Cimanote - The fast, clean note app Evernote used to be
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Evernote tripled prices, gutted the free tier to 1 device, and got slower every update. Enough was enough.
Cimanote is the note app Evernote used to be: fast, clean, no bloat.
Instant load · All devices · Rich editor · Evernote import (notes, notebooks, tags, attachments, all intact) · Real-time collaboration · Your data, always exportable.
First year is completely free for our first 500 users. No card required. Then $6/mo, no surprises, ever.
— Blagoja, founder
Replies
Really appreciate the honesty and transparency here, @blagoja Blagoja. It’s rare to see a founder lay out the pain points that motivated the build so clearly. The Evernote import and device-unlimited approach are subtle but huge quality-of-life wins that often get overlooked in note taking apps.
Curious how did you balance speed and feature completeness during the soft launch? So often a fast, clean experience gets compromised by trying to do too much too soon.
@onitedesigns Thanks so much, really appreciate that. And great question, it gets to the heart of every early product decision.
Honestly, the answer is ruthless prioritization. The most important question is/was: Does it make notes faster or slower to create and find? If a feature didn't have a clear answer to that, it didn't make the cut for launch.
The Evernote import was non-negotiable from day one. If people can't bring their history with them, nothing else matters. Devices support, same thing. Those aren't features. They're table stakes for anyone switching.
I did add some cool stuff like public note sharing and real-time collaboration, but that came towards the end, once the basics were in.
Everything else, integrations, AI features, is on the roadmap but deliberately not here yet. A fast, clean core experience that works reliably beats a bloated feature set that occasionally impresses you.
The risk I accepted is that some people will try it and say "where's X?" That's fine. I'd rather hear that than ship X and watch the app slow down because of it.
Speed is a feature. It's actually the hardest one to maintain as you grow, which is probably why Evernote lost it.
@blagoja This approach makes so much sense! Prioritizing speed and reliability over feature.
@onitedesigns Exactly. And the hardest part is holding that line as the feature requests pile up, which they already are. That's the real test. 😄 Thanks for the kind words Emmanuel, really appreciate the engagement today.
I wish this had launched four years ago, when I decided to abandon Evernote. It will be interesting to fire up Evernote again and see how the export goes!
@trixolina Ha, you and about a million others. Evernote 2021 was already a different product from the one people fell in love with.
Would love to hear how the export goes, genuinely. If anything comes across broken or missing, tell me directly. That import flow is one of the things I'm most proud of, but real migration data from real users is the only way to know it holds up.
Welcome back to clean note-taking.
the evernote migration being painless is huge honestly. that's the biggest barrier for most people switching note apps, you've got years of stuff in there and nobody wants to spend a weekend cleaning up broken formatting. the no device limits thing is also a great move, locking free users to one device felt like such a cash grab by evernote. how does the rich editor handle things like tables and code blocks?
@mihir_kanzariya You nailed it. Migration anxiety is the silent killer of every note app that tries to take on Evernote. People don't talk about it enough. It's not that they love Evernote, it's that leaving feels expensive. We wanted to make that cost zero.
On the rich editor, code blocks are in, fully supported with syntax highlighting. Tables are on the roadmap and honestly moving up the priority list fast based on how often it comes up. If tables are a dealbreaker for you right now I'd rather be upfront about that than have you find out after migrating.
What's your primary use case, personal notes, technical docs, or something else? Helps me understand how hard to push tables up the list.
@grey_seymour Thank you! Really appreciate the support.
Honest answer, no hard ETA on a native iOS app right now. The PWA was a deliberate first call: faster to ship, works across every device, and for most use cases, the experience is genuinely comparable to native.
It's on the roadmap, and how loud the demand gets from early users like you will directly influence how fast it moves up the list.
If you try the PWA and hit something that feels un-native and frustrating, tell me. That list is exactly how I'll build the case for prioritizing it.
Simple and effective. The essential element done well at a fair price.
Any plans to support dictation / transcription integration?
@d_r8
Thank you. That's exactly what we're going for. Simple done well beats complex done poorly every time.
Dictation and transcription are on the roadmap. No hard date yet. I'd rather be honest about that than overpromise. But the fact that you're asking tells me it's worth prioritizing. Are you thinking voice notes on mobile specifically, or meeting transcription as well?
It’s really refreshing to see user experience as a top priority for Cimanote.
Evernote lost its focus years ago when it decided to optimize for value extraction instead of utility.
I’ve been using (and enjoying) early versions of this app. I’m excited to see what comes next. Keep up the great work!
@dzacarias This comment means more than you know, especially on launch day. Thank you!
You nailed it with "value extraction instead of utility." That's exactly what happened. The moment a product stops asking "how do we make this more useful?" and starts asking "how do we monetize this harder?" you can feel it in every interaction. We're committed to never going down that road.
Having you as an early user has been invaluable, and your feedback has shaped more of what you see today than you probably realize. Excited for what's coming next and grateful you're along for the climb. 🏔️
ValiAssistant
OMG finally, someone fixed all the reasons why I ditched evernote.
This looks so good.
Does it work on Android, IOS, Windows and MacOS?
@ricardo_luiz Ha. That's exactly the reaction we built this for. Welcome home. 🏔️
Yes to all four. Android, iOS, Windows, and macOS. No device limits, ever. It installs directly from the browser as a PWA, so no app store is needed, but it behaves like a native app on all of them. One account, everything in sync.
Would love to hear what your biggest Evernote breaking point was once you tried it.
Interesting space — how do you see Cimanote positioned vs Notion (flexibility) and Apple Notes (simplicity)? Where do you want to win long-term?
@saurabh80 Great question and one I think about a lot.
Notion is a powerful tool but it's become a platform, not a note app. It's incredible for teams building wikis and databases but it's overkill for someone who just wants to capture and find their thoughts fast. The flexibility is also the tax, you spend time configuring Notion instead of using it.
Apple Notes is the opposite. Dead simple, which is why hundreds of millions of people use it. But it's an Apple-only story, and the moment you want to collaborate, share, or do anything beyond basic formatting, you hit a ceiling fast.
Cimanote wants to win the middle. People who outgrew Apple Notes but don't want to become a Notion architect just to take notes. Fast and clean like Apple Notes, capable and cross-platform like Notion, without being either one.
Long term, the win condition is simple: when someone asks "what do you use for notes?" the answer is Cimanote without hesitation. Not because it does everything, but because it does the right things exceptionally well.
That's the mountain worth climbing. 🏔️
I used the early beta and found it useful. It was so easy to share my note with others.
@jesse_anderson Really glad to hear that and thank you for being an early beta user. Your feedback shaped what you see today more than you know.
The public share link was one of those features that felt small on paper but turned out to be one of the most used things in beta. Sometimes the simplest things land the hardest.
What's your main use case? Would love to know how you're using it. 🏔️