Evergreen vs Spreadsheets

Google Sheets / Excel

The spreadsheet is the default "CRM" for most individuals. Free, flexible, familiar. You already know how to use it, and you can be tracking contacts in under a minute. For a small network, a spreadsheet genuinely works.

But spreadsheets hit a wall fast. There is no interaction timeline -- you would need a separate sheet and manual cross-referencing to track when you last called someone, what you discussed, and what you promised to follow up on. There is no smart search. You cannot type tag:investor org:acme touched:<30d and instantly filter your network. Saying "show me everyone I haven't talked to in 30 days" requires a formula, and a fragile one at that. You cannot attach markdown notes to a row. There is no concept of action items with due dates tied to specific contacts. And AI integration? You would need the Sheets API, custom code, and a lot of glue. Evergreen gives you all of this natively -- interaction timelines, smart search tokens, markdown notes, action items, and Claude integration through MCP -- in a native macOS app that costs $9.99 once.

Notion CRM Templates

Notion is the Swiss Army knife of productivity tools -- you can build anything in it, including a CRM. Popular templates give you a contacts database with properties, views, and relations. The Notion community has published dozens of CRM templates, some quite sophisticated. If you already live in Notion, the appeal is obvious: everything in one workspace.

The problem is that you are maintaining infrastructure, not managing relationships. Every new feature -- interaction logging, follow-up reminders, tag-based filtering -- requires building another database and configuring relations between them. Want to track meetings? New database, new relation. Want follow-up reminders? Another database, another relation, maybe a formula property. Your "CRM" becomes a system you have to maintain, debug, and explain to yourself when you come back to it after two weeks away. Notion is also cloud-first -- your contacts live on their servers, subject to their terms of service and their uptime. And there is no MCP integration for AI access to your data. Evergreen is purpose-built: install it and start adding contacts. No template configuration, no database relations, no Notion expertise required. Your data stays in SQLite on your Mac.

Airtable

Airtable sits between a spreadsheet and a database. It is more structured than Google Sheets, more flexible than a traditional CRM, and has a polished interface with views, automations, and an API. For teams building internal tools, Airtable is genuinely powerful software.

But Airtable is cloud-only with per-seat pricing -- $20 per month for Pro, and the free tier limits you to 1,000 records per base. It is a general-purpose database tool, not a contact manager. You get views and automations but not smart search tokens, network visualization, or AI integration through MCP. You cannot ask Claude "who should I follow up with this week?" and have it query your Airtable base through a standard protocol. Evergreen is $9.99 once, runs locally, stores everything in SQLite, and is designed specifically for relationship management. No monthly bill, no per-seat pricing, no cloud dependency.

When spreadsheets make sense: If you have 20 contacts and need basic tracking, a spreadsheet works fine. Do not over-engineer it. A simple Google Sheet with name, email, company, and last-contacted date is perfectly adequate for a small network.

When Evergreen makes sense: When you hit 100+ contacts, need interaction history, want AI-powered queries, or care about privacy. The transition from spreadsheet to Evergreen takes five minutes -- you already know the mental model, you just need better tooling. Evergreen is the tool you graduate to when your spreadsheet stops scaling.

• Interaction timeline: Log meetings, calls, emails, and DMs per contact -- no manual cross-referencing
• Smart search: Filter with tokens like tag:investor org:acme touched:<30d has:notes
• Network visualization: See relationship clusters and how contacts connect to organizations
• Markdown notes: Rich notes with autosave attached to each contact
• Action items: Due dates and follow-ups tied to specific contacts
• AI integration via MCP: Claude reads and writes your contacts directly -- ask "who haven't I emailed in 30 days?" and get real answers
• Keyboard-driven: Global search with ⌘K and instant filtering
• One-time $9.99: Local SQLite, no accounts, no subscriptions, no data leaving your Mac

Get Evergreen on the Mac App Store