Evergreen vs spreadsheets, Notion, and Airtable

01

Head to head

Google Sheets and Excel

The spreadsheet is the default "CRM" for most people. It is free, flexible, and familiar, 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, so tracking when you last called someone, what you discussed, and what you promised means a second sheet and manual cross-referencing. There is no smart search: "show me everyone I haven't talked to in 30 days" is a formula, and a fragile one. There are no follow-ups with due dates tied to a specific person. And on your phone, a spreadsheet is still a spreadsheet.

Evergreen gives you all of that natively: interaction timelines, search tokens, Markdown notes, follow-ups, and Claude reading your CRM through MCP, in native apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.

Notion CRM templates

You can build anything in Notion, including a CRM. Popular templates give you a contacts database with properties, views, and relations, and if you already live in Notion the appeal is obvious.

The problem is that you end up maintaining infrastructure instead of relationships. Every new capability is another database and another relation. Want to track meetings? New database. Want reminders? Another database, probably with a formula property. Your "CRM" becomes a system you have to debug and re-explain to yourself after two weeks away. Notion is also cloud-first, so your contacts live in your Notion account on their servers.

Evergreen is purpose-built. Install it and start adding people, with no template configuration and no database relations. There is no Evergreen account. Your data is on your device, and if you want it on all three devices it mirrors through your own iCloud rather than through us.

Airtable

Airtable sits between a spreadsheet and a database, with a polished interface, views, automations, and an API. For teams building internal tools, it is genuinely powerful software.

But Airtable is cloud-only and priced per seat, and it is a general-purpose database rather than a contact manager. You get views and automations, not relationship timelines, follow-up reminders, or a network graph.

Evergreen runs on your own devices, stores your contacts there instead of in an account, and is built specifically for relationship management.

02

When to use what

And it comes with you. The iPhone app is where you log the conversation while you are still standing in the lobby.

03

What Evergreen adds over a spreadsheet

• Interaction timeline. Log meetings, calls, emails, DMs, and notes per contact, with 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, on the Mac.
• Markdown notes. Rich notes with autosave on each contact.
• Follow-ups. Next actions with due dates, tied to specific people.
• Agent access via MCP. Claude reads and writes your contacts directly on your Mac, with every agent action logged.
• In your pocket. Native iPhone and iPad apps to search, add and edit contacts, log conversations, and check off follow-ups.
• No account system. Nothing to sign up for and no server of ours holding your contacts.