About DEVONthink
DEVONthink is a proprietary document and information manager from DEVONtechnologies for macOS and iOS. It is meant to be the one place for all of a user's documents on a Mac: users gather material of any type, sort it, and link items together to build their own web of information, working alone or in a team across Macs, iPads and iPhones.
DEVONthink 4 adds a refreshed interface, an AI chat assistant, a web interface, support for generative AI models in workflows, revision-proof databases for financial documents, new automation actions and triggers, and automatic versioning. The company also makes companion apps, including DEVONthink To Go for iOS, DEVONagent for web search and DEVONsphere Express.
It handles texts, PDFs, websites, images, emails and spreadsheets and is used in schools, editorial offices, law firms and medical practices. DEVONthink is sold in editions with an upgrade path, and pricing is on the vendor's website. It runs on your own devices rather than as a hosted service.
Key features
- Collects documents of any kind
- Linking items into a web of information
- AI chat assistant and AI-assisted search
- Automation actions and triggers
- Automatic versioning of documents
- iOS app and web interface
Good fit for
- →Managing research and reference libraries
- →Law firms and practices organizing documents
- →Archiving PDFs, emails and web pages
- Tags
- document-management
- research
- macos
- ai-search
- automation
- note-taking
DEVONthink: questions and answers
- What is DEVONthink used for?
- DEVONthink is a document and research manager for Mac, iPhone and iPad that stores, organizes and links files of any kind, with AI-assisted search. It is a good fit for managing research and reference libraries; law firms and practices organizing documents; and archiving PDFs, emails and web pages.
- How much does DEVONthink cost?
- Paid plans for DEVONthink start at $99 as a one-time payment, and there is no free plan.
- Is DEVONthink open source?
- No. DEVONthink is proprietary (closed-source) software. Open-source alternatives to DEVONthink include SiYuan, Trilium Notes and Anytype.
- What are some alternatives to DEVONthink?
- DEVONthink competes with Evernote, Obsidian and Craft. For open-source options, see Enlisted's ranked list of open-source DEVONthink alternatives.
Open-source alternatives to DEVONthink
See all
SiYuan
Note Taking
思源笔记 - 隐私优先的个人知识管理系统,支持 Markdown 排版、块级引用和双向链接
AGPL-3.0vs Notion★ 47k
Trilium Notes
Note Taking
Trilium Notes is an open-source note-taking and personal knowledge base app that runs loca
AGPL-3.0vs Evernote★ 38k
Anytype
Note Taking
Official Anytype client for MacOS, Linux, and Windows
OSSvs Notion★ 8.9k
Zotero
Productivity
Zotero is a free, easy-to-use tool to help you collect, organize, annotate, cite, and shar
OSSvs Readwise★ 15k
Eclaire
AI Tools
Local-first, open-source AI assistant for your data. Unify tasks, notes, docs, photos, and
MITvs Mem★ 922
TagSpaces
Productivity
TagSpaces is an offline, open source, document manager with tagging support
AGPL-3.0vs DEVONthink★ 5.3k
SaaS alternatives to DEVONthink
See all
Evernote
Note Taking
Evernote is a note-taking app for capturing notes, documents and web clippings and keeping them organized and searchable across devices.
SaaS
Obsidian
Note Taking
Obsidian is a free, flexible note-taking app for private notes, with plugins, linked notes and optional paid Sync and Publish services.
SaaS
Craft
Note Taking
Visually polished document and notes app with nested pages and sharing
SaaS
Notion
Note Taking
Notion is an AI-enabled workspace for notes, docs, wikis and projects, with agents, meeting notes and search across connected apps.
SaaS
Agenda
Note Taking
Date-focused notes app that links notes to calendar events and projects
SaaS
Apple Notes
Note Taking
Built-in Apple notes app with folders, checklists, document scanning and iCloud sync
SaaS

