Enthusiasm fades and worries grow 🗳️ Poll

Talk
1

I hope that this statement will somehow, lead to a renewed sense of hope.

  • You took a long time to modify the infrastructure to provide greater stability and functionality, but months after the emergence of AnySync, data store, search engine, etc., the pace of development remains frustratingly slow, and the roadmap continues to face delays.

  • The forthcoming primitive update brings a number of welcome additions, such as the unification of properties by type, but removes the essence of templates, which will lose their ability to have distinct layouts and properties.
    Inheriting properties from their types is very welcome, but limiting the customizations that were previously possible — and on which many users have built their usage and data — risks undermining users data and established workflows and should therefore be reconsidered.
    The lack of response to the questions and concerns raised over the past month about it is also a concern, which I’ll address next.

  • The frequent radio silence on many topics and the complete absence of official responses to issues dating back several years reflect a broader neglect of communication. This is not only harmful to the entire community but also shows a clear lack of respect for those who follow, contribute to, and dedicate their time to this project. The forum is filled with users who bring brilliant ideas and they truly deserve better.

Anyteam, what do you have to say about that?

Anonymous poll:
Do you have the same feeling, questions and expectations.

  • I do
  • Somehow
  • I don’t
0 voters
2

I don’t.
But might as well explain this vote too :grin:.

I’ve already expressed my opinion and criticized certain points.

So to sum up…

  • The current update was announced as a major one, and the interface part is only a small part of the evolution (the tip of the iceberg). So yes, I’m waiting for the stuff announced for 2024, but I believe in this core overhaul. It’s supposed to facilitate subsequent developments to meet our needs. And they’re announcing a lot of plans for the future. In short, I can’t wait, I’m angry that I don’t already have all this, but I understand and I’m patient.
    And you can see them working (never had so many commits and versions… even on weekends). It’s a big job!

  • These primitives “save” many users and “disgust” others. I bet there’ll be adjustments to find compromises (and if you’ve been following along, there’s already been quite a few, so they’re keeping up).
    Since it’s clearly partial, my opinion doesn’t matter. Good luck to the team in finding the right adjustments.

  • As for communication, I agree that it’s always been a little tight. But they’re there all the same (see the post about them being more absent than before). In addition, the community is increasingly active, demanding and impatient. Even in complaints, we see more and more that no “must-have” is the neighbor’s. That said, yes, a community manager in charge of answering all the FRs and other questions would be great. And energy-consuming, but that’s the risk of an open forum.
    Have you thought about counting bugs or resolved requests too? There are lots of them… don’t see the glass as half empty!
    As a bug detective… some days we get up to 10 new requests or bugs. Just checking for duplicates is so time-consuming (and too often it is, so thank you all for doing your part to facilitate this much-needed communication). And then you have to test the bugs. And finally, to answer…
    So +1 on communication to be improved yes, I’d like to. But by understanding the situation and that choices have to be made.

3

Thanks for the thoughtful (and clearly heartfelt) message. We don’t take this kind of feedback lightly — even if we can’t always respond in the moment.

Now, to the core of it: we know development may feel slow on your end, especially compared to the boom-and-bust speed of some cloud platforms. But what we’re building sits at the edge of tech — deeply integrated infra, sync layers, real-time logic, a modular architecture that actually works. It’s not the kind of thing you slap together and ship overnight. If you check our GitHub, you’ll see our team’s output isn’t just consistent — it’s kind of insane.

Yes, some changes down the road will limit prior flexibilities. That’s part of evolving a product: balancing legacy use cases with a future that scales better for everyone. But we’re listening. We adapt based on what we hear — even if it’s not always immediate, or visible in the forum thread you posted in.

On the topic of responses — we wish we could personally reply to every question. But unless we clone our team or hire a battalion of product managers, it’s simply not doable right now. We focus most of our direct conversations on implementation and high-priority feedback. And yes — if you’re on a co-creator plan, you’ll definitely hear from us. You’re helping fuel the engine, so we’re knocking on your door (figuratively, for now).

We’re not ignoring the rest. Priorities are just… priorities. We discuss what matters most now — not what might matter a year from now. That said, your input helps shape those priorities, so don’t stop.

We know it’s frustrating not to feel heard all the time. Just know that harm isn’t the intent, even if silence sometimes fills the gap where a reply should be.

Thanks for sticking with us. We’ll try to do better.

4

I voted for “I don’t” because every user has their own priorities and this can easily depart from the ones the creators have, who try to align with the community as a whole and with what’s the best strategy for the product in their opinion. They have a lot on their plate right now (and probably always had with all the major shifts and changes in the past). There are regular updates, major developments.
We all want and need something different and need to decide right now if it’s a product we want to use. I went all in about 1,5 years ago and it was a fun ride. I learned a lot about what I personally need from an application like this. Right now I more or less wait and see what comes out of the primitives update and I hope they can stabilize the platform as a whole while also working on UI and UX improvements.
I’m still very excited what will come out of it in a year or so.

5

I will be honest. I voted for somewhat.

I am torn between the role of a simple user, and the role of bug detective or tester..

As a user, the current Anytype is not catching up to what I need for my note-taking needs.. many of the needs are very basic e.g. date objects and Time..

  • With patience, I wait while I search for good alternatives and if those go good enough, my enthusiasm on Anytype implementation is reduced.. e.g. Handwritten notes: I decided to go back to physical paper and it works well and eventually I would have adopted a new lifestyle, then even if Anytype implements it, I might not do a lot of such function..
  • Some of the recent updates are good but they just closely miss the important thing for a good workflow..
  • As an advocate of relation, the only strong reason other than encryption which empowered the decision to use Anytype before actual launch was definitely relation. Seeing relation is going to be changed, starting from primitive, my enthusiasm reduces.. I can now only hope the temporary depreciation of relation would bring an actual understanding of the current implementation of relation which might later support more features on relation.

As a bug detective and as a tester though, I can see team is working so hard on the many stuff, trying to balance the different needs for different users.. Especially seeing how Anytype is having structural changes every update, I believe team hasn’t got enough appreciation..

  • I also miss seeing team’s faces.. we are having less town halls in 2024 and now 2025..
6

I also voted somewhat worried.

While I applaud the team and the immense effort they are putting into Anytype and I really love where things are (very slowly) going I don’t use it yet.

My biggest issue or worry if you can say it like that, is the constant changes being made every year/update on all fronts. From design to vision, from features to reworks. It has gone from a solo note taking app that promised an offline notion-like tool to something that now seems to want to be a teams/discord compatitor. They go from adding sets to suddenly adding multiplayer/chat while sets are far from feature complete.

My second worry is that almost every new feature is released in a MVP state (minimal viable product) or the first version. Which works but often laks from being truly compatitive compared to the same features in other apps. Yet, I haven’t seen a version 2 for any of the bigger features that have been promised each and every time.

So I can’t get a grip on where the app is going and therefor I cannot commit my time or data to it. Simply because I don’t know if this is the app that will work for my needs in the future.

To compare, Upnote, Notesnook, Evernote and Obsidian (all on my radar) all have a clear goal/vision what they are and want to be and that is very subjective but I don’t have that same feeling with Anytype which saddens me.

Again, I really like the idea of Anytype, the potential and the team behind it.

7

This perfectly reflects my feelings too.
I too felt anytype had so much potential. And then I started to use it daily. And quickly discovered that the myriad of features missing was seriously handicapping my ability to use it daily.

Coupled that with the data structure evolving, data exports in bad shape…and mainly as you said that features are constantly shipped in the minimal viable state…it just made me realize that although anytype might get there, it will still be a long while. Also seeing efforts put into things like multiplayer when basics are not finished yet gives you the impression that AT team’s priorities is not the same as many of the users.

All in all, after 3 months I went back to obsidian. It was a steep learning curve with obsidian - mainly because I really like customizing it to my needs - but the product is now gorgeous and precisely tuned to how I work and I absolutely love it. I also love knowing in obsidian that everything is in .md files to start off, properties are in yaml - and that’s it! I know there won’t be data disruption. They have the layers really nicely separated.

Cheers

8

It’s almost funny to see the cyclic “Anytype is doomed” posts popping once on a while… and I feel there is always a big difference between the tech -savvy guys just obsessed with the next update or implementation of their personal roadmap and those who « just » use Anytype daily, which is my case for work and personal life.

Since I started using the app, I haven’t felt that development is slow, quite the contrary, updates have been constant, maybe not exactly what I wanted but constant.

I perceive the upcoming primitive version as a big step forward, maybe not once again for those who want to customize as much as they want but for a more mainstream adaptation with a much more rational system.

Yes I think the team’s communication is sometimes a bit dry compared to other tech forums I follow but I never had an unanswered question here. However that the fact that Anytype is very committed to privacy and confidentiality seems to attract some very politically engaged users with intentions and expressions that are quite blunt, which I imagine can be difficult for a moderation team to manage (in addition to be a real turn off for average users like me.)

Finally, I also have my own personal roadmap for Anytype, which I consider to be much more important than anyone else’s, even the developers (sarcasm intended). But regardless of that, and the fact that I share a some @Jeroen feelings about this sense of uncertainty regarding the direction and vision that the team has for the application, the app is already a workhorse for me on a daily basis, and I’m thankful for all the work done by the team.

Edit: typos

9

Thanks for sharing your thoughts—they resonate more than you might think.

To clarify, there was never an intention to build Anytype as a single-player app. We’ve tried to communicate that from early on, even if the experience didn’t always reflect it. It just took us three years to finally ship the first version of collaboration—because no one’s done it quite like this before. You own your data. It syncs peer-to-peer. That takes time, and a lot of new thinking.

You’re absolutely right that many features have launched in MVP form. That’s not an oversight, it’s a conscious choice. We ship early so we can uncover bugs, gather feedback, and sketch out what this product could become—before committing years to something that might miss the mark.

It’s a different approach from the standard playbook, which usually says: pick one niche, nail it, and expand. We’ve chosen a more artistic path. Like painting—first, there’s a sketch. Then you add form, structure, body. It’s raw at first. But with every iteration, it gets closer to something that might one day be… a masterpiece.

Is that the right way? Honestly, we ask ourselves that often—especially when we read feedback like yours, which is fair and valuable. Sometimes we wonder: should we start over and do it the “normal” way?

But then we look at our screens. We read messages from people who do see the promise, even in this rough sketch. And that gives us the energy to keep going.

It’s tough when we’re compared to cloud-based tools that are easier to build, easier to polish. Sometimes we wonder if people still care about digital freedom. But we care. Deeply.

So thank you—for caring enough to share this. Your message made us feel seen, and yes, a little sad too. But mostly, it reminded us why we’re building this.

Thanks for being here and witnessing the sketch become something more.

10

Really appreciate your perspective—it’s a good reminder that while the loudest voices often focus on what’s missing, there are plenty of people actually using Anytype every day and seeing real value. I agree: development has been consistent, even if it doesn’t always match our personal roadmaps. And I’m also hopeful that primitives will bring more structure and clarity going forward.

Thanks for sharing this—balanced takes like yours help ground the conversation.

11

As a very new Anytype user, I’d like to share my thoughts. After trying out the app a bit and reading in the forum, I’m very enthusiastic.

I’m a longtime Craft user. Craft added structured data to pages last year, but after a promising beta, they ultimately did it in a way that deeply disappointed me.

At first, I found the Anytype relations and templates quite confusing. So I think that for me and other new users the new properties concept is a huge improvement.

From what I saw and read so far, I think that the Any team is on the right path and that they really care deeply. And although Anytype yet lacks many features I used in Craft, it’s so flexible that I find workarounds for most things.

So I’ve decided to move all my data from Craft to Anytype. I love the sketch and I’m here to see the masterpiece evolve.

12

I’m with you @Elias, for every super negative or super positive comment, there are many Anytype users who will never comment and are fine using the app as is.

I still have mixed feelings when new updates come out. I get annoyed with revising my workflows, but excited that there is a better UI or a new feature. So far, nothing has been a deal-breaker that I would stop using the app.

@anton thanks for explaining the “artistic path” that the team has chosen. It takes a lot of passion and confidence to do things differently from the mainstream. I just hope this masterpiece doesn’t take a lifetime to complete!

13

Thank you @Curie. We hope too, soon we’ll see

14

@anton Thank you so much for this detailed reply to my “worries” and this reply is one of many examples why I really appriciate you and the team behind Anytype. There is a reason why I am still engaged after 3 years (give or take) with Anytype and the community :wink: eventhough the app is not there for me yet to make it my daily driver.

I also would like to say that the words “worries” and “issue” is a bit to strong to explain how I feel but I could not find another word. I tried to be as constructive as possible in my post so I hope you take it as constructive and not negative.

I do think that many users like myself have no understanding how innovative and new the tech behind Anytype is. How new, complex and innovative it is compared to a simpler cloud based app. At least, I didn’t realize that. Same with the vision and direction, I didn’t realize years ago that multiplayer would be a focus for Anytype. So my expectation was not in line which is (or was) a big part of my “worry”.

Again, thank you for the reply!

15

My two cents:

  • When trying a new software, you have access to all of its feature, even if those took years of work. This gives a false sense of immediacy.
  • Adding features gets increasingly harder as time goes on.
  • Don’t jump on-board if you don’t think the product exceeded your MVP.
  • Priorities varies from people to people, as already stated. Plus, it’s pretty obvious that the company has to be viable at some point, meaning features that some are willing to pay for.

For those reasons, I avoid being resentful when feeling frustrated. Not meaning I’m not, as I certainly am sometimes.

What I believe could help is releasing more often. Pace is slowing I believe, we’re around three times a year. And I get why:

  • Shipping is costly (it should not, but it always is), with QA and all.
  • Some changes require heavy-lifting on the whole chain (back, front, infrastructure, …), which takes time.

Yet, I believe increasing pace would help. One thing that could be considered is to have two value streams. One for big changes, one for UX/UI adjustments.