[HN Gopher] Show HN: Anytype - local-first, P2P knowledge manage...
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Show HN: Anytype - local-first, P2P knowledge management
Anytype is built on the open-source AnySync protocol: a local-first
protocol based on CRDTs. Users of Anytype can create spaces -
graph-based databases with modular UI. Each space has unique access
rights. Today, Anytype's beta is in single-player mode. Multiplayer
mode, which will support local-first collaboration between multiple
users, will be launched in the first half of 2024. Anytype fulfils
the seven ideals of local first software from here -
https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/ , our team felt these
things are important to all of us: * No spinners: your work at
your fingertips. Anytype keeps the primary copy of each space on
the local device. Data synchronization with other devices happens
quietly in the background - allowing you to operate with your data
at your fingertips. * Your work is not trapped on one device.
Users can easily work on different devices. Each device keeps data
in local storage, synchronisation between devices happens in the
background using CRDTs to resolve conflicts. * The network is
optional. Everything works offline. Data synchronization need not
necessarily go via the Internet: AnySync allows users to sync data
via local WiFi networks. Still, there is a role for the network -
it works as additional backup, helps with peer discovery and
especially solves the closed-laptop problem (you made changes on
laptop, when your phone was offline, the changes can either sync
when both devices are online or via backup node). * Seamless
collaboration with your colleagues. Achieving this goal is one of
the biggest challenges in realizing local-first software, but we
believe with CRDTs it's possible. AnySync supports it & we will
release multiplayer version soon. * The Long Now. Because you have
a local-first application, you can use it on your computer even if
the software author disappears. This is also strengthened by open
data standards and open code. * Security and privacy by default.
AnySync uses end-to-end encryption so that backup nodes store
encrypted data that they cannot read. Conflict resolution happens
on-device. The keys are controlled by users. * You retain ultimate
ownership and control. Users control encryption keys; there is no
central registry of users (we don't ask even your email). We added
an option to self-host your backup to support full autonomy of
users from the network.
Author : sharipova
Score : 109 points
Date : 2023-12-28 16:00 UTC (7 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (anytype.io)
(TXT) w3m dump (anytype.io)
| bosky101 wrote:
| 1) is it accessible via a browser. Your screenshots and download
| section indicates 3 os installers.
|
| 2) I did find docs, wiki on the website. Was that created by the
| same tool?
| pronkin wrote:
| 1) We don't offer a browser version. Instead, we have an
| Electron-based cross-platform app that works on Windows, Linux,
| and macOS. We also have two native mobile apps for iOS and
| Android. Creating a browser version is challenging for us
| because our business logic and local database rely on a
| middleware library written in Go. Currently, the only feasible
| approach is running it in WebAssembly (Wasm). We hope to make a
| browser version available in the future. 2) No. It's not build
| with anytype, as we do not have a web version:)
| CrypticShift wrote:
| Previous (recent) discussion :
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36799548
|
| Commendable breadth in your vision ! but might I suggest going
| more... atomic? As someone who leans towards outlining, your
| "tasks" type caught my attention. Ideally, I wish each block
| could behave like an object in a similar fashion. While
| transforming blocks into objects is possible, it somewhat defeats
| the purpose of an outliner's "bird's eye view."
|
| I also doubt the feasibility of centralizing all your personal
| knowledge in one app; there's a corollary to this. I consistently
| find myself in need of a "merge feature." The larger the database
| becomes, the more crucial this feature is.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| What do you mean by a merge feature?
| CrypticShift wrote:
| I mean that when I import a new CSV, I sometimes want to
| merge its rows with an existing Anytype database objects if
| key columns are identical.
|
| For larger personal databases, I find that I often need to
| clean them up or enrich them with web APIs. Therefore, I will
| export the data, manipulate it elsewhere, and then reimport
| it. This requires the data to be "merged" with the existing
| records in order to preserve the existing IDs, links, and so
| on.
| orthecreedence wrote:
| Thanks for explaining, that's a totally valid use-case.
| pronkin wrote:
| We definitely plan to enable effortless transformation of any
| block into an object, for example, by adding a tag to it or
| simply by mentioning it in another object 'transclusion'.
|
| We also have plans to develop a simpler local API and a local
| AI helper that will be able to assist you with import/export
| tasks in ways you might think of
| orthecreedence wrote:
| I found Anytype a few months ago and thought "wow maybe I can
| ditch Turtl (I am the creator) and just use this."
|
| A few things bugged me about it:
|
| - It's a source-available license.
|
| - You can't share with others (yet) even though they promote this
| as a feature.
|
| - They call it e2e encrypted, but all your data lives unencrypted
| on-disk. In other words, it's encrypted in transit but not at
| rest. Anyone/anything that can read my hard drive can read all my
| private data. For me, that's too big of an attack vector.
|
| That said, I think the interface and utility of the tool are
| amazing. It's kind of like if you mixed Notion with some kind of
| personal database. I really enjoyed using it and the sync between
| my devices worked great...not sure about the p2p aspect since
| they seem to have centralized syncing servers and whatnot, but
| I'm assuming there's the _option_ to go p2p if you really want
| to.
|
| Knowing all this, I'm rebuilding Turtl as a p2p system, Notion-
| like editing, and the same open source license as before =].
| Anytype definitely inspired me. It's a really cool player in this
| space.
| pronkin wrote:
| Thanks for your input.
|
| On the p2p topic: Our protocol is p2p and it's already working
| well in local networks. You can experience the magic yourself:
| install Anytype in local mode, create a space, and fill it with
| some data. Open the mobile app and log in with the same phrase,
| and your data will be synced without any central server,
| immediately! Isn't it magical? The network is needed for
| backups and to solve the closed laptop problem. You can always
| self-host a network. We believe it's important to give people
| the ability to be free from a service provider
|
| On the topic of e2e encryption: All your data in Anytype is
| encrypted at rest; only the indexes of this data (which are
| created and used locally) are not encrypted. We have plans to
| also encrypt the indexes. Currently, we assume that the
| majority of users employ full disk encryption, and if your
| machine is compromised, it is likely that malicious software
| can read memory and, therefore, access the keys. Could you
| please elaborate on the significant vector of attack, so we can
| consider this case?
|
| Regarding the license, we have covered our logic here:
| https://blog.anytype.io/our-open-philosophy/. We are passionate
| about open source, and for some projects, it's the only viable
| option. That's why our AnySync protocol and data format are MIT
| licensed. The clients are currently under a source-available
| license, as we are still exploring ways to make the ANY
| association and contributor ecosystem sustainable. Still
| researching...
|
| Thanks for your kind words towards us and congrats on your
| progress!
| gepeto42 wrote:
| I completely agree with the threat model of "an attacker on
| your machine can get to the keys" but I'd like to add two
| security use cases that makes encrypting indexes valuable:
|
| 1. Off-the-shelf malware exfiltrates data, as seen in ransom
| attacks. I'd feel better if the index was encrypted. It's
| unlikely an attacker would manually spend time trying to find
| the keys in RAM unless your app became very famous :)
|
| 2. Syncing files on a work laptop where IT might snoop.
|
| Obsidian does not encrypt files at all locally, and for that
| reason I would feel quite self-conscious about loading a
| vault with potentially private notes.
|
| Ironically, Obsidian is much better if you only have ONE big
| vault, but because of this, I have to live with 3 vaults
| (different threat models for each).
| hruzgar wrote:
| im not the dev but what you're wanting is completely
| unreasonable. No note application does this and this would
| slow down the application without having any additional
| benefits
| orthecreedence wrote:
| > No note application does this
|
| Yes, the app Turtl (https://turtlapp.com) does do this
| and it's not slow at all really. It only decrypts data
| upon viewing, and immediately re-encrypts when saving
| data. So this is actually entirely reasonable and
| entirely doable. The benefits are that malicious
| applications can't read data just sitting on the hard
| drive, which removes an entire class of attacks. An
| encrypted hd doesn't help you when it's unlocked.
| junipertea wrote:
| How would you search through thousands of notes? Decrypt
| them all in memory, search and encrypt them again? How
| does this scale with attachments?
| apantel wrote:
| I have a private note app that I wrote for personal notes
| to keep them off the cloud.
|
| This is the one problem I don't know how to go about
| solving for tens of thousands of notes.
|
| If anyone has any solutions, please share.
| aaomidi wrote:
| Use GPL so the project can go on longer than the company.
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Does it have the ability to do any sort of spaced repetition? I
| need my knowledge stores to help me retain the things I want to
| retain.
| pronkin wrote:
| I would say at this point it's not made for this. The closest
| thing I saw in anytype atm is this:
| https://gallery.any.coop/?experience=language_flashcards
| unshavedyak wrote:
| Oh, but it does look like Plugins are possible then?
|
| I'm looking into this now[1], though i'm having trouble
| understanding how. Maybe those are official plugins?
|
| [1]: https://doc.anytype.io/anytype-docs/community/join-the-
| open-...
| LunarAurora wrote:
| look at https://www.remnote.com/ . AFAIK it is the king of
| "spaced repetition" [1] note apps.
|
| [1] https://help.remnote.com/en/articles/6022755-basics-of-
| space...
| rubymamis wrote:
| Anytype is extremely slow and a resource hog, similar to its
| other Electron counterparts, as can be seen on a benchmark I
| did.[1]
|
| I'm developing Plume[1] which has a similar advanced block editor
| but since it's built with Qt C++ and QML, is very performant
| (more so than comparable native apps!).
|
| EDIT: Some work in progress: https://imgur.com/a/LwitrHe
|
| [1] https://www.get-plume.com/
| CrypticShift wrote:
| What sets Anytype apart as a local player is its notion-style
| databases, and I believe it is unique in that respect.
|
| If the outlining experience is good enough (drag/drop,
| collapse...), I will definitely try Plume for "light/fast"
| note-taking.
| rubymamis wrote:
| I've decided to depart from the complexity of databases.
| Instead, Plume is going to be more opinionated and simple. It
| will support Kanban boards, tables, columns, images and other
| complex block types, but the data won't be separated into
| different "databases". Essentially, each note in Plume is a
| simple markdown/plaintext file.
|
| Drag and drop and collapsible blocks will be supported for
| sure, so sign up for the wait list and check it out upon its
| release (:
| pronkin wrote:
| I wouldn't say it's extremely slow. While benchmarks can be
| useful, they often don't align with real-world experiences.
| What exactly are you comparing? Is it just rendering time? Have
| you considered a user's workflow, which might involve
| navigating through several pages or objects? In reality, we've
| attracted many users because they find 'Notion' to be slow, and
| many appreciate the speed of Anytype. Based on this, I believe
| it's not fair to give Anytype the same rating as Notion in your
| diagram. Also, I would assign a higher rating to Bear and
| Craft; their desktop apps are faster since they are native.
|
| There is significant room for improvement, and we're already
| steps ahead in this area with our native mobile clients that
| sync peer-to-peer. Try our Android app and see for yourself. I
| hope that within the next three years, we'll excel with native
| desktop applications as well.
|
| The value proposition of Plume looks good; I've left my email.
| rubymamis wrote:
| Hi! If you click on the "More details" button, you'll see the
| following table[1].
|
| Here's the methodology (also available on the website):
|
| 1. Loading time: Fully loads the entire text and ready to
| scroll.
|
| 2. Memory use after load: Memory used by the app after
| loading the text.
|
| 3. Scroll jump: How fast the app scrolls when dragging the
| scrollbar to a far position.
|
| 4. Resize: How fast the app resizes after scrolling to the
| middle of the text.
|
| 5. Select all: How fast the app is at multiple operations:
| Select all text, cut, paste, undo, redo.
|
| 6. Editing: How fast the app is at typing at the middle of
| the text?
|
| 7. Memory use second time: Memory usage after doing all the
| above operations multiple times.
|
| 8. Binary size: Binary size of the app.
|
| 9. Cross-platform: Can the app run on Windows, Linux and
| macOS?
|
| I think these are very fair benchmarks. And objectively
| speaking, both Bear and Craft didn't perform well (well,
| Craft couldn't load the text since it has a limit on the
| amount of paragraphs it can load).
|
| EDIT: Just noticed you signed up! Thanks for that! BTW, I did
| try Anytype's iOS app and it was very smooth compared to the
| web/Electron one.
|
| [1] https://imgur.com/vEfV7Iq
| hruzgar wrote:
| do you also have vim support? This is crucial for me
| rubymamis wrote:
| I'm sorry, I've never used vim. What does vim support
| inside a block editor means?
| avtar wrote:
| I'm guessing, at the very least, vim cursor movement as
| described here:
|
| https://vim.rtorr.com/
| rubymamis wrote:
| If that's what OP meant, then no. Plume will support the
| basic keyboard shortcuts expected from a text editor, and
| then some more. My previous note-taking app[1] is already
| very keyboard oriented, and I intend to do the same with
| Plume.
|
| EDIT: Just noticed that most of the "Cursor movements"
| already have equivalent standard keyboard shortcuts in
| regular text editors.
|
| [1] https://www.get-notes.com/
| jelsisi wrote:
| This looks like a beautiful product, but why are there so many
| note taking apps? It seems like way too much energy is being put
| into this space.
| sharipova wrote:
| While note-taking is cool and is one of the main use cases that
| anytype is used for today, we don't place ourselves into the
| note-taking category. What we are building is a local first
| superapp (don't like this word, but can't find a better analog)
| - anytype aims to give powers of a flexible interface (a graph
| data-base with modular UI) and collaboration and communication
| capabilities based on local-first ideals. The aim is for users
| to build their own software from building blocks while this
| software is local first (not cloud). Also, we expect our
| community to contribute new data types, new plugins and new
| views. What is released needs to show what is possible.
| echelon wrote:
| > Also, we expect our community to contribute new data types,
| new plugins and new views.
|
| This could be powerful if executed correctly.
|
| I'm hoping that the runtime and schema/language will be open
| and interoperable and not a part of your proprietary portion.
| I understand your need to make money and grow, however.
|
| I wish y'all the best of luck!
| sharipova wrote:
| thank you for the words of support!
| csbartus wrote:
| Finally, a well designed product site !!!
|
| This space (Notion & co) is extremely crowded. If a player
| invests heavily into UX, from the start, that signals they are in
| the long run. Confident, at least.
|
| Subscribed to the newsletter and wishing the best for the company
| to deliver good news.
| 2color wrote:
| As someone who's been active in the IPFS community, it's really
| exciting to see how Anytype uses content addressing to manage and
| sync data under the hood
| (https://github.com/orgs/anyproto/discussions/15).
|
| I think the fact that local-first P2P apps cannot be built
| directly on the web is a shame, some of the building blocks, like
| WebRTC are there, but browsers still lack some APIs to allow for
| more bottom-up innovation and experimentation with new protocols
| in the browser.
| diggan wrote:
| TLDR for others: Anytype is using IPLD (https://ipld.io/),
| which is a project that came out of IPFS, but Anytype doesn't
| use IPFS itself (nor libp2p, or multiformats).
|
| Seemingly they felt it was necessary to write their own network
| layer and more as stable identifiers and logic for merging
| documents was too complicated to put on top of IPFS:
|
| > We also considered using IPFS, but its approach to content
| identifiers didn't meet our use cases. While IPFS could address
| our requirements for hybrid networking, it uses CID to describe
| documents, and this CID changes with each modification.
| However, we need documents to have stable identifiers for
| linking and other purposes.
|
| > Creating stable identifiers and implementing logic to merge
| different document states on top of IPFS would be too complex,
| so we chose a straightforward approach.
|
| Not sure I understand correctly. They found the data model of
| IPFS not good enough, so they ended up using the data model
| provided by IPFS in the form of IPLD, but the things they
| weren't against (the networking layer) were the things they
| wrote themselves?
|
| Surely I must misunderstand something here.
| dboreham wrote:
| IPLD and IPFS aren't the same thing. In fact the deployed
| IPFS doesn't use IPLD. Think of IPLD as akin to protocol
| buffers or GraphQL Schema or JSON schema or JSON-LD. It deals
| with encoding and representing pointers/links, not
| networking.
| pronkin wrote:
| I'll try to clarify: For syncing objects (anytype native data
| structure), we use IPLD in conjunction with our own
| networking layer. For file synchronization, however, we opt
| for IPFS without libp2p, since a faster method is necessary
| to improve the user experience. This strategy ensures our
| file storage is compatible with the public IPFS network and
| incentive-based storage networks like Filecoin and Arweave.
| Additionally, it provides a significantly faster experience
| for our users now. This approach works much better for cases
| when you have many small files ( what often the case in pkm
| and communication).
| dboreham wrote:
| You could make a chromium fork with the server-required
| measures disabled but so far nobody has succeeded in finding a
| business model to fund that long term.
| mosselman wrote:
| All your communication could be stronger if you flip it around
| and start with why: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=u4ZoJKF_VuA
|
| Apart from that I am so excited to try it this holiday
| mkl wrote:
| The screenshots seem to disable zooming on mobile. Please don't
| do that.
|
| Unfortunately the usage restrictions of the non-open-source
| licence make it a no-go for me. Can't use it for anything that
| could potentially facilitate "any transaction of economic value",
| which removes most of the utility of such an app.
| pronkin wrote:
| Thanks for the feedback about the screenshots! We'll get that
| fixed.
|
| The license is somewhat vague. Essentially, it means you can
| use the software as a tool for your revenue-generating
| business. You have the option to use it for free if you self-
| host. Alternatively, you can choose a paid membership in our
| network, which eliminates the need for you to handle
| maintenance. The license specifically restricts selling the
| software to others without ANY coop consent.
| limandoc wrote:
| I am working on a very similar app but focusing specifically on
| the knowledge diagramming aspect of it - basically like a
| drawio/miro/mural but offline first and with extensive support
| for markdown or LaTeX. My target groups are PhDs and researchers
| although any "system builder" will find it helpful to build
| diagrams with documentation and file support. I am at a very
| early stage now - building the UI part; in the future, I plan to
| make it truly p2p with elements of Obsidian Canvas.
|
| [1]
| https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1lOIfGaXKbymw7fQXjwBh...
| xrd wrote:
| At Strange Loop this year, there was a local first unconference
| the day after. I got introduced to odd.sdk and dxos. Those are
| also worth looking at. Exciting things happening in this space.
| pronkin wrote:
| odd.sdk is stellar for Web based apps, great team behind!
| als0 wrote:
| Love the design on this site and very much welcome the return of
| serif fonts.
| monkeydust wrote:
| Tried it.
|
| It's polished so well done and the p2p / e2e aspects are novel
| but it's too heavy and complex for what I need a bit like
| Obsidian.
|
| I personally find a lot of these note taking apps relish in the
| act of note taking itself and lose the purpose of the note
| itself, which for me, is to drive forward intent.
|
| With that in mind I have started to play with Heynote from recent
| HN post a few days ago
| (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38733968).
|
| Its pitched as a scratchpad for devs, for me it's like notepad on
| steroids and more suited to my needs where notes are transitory
| things I store to help me get from A to B to C...
| thecupisblue wrote:
| Got the same feeling - this is designed for people who turn
| taking notes into a _thing_ in itself. The productivity nerds.
| Linking their notes, categorising, organising, diligently
| making sure their knowledge base is up to date.
|
| And that is the complete opposite of how I use notes - as
| notes. Just a place to write stuff down and get back to it
| later.
|
| Wish there was an app that organises them for you - instead of
| me having to do all the work - but it seems like all these
| "superproductive knowledge base gigachad note-taking apps" are
| made to waste more time on "productivity" procrastination of
| setting things up instead of actual "lets help the user" part.
|
| Edit:
|
| Also, if someone from Anytype is reading this - can you have a
| "clear space" button or something? After creating my Personal
| space, it is filled with "tutorial" stuff. I don't want it. I
| don't need it. It's distracting and completely killing the vibe
| that instead of using the app as I want, first I have to delete
| all your pre-defined tutorial stuff, one by one.
| aced123 wrote:
| I personally use logseq for this. And just use # tags to
| store something to a "page" like #books #business #health and
| so on and I just write in my daily journal or whatever it is
| called and it is then linked to the page by the tag. So I
| don't have folders or files to work with. I just write in my
| daily journal and give it hashtags. You can go to the
| hashtags or search for whatever you want. You also can put
| multiple hashtags on to one outline. You can also query for
| different stuff like this hashtag and this word or something
| like this. It is open source. So you might want to give it a
| try. It can also store PDFs, images and so on. Its actually
| super nice.
| pronkin wrote:
| Thank you for the input! If you're looking for a clean space,
| you can easily create a new one by clicking on your profile
| icon in the panel at the bottom. It will contain only a few
| sets. You can always delete spaces that are no longer needed.
|
| If you need a simple notepad, there are better tools out
| there. Anytype is more suitable if you're looking to create
| something like a database or knowledge base, not just a list
| of notes.
|
| The next year we are working on simplifying the user
| experience and introducing multiplayer+communication
| adhamsalama wrote:
| Try SiYuan Note. It's like a mix of Notion and Obsidian, but
| open source and local-first.
| pronkin wrote:
| Thank you for taking the time!
|
| Yes, we are aware that there is a steep learning curve before
| you reach the point where you feel it's worthwhile. It's
| absolutely true that if you need a tool solely for note-taking,
| Anytype might not be the best option. We envision Anytype as a
| tool for knowledge management and communication (we're
| launching multiplayer early next year). One of our biggest
| internal projects is to simplify the user experience. With each
| new release
| dang wrote:
| Related:
|
| _Anytype Desktop 0.37.0 Released_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38772317 - Dec 2023 (1
| comment)
|
| _Anytype - local-first, P2P Notion alternative_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36799548 - July 2023 (273
| comments)
|
| _Anytype. FOSS Notion Alternative_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34167322 - Dec 2022 (7
| comments)
|
| _Anytype: A local, privacy-first Notion alternative_ -
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31542354 - May 2022 (41
| comments)
|
| _Show HN: Anytype - an offline-first private alternative to
| Notion_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24921137 - Oct
| 2020 (12 comments)
|
| _Show HN: Anytype - self-hosted open-source operating
| environment_ - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21983381 -
| Jan 2020 (32 comments)
| epoch_100 wrote:
| I use Anytype and like it. I do hope they'll invest more time
| into the editing experience -- there are a few sharp edges that
| will probably alienate people coming from more mainstream tools
| like Google Docs and Notion:
|
| - Typography is a bit weird, especially with headings; there is
| very little line height on headings, leading to cramped
| documents.
|
| - Bullet points look weird when you look closely at them. (On
| Mac, they're not perfectly circular; perhaps an aliasing issue.)
|
| - Can only use cmd+b and cmd+i for bold and italic when selecting
| text; can't use them to switch on/off boldness on the cursor.
|
| - Can't specify type when creating a new object with the @ symbol
| inline (Capacities, a related tool, does).
|
| - Bullet points flicker when you first create them.
|
| - Linking inserts a space even when you don't want it, as does
| formatting using markdown characters (e.g., providing the closing
| ** in italics.)
|
| - Relatedly: Entering closing markdown characters (e.g., the
| second **) does not end the formatting effect (the cursor should
| not have the formatting applied after they're entered, but it
| does).
|
| Anytype is overall a fairly polished app. I hope they'll iron out
| these editing issues -- when they do, it'll really be
| exceptional.
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(page generated 2023-12-28 23:00 UTC)