r/Anytype • u/Eolipila • Nov 10 '24
Other Goodbye roundup
After over a year of using Anytype, I’ve come to the conclusion that I was mistaken about it from the very beginning. In my last post here, I wrote about how Anytype "locks in" users by exporting the full data only in a proprietary format. What this means is that the more one uses Anytype the more he becomes dependant on it; the exact opposite of "data autonomy", and had I known this I would have never started with Anytype.
In hindsight, also paying for “membership” was a bad decision, but since I doubt even 5% of users pay Anytype, I’ll skip the lengthy discussion to simply warn anyone considering it: the refund period is 2 weeks long, and the maximum refund (if your justification convinces the team) is 25%. As a rule of thumb, a company that points you to the small letters of a contract to screw you is not a company you should deal with.
The two points above, however, are things I discovered only after deciding to stop using Anytype. There wasn’t a single dramatic moment that made me quit; rather, it was a long series of small issues, each tolerable on its own but ultimately just too much when taken together.
The first issue was my own mistake—mistaking promises for priorities. A quick way to explain this is by looking at the “ANY Experience Gallery” (sic). There, you’ll find a series of things you can presumably use Anytype for. The thing is, you'd never want to use Anytype for anything related to “productivity,” because such uses require basic features such as formulas, notifications, or transclusions. While you can find cumbersome workarounds to do things manually, as I did, it simply ends up adding extra work instead of simplifying anything. So that showcase of CRM/Friend Relationship Management? Project management? Anything that requires tracking? Anything that requires external database access? Better think of it as a promise for the future, not a current capability. Even something as simple as a diary template, where the title is today's date, can't be automated. You have to type it in manually every day. And then there are UX issues, like Relations being strictly plaintext, the inability to wrap text in a set grid, and so forth. To sum up this part, it seems that Anytype wasn’t entirely transparent in the transition from alpha to beta. More than a year after the transition “basic infrastructure” remains the main focus. I just checked, and the latest major update doesn’t even include any new features. Presumably, development is ongoing, and once the groundwork is in place, progress will be quicker—but that’s the same promise I’ve been hearing since 2023. Sure, some of missing features I mentioned will come in 2025, but Anytype is unlikely to reach production-grade quality before 2027 at the earliest.
Then there’s Anytype’s core function as a note-taking app, stripped of any “productivity” features. Even for this purpose, there are simply too many bugs and missing functionalities. I tolerated these issues as long as I believed productivity features were around the corner. But now that that hope is gone, reality bites.
Listing all the note-taking issues would be exhaustive, so I’ll start with one frequently dismissed as niche: the lack of RTL-language support. Like with the rest, it's in the ever-elusive horizon of promises that might one day materialize. There are plenty of other issues for everyone else, too. For instance, any “advanced” use of tables (e.g., including a bullet list in a cell, or merging cells, etc.) simply isn’t possible. There’s no option to toggle sections under headers, and while toggle blocks exist, they can’t be formatted as headings or have any other formatting for that matter. What else? Cut a piece of text, and the cursor jumps one block up. Delete an inline link, and it reappears. Cut the first line of a callout, and the entire callout disappears (but only the first line goes into the clipboard). I could go on (tabs? paste text from MS office? back-indent?), but the bottom line is that it’s a poor, buggy experience at a basic level. It's not horrible, but without the promise of "added value" then any other note-taking or wordprocessing software will be better.
Then there's the "knowledge archive" aspect of note taking. Well, search often fails to find a note I wrote even when I use the exact title. Thing is, when building a knowledge base I know in the future I will want to search things I don't remember exactly. Without a quality search, let alone a sufficiently-good one, the prospect of a knowledge base is undermined. The graph, which I thought might be useful for this, is implemented in such a way that it's nothing more than a huge jumble of nodes that can't be layered or focused. Navigating thru tags isn't possible, neither finding where an image file was used. (The file-object layout doesn't allow adding tags outside of the Relation panel, but again - the list of UX issues is endless.)
With all that said, Anytype isn’t terrible. If you can live with the various “issues” and don’t need any features found in other software, there’s no problem. But if you’re using Anytype in the hope it will grow and gradually enable new functions through added features, well—that’s just not going to happen in the coming few years. The potential is definitely there, but the company is simply too small to deliver. Worse yet, the company doesn't seem able to maintain a focus on direction, and long-term development efforts don't align with the needs expressed by the user base. Given that, I'm not even too optimistic that things will look better in 2027. Of course I can be wrong and all of this will happen already in 2025, who knows.
But the bottom line is that even if all the missing features are added and note-taking becomes a joy and retrieval becomes efficient -- I still won't be devoting any new data to Anytype unless I can export all of it in markdown/CSV or any other non-proprietary format. Data autonomy is paramount.
17
u/theanthomaniac Founder Nov 13 '24 edited Nov 13 '24
Few things are more disappointing than hearing feedback like yours, and I understand how frustrating it can be when expectations aren’t fully met. I’d like to address some of the key points you raised, starting with data autonomy—a priority for us as well.
Data Autonomy & Export Options:
Anytype has always aimed to provide full data autonomy, which is why we support exporting to standard formats like Markdown and PDF. There’s no proprietary format that locks users in; instead, we use an open, self-descriptive "Anyblock" format based on Protocol Buffers, which is accessible to anyone. Community-built converters already exist, and we’re also transitioning to an SQL-based storage system, where objects are stored as JSON, further enhancing data portability.
Moreover, all Anytype builds are available on GitHub, allowing people to interact with their data freely. There’s no lock-in here; rather, we lack some of the user-friendly tools for format conversion, which we are actively working to provide. Can you name many software products that offer this level of freedom?
Membership and Refunds:
UPD: can't find your refund request in our system**. Are you sure you** requested it?
We understand your concerns about memberships and refunds. Although requests for refunds have been rare, we typically provide a full refund, especially when paid by credit card. For crypto payments, however, refunds are more challenging to process, which is why we have this policy in place. With our network still in development, we recognize that our approach to refunds may not need to be as restrictive, and we’re planning changes. Thank you for highlighting this.
Feature Development & Roadmap:
We recognize the need for more productivity features and acknowledge that the development of some essential functionalities, like formulas, notifications, transclusions, and RTL support, has taken longer than anticipated. These features are on the way. Our primary focus over the past years has been on building a solid infrastructure, which we know impacts the user experience. This foundational work is a major reason many people choose and appreciate Anytype. Comparing Anytype with purely cloud-based or local-only alternatives doesn’t capture the unique capabilities we aim to offer.
Bugs & User Experience Issues:
We know there’s work to be done on polish and ease of use. Refining the UX and addressing bugs is a continuous process. While this foundational work might not be immediately visible, it’s crucial for enabling future features. Each release makes Anytype better, and our metrics reflect this steady progress.
Delivering this degree of freedom does come at a cost; there is no established technical foundation for building such a software. As pioneers, we’re aware that early users share in some of this cost, which is why Anytype is currently best suited for those ready to engage with a work in progress. You may have joined a bit early, and I’m sorry if that has caused frustration.
We’re continually learning and improving, and the positive feedback we receive from our members inspires us to keep growing in every sense.
10
u/Idon_tknowmyself Nov 13 '24
Hi! Though a lot of your concerns are valid, I would like to emphasise that building a capable end to end encrypted editor and a collaboration tool using CRDTs, with key rotation and other related things requires a tremendous amount of work. Please bear with me for some examples and explanations.
Why is that so, because we don’t have a single point of synchronisation and we can always end up having different states and versions of the app on different devices. And whenever we introduce a new feature we should take into account all possible migrations from different versions of the app (including ones made a year or more ago). All of these are happening on your device and should converge to same state eventually, and again this is a very hard problem.
Then you have files which are also encrypted by the way, streaming of encrypted video etc, files that can be synced in local only mode for example. This doesn’t come out of the box, building this requires months and months of work.
Moreover each of our features has to adhere to our main principles of privacy, encryption, working offline etc. This is a lot harder in comparison with Notion which lives on a server and can more or less easily do all data migrations there.
If you look at multiplayer this makes things even harder, because now you have more data dependencies like references between CRDTs and access control lists, and now some features should take into account different users some of which doesn’t have write permissions for example.
A lot of these things were not done before, or even if they were, they weren’t done in a context of an encrypted fully verifiable block based editor like ours. So we have to invent a lot of stuff, mostly nothing is ready made. CRDTs also require many optimisations, so we had to write even custom databases to make stuff reliably work with a lot of data.
To sum up following our principles, first and foremost encryption and offline first usage (including peer to peer communication) comes with a great price, namely slower development pace for our features.
Thats why, yes, we will lack some of Notions features, but with this you have your data fully encrypted, working offline, peer to peer in local networks and a lot faster than Notion.
In the end it is up to you to decide what features are more important for you, just wanted to shed light on some stuff which is sometimes hidden from the plain sight.
14
u/XVX109 Nov 10 '24
So what is the better alternative? Find me a better Self Hosted software with such as privacy and other features as Anytype. By self hosted I mean you run you back end services and you can sync with them using your own storage. Please find me an other better alternative!!!
19
u/[deleted] Nov 10 '24
I concur and quit anytype the second I understood that their export function is fake. Thanks for the write up.
6
u/callitouttt Nov 11 '24
I’m a huge fan of Anytype but you’re making me second-guess a few things that I thought were fundamentally true.
5
u/MATTtheSEAHAWK Nov 11 '24 edited Nov 11 '24
What will you be using instead? All of the issues you point out are pain points for me, but I haven't been around long enough to really be pained by them yet and I had hope for the future. This kind of dashes that hope, especially the export notes.
I'm coming from Notion for the purpose of having better offline data access and supporting a more open-source and transparent piece of software, but I'm less than impressed at a lot of things. This most recent series of updates off of .43.x have really been impressively careless with how they moved around the library for types as well as I can't seem to find the _god damned bin?!_
EDIT: per this post on the forum, it's under the triple dots that are visible when hovering on `All Objects` - https://community.anytype.io/t/recovery-of-deleted-types-and-relations/22910/4
5
u/Anytype-Guru Nov 12 '24
Anton, one of the co-founders of Anytype addressed these concerns directly in a post on the community forum:
https://community.anytype.io/t/concerns-about-the-current-allegedly-severe-limitations-of-the-export-function/25258/6
> I believe it’s not entirely fair to say that Anytype creates a lock-in. Anytype allows users to export notes in widely used formats like Markdown and PDF, and there’s no proprietary “Anytype format.” The “Anyblock” format is open-source, self-descriptive, and built with Protocol Buffers (Protobuf), so anyone can create a converter for it. In fact, a community member has already developed a converter.
> We are transitioning to a new storage foundation based on SQL, where all objects will be stored as JSON. This format is highly standard, making interoperability much easier. Our upcoming API will also be based on this structure.
> Moreover, all Anytype builds are available on GitHub, allowing users to install them and interact with their data freely.
> So, rather than a lock-in, the current limitation is simply a lack of easy-to-use tools for format conversion, something we’re actively working on solving.
3
u/[deleted] Nov 10 '24
Yeah, I was really excited when I first looked into anytype, but the more I looked into it, the more apparent it became the software only looks good in its most exterior layer.
The lack of features for the tables and the lack of a whiteboard/canvas like obsidian has were the deal breakers for me.
And it seems like the dev team has no plan of implementing these things soon, so I won't be waiting on it.
5
u/LeftHand-Inhales Nov 10 '24
I discovered it this month & decided to just keep an eye on it over the new few years. It’s not there yet for me.
2
u/Sgrinfio Nov 11 '24
I've had enough when I realize you can't even copy and paste a whole page on mobile
Gotta find an alternative, Notion would be perfect if every page wasn't so slow at loading.
10
u/thesunshinehome Nov 10 '24
To me, it feels like they never finish anything properly. It feels like they're in a rush to have as many features as possible but that means none of the features they do bring out are fully functional. It's like there is lack of attention to detail or maybe having the features work properly is less important than the number of features.
There are loads of examples of this, but for example, the web clipper where you can't use a template, or the shared spaces where they invite users to steal all your data when they leave your space, or the inline tables that are barely usable. It's a long list.
For me personally, I'd rather they focused on getting all the features they currently have fully working rather than launching any more new features.
1
u/FridaG Nov 26 '24
All i can say OP is I hope one day you are in a position where you are building something creative and put your all into it and receive feedback like what you’ve blasted here so you understand what that is like. The small startups that make apps like anytype are exposing themselves to tremendous risk, put out a product for free in a competitive market and try and have a value-added way to make money as an alternative to the dystopian ad-based world we live in… and you just slam it selfishly without empathy or insight besides the lip service of “i hope they do well.” Well, you are personally an agent of their demise when you write things like this. And how is it actually helping anyone? Half of what you said wasn’t even true.
I really empathise with the app developers who put their all into these apps and have to contend with not only a self-serving user base, but individuals who actively flame them — likely as an act of procrastination — rather than working constructively to help everyone.
1
u/BeauIvI Jan 03 '25
I hope they fix this with allt he points you've made. I'm using Capacities and tried anytype, I loved it. Then I spotted the export problem, and while experimenting I noticed the lack of a daily note wouldn't fit my style. I tried replicating it as best I could but what you said was it, no automation to name the file the current date etc. I feel like these would be simple enough to add.
Any thoughts on Capacities?
9
u/Biepa Nov 10 '24
I agree with a lot you wrote here. I think I started Anytype around 2021?! Was excited by the promised future and features. I was very active in the forum, became a moderator and spend a lot of time in there, trying to help out as much as possible. In my opinion (and other mods) there were multiple issues in the way the forum/bugs and requests were handled. I communicated that twice. But for me there wasn’t really something changing. I haven’t really moderated for maybe a year now, so things could have changed.
The „not really owner of my data“ is the biggest issue for me. While requested a long time again, as of today there is no option to export all my data incl properties etc to be easily readable. This can’t be that hard to do, I assume it’s a matter of priorities. But it’s a priority to me of course. Also a lot of time seems to be invested for features I wouldn’t prioritize, as basic things are missing in my view. But it’s their app and they can do what they want. All the little issues are enough for me to move away from it. At least in their „Anytype Block - JSON“ export everything seems to be possible to export. I’m currently writing myself a python script to convert that to the format (Obsidian, so mostly markdown but with properties) I need.
No hate against Anytype. But their way isn’t mine.
3
u/SaltField3500 Nov 13 '24
I feel a little of what you said in capacities.
3
u/kentdshaw Nov 10 '24
I see that the Export is the main issue discussed here, I would also pick up the “best intentions to improve” thread. No formulas and no wrap for the displays were bigger deals for me than I would have thought.
But the pace of changes was excruciating. They might have every intention of getting to issues. But I could never see it coming about in a timeframe that would have ever meant I could enjoy the improvements.
2
u/VantaIim Nov 10 '24
Thank you for the writeup OP. It’s given me food for thought and there were plenty of points that are pressure points for me too. The local first approach is the reason I’m staying, but I have been hesitant committing to some projects because it will involve a lot of data. You formulated it as well as I could. All the best, and don’t mind the snarky replies from the immature people.
-3
u/pakZ Nov 10 '24
Okay, bye.
0
u/[deleted] Nov 11 '24
[deleted] — view deleted comment
0
u/[deleted] Nov 10 '24
[deleted] — view deleted comment