Compare Evernote and Instapaper side by side on features, pricing, and the workflows each one is designed for.
Your second brain: capture notes, clip web pages, and find anything in seconds.
Free, paid from $8.25/mo
A classic read-later app with clean text extraction and distraction-free reading.
Free, paid from $5.99/mo
Here's how Evernote and Instapaper compare across the features people actually look for. They share 10 core capabilities; the differences show up in what each tool focuses on.
| Feature | Evernote | Instapaper |
|---|---|---|
| Capture and save | ||
| Browser extension | Web Clipper (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) | Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge |
| Mobile apps | iOS, Android | iOS, Android |
| Save from email | Forwarding address | Unique save-by-email address |
| Save tweets | ||
| Save YouTube videos | URL only | |
| Save GitHub stars | ||
| Save PDFs | Premium | |
| Save files (docs, spreadsheets) | Attachments | |
| Save audio files | Voice memos | |
| Save via API | ||
| Auto-sync sources | ||
| RSS auto-sync | ||
| YouTube channel sync | ||
| X bookmarks sync | ||
| GitHub stars sync | ||
| Newsletter inbox sync | Partial | Forward-to-save, not a dedicated inbox |
| Library and reading | ||
| Reader view | Partial | |
| Offline reading | ||
| Full-text search | Premium | |
| Semantic / AI search | ||
| Highlights | Partial | |
| Notes | ||
| Tags | ||
| Collections | Notebooks + Spaces | Folders |
| Public sharing | ||
| Full-text RSS extraction | ||
| AI and agents | ||
| Markdown export for AI agents | ||
| Bulk markdown export | ||
| MCP server | ||
| CLI tool | ||
| Claude Code skill | ||
| AI summaries | AI Rewrite, AI Meeting Notes, Advanced+ | |
| Public API | ||
| Import and export | ||
| OPML import / export | ||
| Pocket import | ||
| Instapaper import | ||
| CSV / JSON export | ENEX | HTML + CSV |
| Send to Kindle | Premium |
Evernote is free, paid from $8.25/mo and Instapaper is free, paid from $5.99/mo. The tier that fits best usually comes down to how many items you save each month.
Free
50 notes, 1 notebook, 5 spaces, 20 tags, 1 device, 1 GB storage.
Starter
1,000 notes, 20 notebooks, 10 spaces, 100 tags, 3 devices, 5 GB storage.
Advanced
Unlimited notes, notebooks, spaces, tags, devices, and storage. All AI features.
Enterprise
Team collaboration, admin controls. Custom pricing.
Free
Unlimited saves, folders, tags, sync across web/iOS/Android, API access.
Premium
Full-text search, permanent archive, PDF reader, unlimited notes, Kindle send, AI voices, speed reading, ad-free.
Both tools do their category well, but the specifics differ. Here's what each one is good at and where it tends to fall short.
Evernote is the grandfather of note-taking apps and the inventor of the modern Web Clipper. After Bending Spoons acquired it in 2022, the product was rebuilt, repriced, and refocused on a more AI-forward direction. The current plans are Free (50 notes total), Starter ($8.25/mo or $99/yr), Advanced ($14.17/mo or $249.99/yr), and Enterprise. Advanced includes the full AI suite: AI Transcribe, AI Rewrite, AI Text-to-Speech, AI Meeting Notes, AI Diagrams, and AI Detector. The Web Clipper still saves full page context (not just links) and is the feature that pulls read-later workflows into Evernote's orbit.
Instapaper is one of the original read-later apps, still going strong after Betaworks took it back from Pinterest in 2020. The product has always been sharp on one thing: save a web page, read it later in a clean typographic view. Free tier gets you unlimited saves, folders, tags, sync across iOS/Android/web, and a public API. Premium at $5.99/mo or $59.99/yr layers on full-text search, permanent archive, PDF reader, Kindle send, AI voices, and speed reading. Most of the product has shipped in a long tail of small updates rather than big reinventions. The recent wave added tags across every platform, highlights on the open web via the browser extensions, and send-to-Kindle right from the extension.