Anytype vs Capacities: pricing, features and which to choose

Anytype is made by the Any Association, a Swiss-registered organization with its team based largely in Berlin, and it launched publicly in 2023 after a long beta. It positions itself as a privacy-first alternative to Notion: instead of storing your workspace on a company server, Anytype keeps data on your devices, encrypts it with keys only you hold, and syncs changes peer to peer on local networks or through its own sync network called any-sync. The source code is available on GitHub under the Any Source Available License, which permits personal and non-commercial use and self-hosting. Apps run on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, and work fully offline.

Everything in Anytype is an object, such as a page, task, person or book, and each object has a type with its own properties, called relations. Users can define custom types, then build sets and collections that show objects as tables, Kanban boards, galleries, lists, calendars or a graph view of links. The block editor handles text, checklists, tables, images, files, code and embeds. Spaces can be private or shared with Owner, Editor and Viewer roles, and chats inside spaces let teams message and share objects. Templates from the community gallery cover journals, CRMs and project trackers, and pages can be published to the web.

Anytype's appeal is ownership: offline speed, end-to-end encryption, no lock-in to a company server, and a flexible object model. Its drawbacks are a learning curve around types and relations, a small free sync allowance, fewer integrations than Notion and no native AI. Notion is the main hosted alternative, with Notion AI and a large template library. Obsidian is local-first with Markdown files and plugins, including AI plugins. Capacities offers a similar object model with built-in AI, and AppFlowy and Logseq are open-source options. Choose Anytype if privacy and offline access matter most and you are happy to connect AI through MCP.

Capacities is a personal knowledge-management and note-taking app made by Capacities Labs GmbH in Germany. Steffen Bleher and Michael von Hohnhorst started the company in 2020, and the product entered public beta in 2022. It runs on the web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. The company describes itself as bootstrapped with no outside investors, while CB Insights records a different funding history involving Media Lab Bayern. Capacities reports more than 50,000 active knowledge workers and a six-person remote European team. Its defining choice is to treat notes as typed objects, such as people, books, projects and meetings, rather than as unstructured pages.

A typical workflow starts in daily notes, imported material, or captured media. Users turn that material into typed objects, add properties, connect entries with backlinks, then retrieve information through full-text search, smart queries, related content and the graph view. Tasks, whiteboards and calendar integration extend the workspace beyond notes. The in-app assistant can use selected notes or search context, and saved conversations become searchable objects. AI Chat Connectors use MCP, allowing supported clients such as ChatGPT, Claude and Cursor to search, read, create and update objects, append content and work with media. Capacities recommends searching or listing first instead of asking an external client to read an entire workspace.

Capacities is cloud-only, lacks end-to-end encryption, and does not offer team accounts or realtime collaboration. Its object model can take time to learn, while regular AI use requires Plus or additional top-ups. Notion offers broader shared workspaces, pages and databases. Obsidian stores local Markdown files and supports plugins, while Capacities provides hosted sync and structured objects. Anytype takes a local-first, open-source-oriented approach, unlike Capacities' hosted service. Tana focuses on structured outliner workflows and team use, whereas Capacities is more explicitly personal. Pick Capacities if you want an individual knowledge base built around typed objects, linked notes and optional AI.