Dec 9: Simplicity of Notion x Power of Roam Research in a forever free app? Yes, please! 🥳

Anytype is a privacy-first note-taking app. A personal knowledge base, a digital brain 🧠 that allows you to quickly capture, describe, and connect information.

A. The Problem and The Pitch

How do you take notes? ✍️

Do you love writing in a notebook? Or do you do it digitally in Evernote or Notion?

What if you had connected notes in a Notion-like format? Which were privacy-first? ♥️

...just like Tiago asked for, a year ago 👇

Tiago Forte made a wish. The best of many (note-taking) worlds!

Note-taking apps have flourished in 2020 & 2021. But which one fits Tiago's wish? 👆

Well, Anytype comes closest to the dream!

It works like your brain 🧠 does. And is privacy-first! User-owned and user-run.

The Anytype home screen. One place for all your stuff - personal and professional. Navigate folders intuitively, capture notes like in Notion, and save (almost) any filetype.

Anytype is a personal knowledge base, a digital brain that allows you to quickly capture, describe, and connect information. In a Notion-like interface. You can use Anytype to create books, tasks, notes, ideas, documents, tools and organize them any way you want.

Note: It is still in closed alpha stage. I was onboarded on Oct 28; at the time they had 1000+ early users. They're onboarding ~700 users each month now. Public beta coming in 2022.

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B. What's special?

As of writing, Anytype has 30,000+ people following it on Product Hunt Upcoming alone (That's a big deal because other launches generally have only a couple thousand).

They've been building the product with their community for ~2 years now. Here are a few key factors that differentiate it from others in the 'connected notes' space:

1. 😌 Easy to use: Simple, intuitive interface. You'll feel right at home if you've used Notion.

   

   Yes, this is a screen recording from Anytype. Not Notion. [Source: Anytype]

2. 🤝 Collaborative: Just like Notion. Slightly technical: It’s built on IPFS, a peer-to-peer network similar to BitTorrent where all files hosted by the nodes of the network are freely, anonymously, and efficiently accessible as long as you have its 'passcode'.

   

   Collaborate seamlessly. As you do in Notion. But fast and private.

3. 🧬 Connected: Everything in Anytype is an object: people, books, musicians, documents, ideas, places, numbers, or files. And every object is connected. (Why is this helpful? Check this piece on bi-directional linking and what it means for your knowledge)

   

   Your objects combine to form a unique knowledge graph. You can switch between views easily: From a graph-view like this one to a Notion-like editor view.

4. 🥳 Always free & open-source with the public release

5. 🤫 Privacy: Your data is stored on your devices and encrypted with a keychain phrase. The keychain phrase (aka password) is something only you know. And no one can access what you have stored. Not even Anytype.

6. 📱Mobile App: Although they're in closed alpha, they already have an iPhone app (phased rollout taking place)

   

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C. What's more?

1. ⚖️ You might have a question: How do you compare Mem v/s Anytype? Mem is more 'integrated' with its Spotlight feature. Whereas Anytype's key value proposition is its privacy-first approach. More details in 2022 in this newsletter as they both release more features.

   Dec 2: Don't just take notes but also refer back to all your knowledge. Blazing fast.

2. 💸 How do you think Anytype will monetize over the long term?

We think some percentage of users will need a backup. While some technical users will configure something for themselves, for others it will be more convenient just to pay for backup from Anytype.
And we will never sell ads. It's against our principles - long term advertising business model makes more harm than good and misaligns developers' and users' interests. ~Zhanna (Founder; source)

3. ✅ Yes, you can import directly from Notion to Anytype.

4. 🔁 What is bi-directional linking?

5. 🎙️ Here is Anytype’s founder, Zhanna, speaking at Techcrunch Disrupt in 2020

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D. What’s next in the 🗓️ App Advent Calendar?

🗓️ Dec 10: Superpower your planning

📬 Dec 11: All messages in one place (No more switching across Twitter, iMessage, WhatsApp, LinkedIn, and whatnot)

🤖 Dec 12: Build powerful apps without code (The no-code revolution is here; even our main website top30.app is made with no-code!)