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 | Keep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Capture and save | |||
| Browser extension | Web Clipper (Chrome, Firefox, Safari) | Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge | Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Brave |
| Mobile apps | iOS, Android | iOS, Android | |
| Save from email | Forwarding address | Unique save-by-email address | Forward to in.keep.md |
| Save tweets | |||
| Save YouTube videos | URL only | With transcripts | |
| Save GitHub stars | |||
| Save PDFs | Premium | Converted to markdown | |
| Save files (docs, spreadsheets) | Attachments | Word, Excel, CSV, HTML, OpenDocument | |
| Save audio files | Voice memos | With Whisper transcription | |
| Save via API | |||
| Auto-sync sources | |||
| RSS auto-sync | |||
| YouTube channel sync | |||
| X bookmarks sync | Auto-sync on paid plans; manual import from extension export on free | ||
| GitHub stars sync | |||
| Newsletter inbox sync | Partial | Forward-to-save, not a dedicated inbox | |
| Library and reading | |||
| Reader view | Partial | ||
| Offline reading | Partial | ||
| Full-text search | Premium | ||
| Semantic / AI search | |||
| Highlights | Partial | Highlight from the extension or from inside the reader, with optional notes; renders inline | |
| Notes | |||
| Tags | |||
| Collections | Notebooks + Spaces | Folders | |
| Public sharing | Partial | ||
| Full-text RSS extraction | |||
| AI and agents | |||
| Markdown export for AI agents | Per-item .md URL | ||
| Bulk markdown export | |||
| MCP server | |||
| CLI tool | keep-markdown npm package | ||
| Claude Code skill | |||
| AI summaries | AI Rewrite, AI Meeting Notes, Advanced+ | AI summary and AI tagging on every saved article | |
| Public API | |||
| Import and export | |||
| OPML import / export | Import from and export to any OPML-compatible reader | ||
| Pocket import | ZIP, CSV, and legacy HTML exports | ||
| Instapaper import | CSV export with folders, archive, and starred state | ||
| CSV / JSON export | ENEX | HTML + CSV | Export to CSV or JSON. Import plain CSV/TSV plus Omnivore, Raindrop.io, Pinboard, and Wallabag export files. |
| Send to Kindle | Premium | EPUB delivered to your Kindle email | |
| Import Kindle highlights | From My Clippings.txt, no Amazon login required |
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.
Free
Unlimited links, browser extension, API/CLI/MCP, RSS feeds, YouTube subscriptions, and free imports from bookmark export files.
Plus
500 full-content items per cycle, X bookmarks, email inbox, GitHub sync, uploads, and AI features.
Pro
1,000 full-content items per cycle, everything in Plus.
Max
5,000 full-content items per cycle, everything in Pro.
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.