Favored "bucket" app - DEVONthink v. Keep-It vs. EagleFiler etc

Posted by Dellu
Jul 5, 2018 at 09:59 PM

I had been asking the same question for the last couple of days.

Generally, Devonthink is more potent than EagleFiler. Unless you are up to the price, I see no reason to choose eagleFiler over Devonthink.

(I compared EAgleFiler with Devonthink years ago: didn’t check back to EF recent: so, I could have an old info—apologies for that)

For me, the choice is between Devonthink and Keepit.
(and, also Tinderbox and Scrivener): note that Scrivener can do many of the things Devonthink and KeepIt can do especially using the Folder syncing feature. TB can also do much more; except the transparent syncing to Finder)

Devonthink is clearly more powerful thank Keepit. I personally find some nuggets that make KeepIt more valuable for writing notes than Devonthink.

1) The Compact Mood: this mood makes KI capable of floating over other applicants. This is a very useful feature to take notes while reading pdf file.
2) True transparency: Devonthink can index. But, the notes you create in Devonthink are always stored in the database. There is no way of storing your note when jotting with the Sorter. KeepIt, on the other hand, directly stores the note in RTF format on any of the selected Finder folders. This is an extremely useful feature because jotting in KeepIt live syncs with the Scrivener or any other tool that can use the Finder.

3) Markdown support is also better: but, personally, I don’t care about this because I am an RTF guy.

I find the true transparency of KI very useful. I am using KeepIt more often than Devonthink.

Unfortunately, I am still not able to completely eliminate Devonthink. One reason, I already have a license. Second reason: I use it to sync to Evernote for reading my clippings offline. I also use it to push some of my notes to and from Tinderbox.

But, I am not going to buy the next release, especially if they are not going to fix the flawed Proximity search. For now, I occasionally open it. I am moving towards KeepIt.
(I am also considering to eliminate Tinderbox from my workflow; Tinderbox’s XML is has been a pain for searching the database with-outside tools such as Spotlight and Foxtrot. Tinderbox is a sort island. )