Anytype
Shares rank 20 of 33 note-taking apps by recommenders
Recommended as a private, end-to-end encrypted, peer-to-peer alternative to Notion for personal notes and linking. Critics find it slow and its data format opaque.
Recommended as a private, end-to-end encrypted, peer-to-peer alternative to Notion for personal notes and linking. Critics find it slow and its data format opaque.
17 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 7
- approval share
- 59%
Recommended in 6 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.4 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 6 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Notion-like alternative that is open and private
“Open source and private notion alternative built on a really cool e2e encrypted and p2p protocol”
Comment from 10 May 2026 in “Notion or Obsidian or Apple Notes?” “AnyType has a lot of functionality similar to Notion”
Comment from 24 Nov 2025 in “I built a faster Notion in Rust”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Slow, janky or gimmicky performance
“Real cost is on the product side: no server-side AI over your notes, no server-side full-text search, slower cold-start”
Comment from 20 Apr 2026 in “Notion leaks email addresses of all editors of any public page” “Craft, AnyType, etc are janky, gimmicky or slow.”
Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Building a Markdown editor for Mac, iOS and web” “Craft, AnyType, etc are janky, gimmicky or slow”
Comment from 27 Sep 2026 in “Show HN: Building a Markdown editor for Mac, iOS and web”
Other note-taking apps people recommend
The four most recommended other note-taking apps, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 33 note-taking apps, rankedWhat people said
12 of the 18 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Craft, AnyType, etc are janky, gimmicky or slow”
“Craft, AnyType, etc are janky, gimmicky or slow.”
“For me, anytype and the everything is public”
“it was rather spartan in its offerings”
“Open source and private notion alternative built on a really cool e2e encrypted and p2p protocol”
“Real cost is on the product side: no server-side AI over your notes, no server-side full-text search, slower cold-start”
“Anytype is a well-made product, but its data format is somewhat opaque”
“it's source-available, not open source”
“take a look at the move function in the mobile app”
“The part about linking multiple posts together is something I swear by for personal writing & note-taking on Anytype.”
“I don't particularly enjoy AnyType, despite coming back to it a few times to test it out”
“AnyType has a lot of functionality similar to Notion”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.