🗓️ Top 30 Apps for 2022
Operating system for life: Anytype

Operating system for life: Anytype

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

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

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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.
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.

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

#2 🤝 Collaborative: Just like Notion. Slightly technical: Its built on IPFS, a peer-to-peer network similar to BitTorrent where all files hosted by the nodes of 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.
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.
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 featue. Whereas Anytype's key value proposition is its privacy-first approach. More details in 2022 in this newsletter as they both release more features.
  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?

D. What's next?

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