DevonThink alternative?

Posted by Gary Carson
Aug 25, 2010 at 05:29 PM

The main problem I found with using Personal Brain as a PIM is that it can’t handle large quantities of text in the notes. If you create a few dozen thoughts with lots of text in the notes, the Brain slows to a crawl. I tried using the Pro version this way once and the thing choked after I’d added about 50 thoughts.

Personally, I can’t find a use for the Brain. It’s too big and complicated to use for simple brainstorming (something lightweight like Freemind is better for that) and it’s not robust enough to use for storing a lot of text information. So at this point I can’t find any use for it. I bought the Pro version several years ago, but I probably won’t upgrade to the new version 6.

I guess it’s main use would be to create huge interconnected webs of small snippets of information.

OneNote is the best PIM available for Windows, in my opinion. It has a great web capture capability. You don’t have to have the application open to make quick notes. You can use it to create traditional outlines (very ergonomic) and it can handle huge quantities of text and graphics with no loss of performance. Plus it has the advantage of being a Microsoft product (one of their best if you ask me), so it’s not likely to vanish into the Outliner graveyard in a year or two.