236
Reviews explicitly about exporting, migrating or switching away — the highest migration intent measured anywhere in the study.
By the numbers
50%
Of Evernote's App Store reviews are one to three stars. Notion 42%, Obsidian 33%.
How this was measured
Reviews rated one to three stars were collected from the Apple App Store across four English storefronts and from Google Play, deduplicated by review ID. Apps were selected for having a real paid tier, so every complaint comes from someone who had already paid.
Each review was tagged against a 23-theme complaint taxonomy using pattern matching on its title and body. Percentages are computed only over substantive reviews — 60 characters or more — because a review reading “Terrible” carries a rating but no diagnosable complaint and would otherwise deflate every rate.
A market already in motion
Most niches in this study describe unhappy customers who stay. This one describes customers actively leaving, and naming where they went. Evernote moved users from $79 to $119 and announced further increases; the reviews read like an evacuation. The migration is happening with or without a better product — the only question is whether anyone makes the exit painless.
“Reached my limit with their scamming BS. Cancelled. Migrated to UpNote.”
Evernote · 1★ · 89 votes
“They're automatically switching everyone on my paid plan to a plan that's $150 more expensive a year. Automatically.”
Evernote · 2★ · 62 votes
“They have locked me out unless I pay. So now I have all my info locked.”
Evernote · 3★ · 27 votes
“AMAZING productivity tool but needs an offline mode desperately.”
Notion · 3★ · 41 votes
Complaint themes
| Theme | Share |
|---|---|
| Reliability — crash, freeze | 16.3% |
| Missing feature | 14.9% |
| Ads & upsell pressure | 7.6% |
| Complexity / onboarding | 5.6% |
| Notifications | 5.5% |
| Performance | 4.9% |
| Price & value | 4.0% |
| Platform parity | 3.6% |
Dissatisfaction by app
Share of App Store reviews rated one to three stars.
| App | 1–3★ share | Reviews |
|---|---|---|
| Evernote | 50% | 400 |
| Notion | 42% | 500 |
| Obsidian | 33% | 336 |
| Todoist | 27% | 700 |
| Bear | 27% | 503 |
| Things 3 | 25% | 682 |
What this study cannot tell you
Unmatched reviews
41% of substantive reviews were not matched by the taxonomy — idiosyncratic one-off narratives. The miss rate is roughly uniform across apps, so comparisons hold, but every percentage here is a floor rather than a true rate.
Whose voice this is
App store reviews over-represent the daily user. Buyers complain on G2, Capterra and in churn calls; those sources block automated collection and are not represented.
No recency weighting
A complaint from 2021 counts the same as one from last week. Some cited failures may already be fixed.
Uneven store coverage
Some apps are iOS-only in practice, so their low-star share is computed from Apple data alone.
We're building against this data
Carryover — A notes app built around migration and ownership — lossless import from Evernote and Notion including attachments and internal links, local-first plain files, and a price committed to in writing. The waitlist is on the home page.