Joplin vs Evernote
Joplin is a European alternative to Evernote: same office & collaboration use case, headquartered in France and governed by EU GDPR, while Evernote (Bending Spoons) is based in the United States.
By the EU Alternatives team Last updated
Open source note-taking with Markdown, notebooks, web clipper, and end-to-end encrypted sync across desktop and mobile, self-hosted or via Joplin Cloud.
- Jurisdiction
- EU / EEA
- Primary privacy law
- EU GDPR
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- No
- Open source
- Yes
- Free tier
- Yes
Evernote pioneered the everything-bucket note-taking app and still holds a lot of people's archives, though repeated price rises and tighter free-tier limits pushed many users to look elsewhere. It is now run by Bending Spoons, an Italian company based in Milan, while the Evernote operating entity remains incorporated in the US.
- Jurisdiction
- United States
- GDPR by default
- Requires DPA + TIA
- US CLOUD Act exposure
- Yes
Joplin vs Evernote at a glance
| Joplin | Evernote | |
|---|---|---|
| Headquarters | France | United States |
| Data jurisdiction | EU / EEA | United States |
| Primary privacy law | EU GDPR | Requires DPA + transfer assessment |
| US CLOUD Act exposure | No | Yes |
| Best for | Teams that need office & collaboration built for European data-protection requirements | Teams already invested in the Bending Spoons ecosystem |
Choose Joplin if…
- You want a provider governed by a European privacy regime
- GDPR or public-sector data-protection requirements apply to you
- You want to start free and scale up later
- Open-source code and self-hosting matter to you
- You'd rather back the European tech ecosystem
Stick with Evernote if…
- You depend on integrations only available in the Bending Spoons ecosystem
- Your organisation has no EU data-residency constraints
- Migration costs outweigh the jurisdiction benefits for now
About Joplin
Joplin is a French open source note-taking app that organizes Markdown notes into nested notebooks, with 55,000+ GitHub stars making it one of Europe's most popular productivity projects. Notes support attachments, to-do checkboxes, alarms, and full-text search, and the web clipper saves complete pages or simplified articles from any browser.
Synchronization is where Joplin stands apart: end-to-end encryption protects notes synced through Joplin Cloud, Nextcloud, WebDAV, or any S3-compatible storage, so no provider can read your content. Desktop apps for Windows, macOS and Linux pair with mobile apps for iOS and Android, and everything works offline first.
Key features:
- Markdown notes and notebooks with attachments, tags, and full-text search
- End-to-end encrypted sync via Joplin Cloud, Nextcloud, WebDAV, or S3
- Web clipper captures full pages or simplified articles into your notes
- To-dos with alarms turn notes into actionable reminders
- Offline first on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android
- Extensible with community plugins, themes, and a plugin API
- Open source under AGPL with importers for Evernote ENEX files
Joplin is developed from France by its founder Laurent Cozic, with the paid Joplin Cloud service operated under GDPR and the free path always available through self-hosted sync. Your notes live wherever you choose, encrypted before they leave the device.
Ideal for anyone replacing Google Keep, OneNote, or Evernote who wants their notes in an open format under their own control.
Why choose Joplin over Evernote?
The decisive argument is data jurisdiction. Evernote is headquartered in the United States, which means personal data processed through it can be subject to non-EU legal regimes: the US CLOUD Act, FISA 702, or similar laws depending on the provider. After the 2020 Schrems II ruling, EU organisations must carry out a transfer impact assessment for every such data flow.
Joplin removes that overhead. As a France-based provider, it operates under EU GDPR, and data stays inside the EU/EEA by default. For regulated sectors such as health, public administration, and finance, that's not a nice-to-have but a requirement. For everyone else, it's concentration-risk insurance: you avoid depending on a single jurisdiction that can change the rules without warning.