Obsidian vs Evernote: Your Own Vault or a Searchable Archive?

Grace keeps the books for 22 small businesses. Clients text her photos of receipts and email PDF invoices, and in March she needs to find "the Harlow Bakery oven repair, sometime last summer" in seconds.

Recommendation: Evernote, on a paid plan. She scans receipts and saves PDF invoices into a notebook per client, and Evernote's search reads the text inside the photos and PDFs, which is exactly the retrieval she does all day. In Obsidian those receipts would be attachments whose text cannot be searched without a plugin, and she would be maintaining that plugin during tax season. She should export each client notebook as ENEX at year end, so the archive does not depend on one subscription.

Felix writes long reports on housing policy. He keeps about 1,100 short notes, one idea each, and each new report starts from following links between them: from [[Rent control and supply]] to the studies that support it and the ones that do not.

Recommendation: Obsidian. Wikilinks, the backlinks panel and the graph are the method, not extras. Plain Markdown files also mean his notes will outlast any app he uses. Evernote can link notes, but by copying and pasting note links one at a time, and it has no graph of how ideas connect. He should keep sources in their own notes and link to them, and skip the graph until the vault is large enough to need it.

Martin has used Evernote since 2010: meeting notes, journals and drafts, plus thousands of clipped articles and scanned letters. He wants to move to Obsidian for his writing and stop paying for a subscription.

Recommendation: split the archive before moving it. His own writing moves well: export those notebooks as ENEX, run Obsidian's Importer, and they become Markdown files with their tags. The scans and clips are different. In Obsidian they become attachments whose text is no longer searchable. He should either keep a paid Evernote plan for the document archive for a year while he decides, or export it as ENEX and keep the files as a backup he can import elsewhere later. Moving everything at once is how people lose the one letter they needed.

Ines studies wetland birds and spends three-week stretches at field stations with no reliable internet. She logs observations on a rugged Android tablet and writes up on a Linux laptop when she gets back.

Recommendation: Obsidian. Every note is a file on the device, so nothing depends on a server, and it runs on Android and Linux. She can sync with Obsidian Sync or a cable when she is back in range. Evernote's free plan allows one device, and its offline support depends on the plan, which is the wrong bet for weeks offline. She should use one daily note per field day and a template for observations, so the write-up is mostly assembly.

Amara runs a three-person literacy nonprofit. The team needs a shared place for grant deadlines, partner contacts and the volunteer handbook. Amara also wants a private place to think through strategy and board meetings.

Recommendation: Notion for the team, Obsidian for Amara's own notes. The shared work is records with owners and dates, which is what Notion's databases do, and the free plan fits a small workspace to start. Amara's private thinking is linked notes, which is Obsidian's strength, and it stays on her laptop. Evernote would cover neither job well: its sharing is per note or notebook rather than a shared workspace, and the free plan's 50 notes would not last the first grant cycle.