailable. You have to go into the app, the relevant note, select "embed" whatever it is you want to embed, and then select it from your phone. That's an inconvenience, certainly.

Other encrypted note-taking apps

I've spent years looking for an Evernote replacement (for myself, friends, and co-workers). I don't use Evernote any more because the security and privacy implications are too great. But that doesn't mean I've found the perfect solution; I just put up with a little inconvenience. If you're in the same boat, here is the list of apps I would recommend you at least look at (although Cryptee is better than most of these by a long way):

• Turtl: more like Google Keep than Evernote, but encrypted and open source. In beta for over 2 years now. Allows sharing notes, has web-clipper. Works on Linux too.

• Joplin: a direct attempt to replace Evernote. Free, open source and encrypted. Has many of the same features as Evernote, but doesn't provide a syncing service. You have to use other services which it supports, or a local folder of your choice which you sync seperately. In rapid, ongoing development and supports embedding any file type. Good-ish mobile app.

• Boostnote: A markdown-based, free and open source note-taking app. Allows embedding any file type (unlike other markdown apps) but works only on local folders for the desktop, which you can sync with whichever service you like. If you select an encrypted service (e.g. Tresorit, Sync.com or Spideroak), your notes will sync in an encrypted way too (so Boostnote itself is not encrypted per se). The mobile app doesn't let you choose which folder to save stuff in; which is a requested feature. It's under rapid development by dozens of people; should be getting better very soon.

• Standard Notes: Encrypted notes with sync as part of the service. Markdown-based, with good experiences on mobile. Less fully featured than Cryptee, however, but more popular.

Major downside of this app is that the back-end code isn't open source therefore self hosting isn't an option and all your data is locked up on the server and if Cryptee servers go down or you can't pay the subscription for any reason you can't download your data anymore and since the client is a web app you can't be confident that you have a copy of your data on your device.