Evernote's Long Goodbye: From Note-Taking King to Cautionary Tale

In 2014, Evernote was valued at $1 billion. The company had 100 million users, a beloved product, and ambitions to become the operating system for your digital life. CEO Phil Libin called it a "hundred-year company." It lasted about a decade before being sold to Italian software company Bending Spoons in November 2023 for an undisclosed amount widely reported to be a fraction of its peak valuation.

The Decline

Evernote's decline wasn't sudden — it was a slow erosion driven by executive turnover, unfocused expansion, and neglect of core functionality. Under successive CEOs, the company launched a physical goods marketplace (Evernote Market), a food app (Evernote Food), a contacts app, and a work chat feature. None succeeded. Each distracted from the core note-taking product that users actually valued.

Meanwhile, the note-taking experience stagnated. The editor remained clunky while competitors modernized. Sync became unreliable. The free tier was progressively gutted. Performance degraded as the application accumulated technical debt from years of unfocused development.

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The Acquisition and Aftermath

Bending Spoons, an Italian app company known for aggressive monetization, acquired Evernote and immediately laid off most employees. The remaining team focused on cost reduction and monetization optimization. The free tier was reduced to 50 notes and one notebook — effectively useless for any serious note-taking workflow.

The Modern Landscape

Notion has absorbed much of Evernote's former user base, offering a flexible workspace that combines notes, databases, wikis, and project management. Obsidian offers local-first markdown notes with powerful linking for users who prioritize privacy and data ownership. Apple Notes, once dismissed as too simple, has evolved into a capable note-taking app that syncs via iCloud and handles most personal use cases. For developers, GitHub-backed tools and simple markdown files offer version-controlled note-taking that integrates with existing workflows.