I have nothing but praise for the Anytype team. Their dedication and the progress they’ve made are truly commendable. I believe it’s simply a matter of re-evaluating priorities to address these key areas, and Anytype could undoubtedly claim its place at the top.
After months of extensive research and testing over 30 applications, Anytype has emerged as one of the best, standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Notion, Capacities, Obsidian, Affine, and even OneNote. I’ve thoroughly evaluated the core functionalities and value propositions of each. In my opinion, only a few key issues prevent Anytype from claiming the top spot:
Limited Free Storage: The 1GB storage limit on the free plan is a significant drawback. Most competitors, including Loop (which many users dislike), offer more generous free storage.
Missing Table of Contents:A true table of contents feature is standard in most competing applications and is sorely missed in Anytype.
No Word Count: While not a dealbreaker for everyone, the absence of a word count feature puts Anytype behind apps like Capacities and Affine.
No Mobile Media Player: For professionals across various fields, a native media player in the mobile app is crucial. Capacities excels in this area, and Anytype’s current offering falls short.
These “core major things” are far more critical than less-used features like handwriting, which is often sloppy and slow.
Finally, I believe Anytype should fully abandon support for older versions. You’re not Microsoft; there’s no need to cling to outdated iterations when a superior new version is available.
t’s also worth noting that there’s nothing wrong with drawing inspiration from apps making a significant impact in the PKM space. After all, they’re likely keeping an eye on the competition too!
I just want to point out that it’s easier to allow for more storage when you spy your users lol (or just offset your costs to other products for user retention)
Both for monetization and for banning misuse.
I’ve opened the Google doc and I disagree with a lot of votes. One that stands out is giving anytype 10 for offline mode like other apps while those apps don’t have local net without internet access sync.
Or giving Notion the best UI vote…
P.S. to be fair, also having a 10 to anytype publish it’s too much eheh
I think what everyone’s opinion is on what a “core” issue is is different. The “table of contents” and “word count” items you mentioned are not at all on the list of things I care about. There’s a table of contents object that works just fine for me. I probably would never use a word count. Mobile media player would be helpful, but not really a deal breaker for me.
In terms of the 1GB limit (which is now 100MB for new users) is understandable imo. Storage is expensive. Giving everyone 1GB means they can only add 1000 new users per 1TB. That’s not a lot and storage can get expensive fast (you can also self host if you want unlimited storage).
@krst idk if I replied or not that’s why ping lol
I’ve tried self-hosting Affine using Docker and found it quite interesting, especially considering that the server isn’t (Foss). According to their official Docker Compose documentation, the setup process is a lot more straightforward and convenient than Anytype’s server—no need to build components manually, which is great since
made those steps offline to avoid needing internet access, which was tricky but it worked.
One letdown is the mobile app situation. It’s been years and there’s still no release. They’ve set up a waitlist for the app, but it’s still in alpha and I’ve never received an invite, despite signing up. I did come across their Android app source on GitHub and tried to build it myself, but had no luck getting it to work..
As for the web app, it’s a bit underwhelming since there’s no offline mode, meaning you can only use it when the selfhosted server is online. The desktop app does work, but if you want the Flatpak version, it’s only available on GitHub.
getting Affine to work via Docker is indeed pretty simple as there isn’t much to it.
the problem I also have with affine is their tracking behaviour and that you can’t disable the demo workspace. I guess also Anytype tracks pretty much everything and knows about all the self hosting setups and IPs around the globe but if I selfhost I don’t want others to know about my instance.
With Anytype at least no one can do much with it as one needs the key file. But with affine - if your instance is open to the public you are vulnerable to DDOS attacks and upload traffic stealing. when a browser connects to the server the whole web app gets downloaded with all the assets and the demo workspace. and because telemetry is enabled by default Affine becomes a notification about everything.
If they have a backdoor (server is not FOSS) they already know your workspace, your pages, your IP, a token - idk.
And the data is not encrypted at all. If they can connect to the database somehow it’s all open to them. On their servers they can read everything, like Notion or Evernote can.
In the beginning they made a claim that they encrypt - but they abandoned that idea very soon while the website still had some kind of claim that it still is “some sort of” encrypted without any details. By now all those claims are gone of course.
Man I threw in with Anytype early. I somewhat let it be and wanted to come back later in development. It’s interesting you bringing up Affine. I’m excited about the Anytype API and how quickly they can flesh it out. I always assume which has a pretext of assumption of ignorance on my part–that the upside or running with a small, tight crew is that you can make moves quicker and have a tighter connection with community leaders in your channels or forums. Notion has to answer to board members. I don’t think Obsidian does yet…
