Anytype.io

Posted by Nomatica
Jun 29, 2023 at 07:36 PM

I was curious if there had been any discussion of anytype https://anytype.io/ and found this thread which is from Sept 2022. Interested in people’s thoughts and experiences. Also interested in experienced crimpers here sharing their feedback with the anytype team who are quite open. I am not involved with the company, but I am pretty interested and hope they are successful even if it does not turn out to be the perfect tool for me. There needs to be more open source platforms like this.

Anytype looks pretty interesting as an application and also philosophically. Unlike many other platforms which I look at as mainly tools, Anytype’s broader philosophy is attractive to me here. I like open source. I like transparency. I want privacy and security. I really like it when those things are core building principles with a group of developers. In this situation, these principles are driving the Anytype team to not only create a PKM/KMS app but also a larger platform for communities to publish information and collaborate together in a decentralized way.

There is already a pretty active user base and community open to user feedback and where people are showcasing how they are using the software (I will include some links below). It is somewhat difficult to figure out what issues are from previous alpha releases and what are new issues. It recently entered Beta and then shortly after that an updated android app was released. Installers exist for Mac, Windows, Linux, IOS, and Android) No web app, in order to handle local encryption/decryption on the device and to avoid other issues browsers have. Syncing is done with E2E encryption via a new P2P protocol IPFS. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/InterPlanetary_File_System
The are doing staged development and their roadmap is interesting. The first stage is the “operating system for life” a local first application geared for the individual, the second stage is broadening the community collaboration and the 3rd stage focuses on scaling larger to collectives and associations.

It still is in early development, so there are still features missing. Most notably a calendar system and a web clipper, but both are in the works. Also, while local first, current Alpha/Beta users sign in and use Anytype’s backup node servers. In the future users will be able to selfhost their own backup nod, or use an alternative backup node when their devices are not all on the same local network. There is some talk about making this easier for individuals who are not tech savvy, but there are still some questions.

The cost to us the software locally, on your devices and with your own bandwidth will be free, but it looks like there will be costs to use their backup node, but those costs have not been released yet. There is also an idea of having some sort of cooperative where people’s contributions are taken into consideration but again, this has not been released.

While there is a learning curve, what I have liked is that there are built in options that help you figure out how you might want to set it up as shown here: https://youtu.be/KtV3L0Wrgew?t=146

Documentation is pretty good already:
https://doc.anytype.io/d/

I have been impressed with the graph view:
https://imgur.com/a/bF0Ca0d

Interesting User Showcases on the forum:

Anytype - 0.32.3 -> Fusion of Notion & Obsidian into one System
https://community.anytype.io/t/anytype-0-32-3-fusion-of-notion-obsidian-into-one-system/9628

Picture thread: Sets, Relations, Types, and Templates
https://community.anytype.io/t/picture-thread-sets-relations-types-and-templates/1507/3

My Anytype setup for fans of environment/bg art (incl. resource links)
https://community.anytype.io/t/my-anytype-setup-for-fans-of-environment-bg-art-incl-resource-links/2772

Anytype: The Best Offline Alternative to Notion (alpha release):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pIWsKwEqG00

Anytype Beta Tour! New UI, widgets, and Kansan Board! (New Beta release)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_BjafCXLaU

Anytype Instructional Videos (not sure what release)
https://vimeo.com/teamanytype

Philosophy
https://blog.anytype.io/our-open-philosophy/
Product hunt (not sure of when these reviews are from)
https://www.producthunt.com/products/anytype/reviews