Capacities the Obsidian Replacement? | IT'S CLOSE!

[@curtisrobinson1529]

Extremely helpful content. I appreciate the organization and thoroughness.

[@antoneheyward]

Glad it was helpful!

[@steveouellette8344]

Thanks Antone. I've been thinking about looking at Capacities and as usual, your well balanced, comprehensive overview has been very helpful! Keep up the good work!

[@antoneheyward]

Glad it was helpful. I do try to add value and provide feedback that others might not.

[@KoishiteAkuma90]

Hope you do! You're gonna love it. I love the easy way you can use it and how intuitive it is compared to other note taking apps.

[@farzadmf]

I think one HUGE advantage of Obsidian is the local markdown files, and from what I've seen, the other note taking/PKM apps don't have

[@antoneheyward]

I'd have to agree. There's soo much power in having direct access to my files.

[@joemoss5138]

​@antoneheyward Ah so that was my first question

[@KoishiteAkuma90]

Not sure about markdown in Capacities, however Capacities is now local on your devices. It was a request from the community that has been made available. When you get your back up, it can easily transfered into obsidian. I had no problem at all when I tried it.

[@AndresIbanezVasquez]

​@@KoishiteAkuma90 ikr, and even if it wasnt local, who cares! Most people complaining about security probably just write notes on gardening and book reviews, i highly doubt anybody will want to spy on thoe. And obviusly one should not keep sensitive info (bank account passwords, business passwords etc.) on the cloud.

[@lol0609]

@@AndresIbanezVasquez Exactly, It doesn't make sense to me. Who cares if someone is reading you book or meeting notes. Sensitive data makes sense to be local.

[@glitched.gaming]

I need to watch this entire video later when I have more time because I'm a big fan of Obsidian. I've checked out similar products, and they are comparable. If you address this in the video, please disregard this request. However, I'm curious if Capacities is open source. I'm asking because Obsidian is quite similar, and some people have raised concerns about needing to be open source. While they are transparent and offer a generous API, I can relate to the comment about having too many browsing plugins. Sometimes, I'll invest time learning and setting up a plugin, only to find a better version later, which can be time-consuming. Thanks for the unbiased video. KZbin is heavily monetized these days, so seeing an honest review is refreshing.

[@antoneheyward]

Capacities is not open source. I do mention AnyType which is and offers some features Capabilities do not. I’ll be doing a video on my findings and comparison soon. Thx 🙏🏾

[@KoishiteAkuma90]

@antoneheyward I tried AnyType and found it complicated...

[@DavidROliver]

I use the Objects in Capacities as a large database; there's no need for PARA; it's already organised. Obsidian doesn't offer this level of organisation. Yes I can create templates and properties but Capacities can do that for all types from images, videos and bookmarks which are handed very cleverly. Capacities feels like the next evolution of PKM, but I'm getting a real sense that Lazy and NotebookLM are the next generation after Capacities, something to ponder.

[@antoneheyward]

Lazy and NotebookLM are on my list to dig into further. Objects in Capacities are inherently databases so everyone who uses Capacities are using Objects as a database even if its not immediately apparent, which has it's pros and cons. Capacities Objects don't offer some of the features I'd typically expect in a more true database solution like formulas and functions. And based on their recently released "What's not next" they're not going to either but that's fine with me. capacities.io/roadmap/whats-not-next.

[@zaloleksandr]

Hi, David. Could you please elaborate on why there’s no need for PARA? I’ve just started with Capacities and am thinking about how I can implement PARA there, but your comment intrigued me.

[@antoneheyward]

@@zaloleksandr I'd also love to hear what @DavidROliver has to say. What I'd say is that PARA is just one tool to organize your digital information but it's not something you NEED. It also does not fit for everything. PARA originated from a need to fix inherent challenges with organizing files in folders. Since Capacities doesn't rely on a file/folder model and they don't offer folders there is no need for PARA. You already or should already know where everything is based on the Object type. Now you could try to use tags to give you something that might resemble PARA but I feel that only adds unneeded complexity. Don't fall into the every is a hammer trap. After using Capacities ask yourself, do I "NEED" PARA with the clear understanding that PARA is there to help you find things easily and reduce friction. Hope this helps. Great question.

[@DavidROliver]

@@zaloleksandr If you think about what PARA is, it's places to put stuff and stay organised. With Capacities, it makes ready made homes for knowledge. Create a 'Project' object and a 'People' object, customise the properties and then you can store whatever you need about projects and people. Create a new object called 'task' make sure it has a property of time and it will appear on a daily notes page. Suddenly, you can relate tasks to projects and people, if you are a Project Manager you have just got very organised with so little effort, because Capacities has a mobile App you can stay organised anywhere and it's just not hard.

[@levoN2420]

I have recently found Capacities to be too buggy to continue to use. The updates and new features they release every month are nice - but they don't test their releases, they rely on users to find the bugs and they take too long to fix them. They have 1084 bugs as of today, not including tablet and phone app bugs. Obsidian is so much better. I was an early supporter of Capacities, but I'm going to stop paying for it and I'm not sure if I'll stop using it completely or use it for a few things. Maybe in a year it will it will be more stable and feel less like using a beta.

[@antoneheyward]

I think Obsidian is less buggy because it’s a much simpler app at its core. Most of the bugs I experience in Obsidian are from its 3rd party plugins. Capacities is trying to do a bit of everything. Hopefully in time things will get more stable.

[@sergey79]

Tags can be added to bookmarks in Obsidian, just saying. Good vid tho, thanks.

[@antoneheyward]

Yes, I know that. So can searches.

[@ekawibisana2828]

I love Obsidian. However, I found Capacities integration with WhatsApp very useful and make it superior compared to Obsidian. I asked the obsidian team in Discord if it's possible to do WhatsApp integration, the answer is quite disappointing (for me) because this integration won't likely to happen in the near future. The best we could hope is for a plugin to do so.

[@antoneheyward]

Capacities is a good alternative so I’m glad it works for you. And the Obsidian devs position is understandable even though unfortunate. I’ve been there too but it’s so good and free so some compromises are fine 😊

[@KoishiteAkuma90]

What do you mean with lacking, when it comes to the app? If you found something that can be improved, they're always open for feedback. Something I really like about Capacities. The app is only a companion to the Web version, it's not supposed to be full version. Not sure if that will change in the future.

[@antoneheyward]

I think I've clearly outlined pros and cons in the video. The short list of things that Capacities lack that I feel are important when comparing to Obsidian + Obsidian Sync are full offline support, E2E encryption and whiteboard/canvas. This in no way means Capacities has no value. And its great that their open to feedback but today is today and tomorrow is never promised. Please check out this post they recently released that outlines "What not next." capacities.io/roadmap/whats-not-next as well as their roadmap page to better understand their direction.

[@opalear]

The lack of Canvas feature (and hence... Advanced Canvas, Excalidraw) is a major con, don’t think I could do without that

[@DavidROliver]

The canvas is disjointed from the rest of Obsidian. I can create boxes, but they don't translate back to being files in the Vault, and I cannot drag files from the Vault onto the Canvas. For me as a Visual Thinker both Obsidian and Capacities wasn't the best for that, however, Heptabase and Scrintal are the best for this in my opinion.

[@antoneheyward]

You can leverage files from your vault in an Obsidian Canvas with that said editing the files on a canvas always felt weird to me. I get that same experience with Excalidraw and files. Both are usable, Excalidraw being the better of the two, but I have found using Heptabase and Scrintal more pleasant to use for visual thinking. Obsidian and Capacities can co-exist so I’m still figuring out how.

[@KoishiteAkuma90]

That seems to be in the works from what I saw on their Website.

[@antoneheyward]

Please check out this post they recently released that outlines "What not next." capacities.io/roadmap/whats-not-next as well as their roadmap page to better understand their direction.

[@StevenMichels]

You hit on my two biggest issues with Obsidian.

[@antoneheyward]

So I'm not the only one. Glad to know I'm not alone.

[@coolturbog]

I think the biggest problem is keeping your information up in the cloud only. If the company goes down, your in a no internet location, internet goes down or you decide you don't want to pay as they increase charges every year your information is stuck/gone. I am starting to learn as I get older I rather have my data even if less convenient where I keep the information and preferable not pay. what happens if there is a car accident and it take the owner/founder and a few of the buddies and its all gone. I lost pictures from my daughters because their school was using a online site and then they get bought up by a big company and then they shut it all down without letting anyone know. Even if they did what is the chance you will see that one email that came in with 100's of other saying you have 2 weeks.

[@antoneheyward]

Totally agree about the risk of leveraging certain cloud solutions. This is why i prefer local first applications but I’ll consider an app that offers offline capability and full backups that can be restored/viewed in a formats like markdown, html, json, etc. when it strikes the right balance between of added value and convenience. Without proper backups even a local storage based solution can see data loss.

[@lol0609]

Capacites does work without internet and uploads to cloud once reconnected. As stuff you cant recreate such as pictures always keep a backup online cloud services can go out of business or physical hard drives can become damaged.

[@JohnSmith-vo8is]

Yes. Anytype please

[@CountChilly]

it sucks it doesnt have database ;/

[@antoneheyward]

It's unfortunate so I still use Notion for that. It's hard to be a jack of all trades but honestly I'm okay with that.

[@DavidROliver]

Capacities has tables as objects which you can connect to from anywhere.

[@KoishiteAkuma90]

Every object is a database! That's the beauty of it!

[@levoN2420]

They're both great apps. I use both. I don't think everything has to be an either or - or a competition.

[@antoneheyward]

💯

[@wilsonlamlyt7138]

Curious how do you use both since I found both serve similar purpose and overlap way too much to be used both.

[@levoN2420]

​@@wilsonlamlyt7138 I have actually stopped using Capacities because it's too buggy and after two years, I got fed up with the bugginess which happens after every new release. I focused on learning Dataview and now I'm much happier with Obsidian. Capacities will never be as powerful and adaptable as Obsidian.