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Any Known Alternatives to DEVONthink for Linux or Windows?
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Posted by Witty-Euphemisms
Jul 3, 2018 at 05:52 PM
I emailed the developers of DEVONthink and they said they don’t see a point in developing DEVONthink for either Linux or Windows platforms, which is very disappointing. To date, I have found similar software but none that are “easy to learn”, “aesthetically pleasing”, or still actively developed. To be honest, I really like the concept of Water-Ship Planner but I don’t think it’s maintained and is arguably priced too high. I am not opposed to spending money but one needs to be able to trust in the developers that the product will live on. All 32 products listed are great and have tried but in my opinion are not as clean cut and streamlined like DEVONThink.
Has anyone come across a viable alternative to DEVONThink for Linux and/or Windows?
0 Water-Ship Planner
1 Treegonizer
2 MindJet MindManager
3 MindView
4 myBase
5 Notecase Pro
6 Thinking Rock
7 Standard Note
8 Joplin
9 Cylix
10 Dynalist
11 MyTetra
12 AllMyNotes Organizer
13 Outwiker
14 TreeDB Notes
15 Knowte
16 Info Base
17 Thinking Rock
18 SortingThoughts
19 UltraRecall
20 ZuluPad
21 Xoot XT
22 MyNoteX
23 Personal KnowBase
24 KnowFox
25 SimpleNote
26 QBase
27 Inspire-Writer
28 TreeNotes
29 TagSpaces
30 WikidPad
31 TheBrain
Posted by satis
Jul 3, 2018 at 08:08 PM
What specific functions from DEVONthink are you looking to replicate on Windows/Linux? The Pro version offers so many disparate features, from bookmarking to document/mail archiving to pdf import/reading, to scanning/OCR, to note & document creation. The first step is clearly articulating what are you looking for… and what are you willing to forgo.
There are lots of alternatives that work on Windows/web to do many of the same things, albeit in different ways. Alternatives include Evernote Premium, MyInfo, ZenKit, or one of the many, many Wiki systems. Features vary, and prices range from free to $100/yr. Some of those offer web access/sync, but the DEVONthink iOS app has become a pretty nifty partner to the Mac app that most Windows alternatives can’t quite duplicate.
As-new refurb Macbooks (with 1-yr warranty) start at Apple.com at $1100 (and little desktop Mac minis for $420, if you have your own monitor/keyboard/mouse), so if the software is sufficiently (in)valuable to you, the hardware cost could be reasonably factored in… especially if there’s no Windows alternative you like ... and more so if the option is something like Evernote/ZenKit at 80-$100/year.
Posted by Chris Thompson
Jul 3, 2018 at 08:09 PM
There isn’t, unfortunately—I wish there was. One app that’s not on your list that is “kind of” close to DevonThink is Lucion’s FileCenter Professional. You might want to look at it—if you don’t use the automated document classification features of DevonThink, then it might meet your needs. But for me the ability to intelligently classify to multiple locations in an existing taxonomy is kind of the main reason to DevonThink is useful.
Another option is to keep an old Mac around in a closet to host DevonThink and then access it from Windows or Linux through DevonThink Pro’s web interface. It does a pretty good job of simulating the native interface.
—Chris
Posted by Chris Thompson
Jul 3, 2018 at 09:23 PM
Another alternative you might consider is Zotero. It’s billed as an academic reference manager, but it allows much the same style of organization as DevonThink, including both one-to-many logical topic hierarchies and document-specific tags. (As a bonus, version 4 also can sometimes be installed on locked-down corporate networks if your IT admin has greenlit some old versions of Firefox.) It also supports children of documents, which DevonThink doesn’t. However, still no automatic classification.
—Chris
Posted by Listerene
Jul 4, 2018 at 11:08 PM
Here are a bunch of alternatives not on your list https://alternativeto.net/software/devonthink/