Heptabase

used both for about a year each. heptabase is genuinely better at one thing: synthesizing knowledge by physically arranging cards on a canvas. 'show me how all these pieces connect for this project' feels natural there. obsidian's canvas exists but it's not the gravitational center of the tool. obsidian wins on portability since it's plain markdown files you actually own. plugin ecosystem means most workflows you can imagine already exist as a plugin. daily-note flow is also where it's strongest, which is more text-heavy than heptabase wants you to be. the resistance you're feeling is probably a real workflow difference, not a tool defect. if your thinking is spatial, like you genuinely need to see where ideas live in relation to each other, heptabase will keep winning. if you're more about linked-text reference, obsidian's going to feel right eventually. nothing stops you from running both, heptabase for project synthesis and obsidian for daily notes.

Sí, conozco el enfoque de Karpathy y varias arquitecturas similares tipo “personal wiki + LLM + Obsidian”. Justamente parte de la idea nació viendo hacia dónde está evolucionando el PKM cuando se mezcla con IA. Mi enfoque todavía está en una etapa temprana y honestamente estoy intentando resolver primero la estructura conceptual antes de automatizar demasiado. Me interesa evitar convertir el vault en una acumulación masiva de notas generadas por IA sin valor semántico real. Por ahora el sistema se centra en: * conceptos atómicos, * backlinks fuertes, * hubs temáticos, * separación entre fuente e idea, * y conexiones interdisciplinarias reutilizables. Todavía no tengo repo público ni documentación formal porque apenas estoy construyendo la arquitectura base y probando workflows con Claude + Obsidian + markdown. Pero sí quiero eventualmente documentarlo bien para compararlo con otros enfoques tipo Karpathy, Tana, Heptabase, etc.

I feel you! I run a super complex Symbaroum campaign and have been vying for a system to make things clearer. Not there quite yet. But Heptabase is my tool of choice. It’s pretty much like Obsidian. Its strength is really how snappy it is and how I can recall data super fast while in game. It’s also powerful to manage data and organize it however you want. And when you change or improve a system, it’s easy to implement as well. But the main strong point is quick recall and hyperlinking. I use it in my most recent prep streams on Leo’s Emporium (my YT channel).

Wow, this is exactly the point I’ve been thinking about too. Interesting! I see the canvas(project) as more of a temporary space for sensemaking. The reusable knowledge units that come out of that process should probably become something like “shell cards,” which I think is close to what Heptabase was aiming for. So to really move toward a knowledge base, I think we’ll need a system where those units can be organized, categorized, linked, and reused across projects. Thanks for the idea, and feedback!! I’ll try

I am in customer success and go through 4-5 meetings easily per day. Manage 100 different accounts, and have been through every major note taking tool that can help me take notes and also store meeting transcripts. I then went down the rabbit hole of finding a tool with AI search and knowledge retrieval, graph etc. Finally landed on Heptabase, and it's visual layout really helped for a while. But eventually, I built my own tool, and I would like if you try it free of cost and give me feedback. I can message you a lifetime code if you're willing. Please check [runwita.com](http://runwita.com) What it does different is, you're mindful about what notes it looks at, but it then curates and synthesises them into a "Journey". A journey can be one per customer, or one per use case per customer. Once that's done, you can then look at a thread of topics, that span across your meetings, with actions and decisions surfacing without you needing to query a chatbot everytime you need information. Please DM me if you want more information.

My two cents: I stopped using Heptabase primarily because of two reasons: a) the notes looked different depending on the device. And I don't mean minor cosmetic issues - I'm talking about an instance where on my laptop everything looked pristine, but on my mobile app suddenly text was folded onto one another and/or overlapping, and/or cut off halfway through. Fixing it on mobile meant that everything was vastly overstretched or overpadded on my laptop. Madness. Tip: make sure your app maintains consistency across platforms. b) add some more advanced text formatting options. Users like me like to keep a certain formatting standard between apps for less mental overload when switching between apps in the same workflow. I always struggle to see the reason behind Google-like oversimplification of every interface. Not everyone is a coder used to the same basic formatting. Heptabase really sucked at that. Tip: make sure your app allows for more advanced text formatting options. My wish as a user of similar apps: I often write long technical and scientific reports, as well as business analysis and proposals. I wish for an advanced note taking app that would allow me to comfortably design a 200+ page long document in a node-like fashion, where every paragraph, graphic, chart, image, title, icon and so on - is a node I can edit, customise, format, move around and connect like a network of nodes within a subcanvas representing one page or spread, all within a mastercanvas that would allow me to have 200+ pages or 100+ spreads visible at once. I know I can do it in InDesign or Affinity, and I do it there, but these make the ideation/conceptualisation of a document way more complex than it is efficient. A Heptabase/Obsidian-like tool for that workflow would be blessing. (And no, neither Figma nor Excalidraw work in this case either) Edit: I will still make the final document in InDesign/Affinity, but I want the notes app to handle the messy document design process, from conceptualising the substance of the document to its pre-final look and feel. Edit2: I don't know your take on this one, but I personally try to steer away from online-only apps as I prefer local storage of my files at all times. This also means, that for users like me - data security, privacy protection and data residency mean more than you may imagine. Something to keep in mind.

Hi everyone I like to use AI and diving in this world. But I found sometimes it's not safe. So a lot of my friends are scary to use AI agent like Open Claw or Claude. I think maybe I can do something to help! I chat to Claude, gemini and Heptabase. Yes there's a AI tutor in the Heptabase to help me learn how to build a Cybersecurity software w AI agent. And then I found some AI scanner open source on GitHub but it's individual for every function like skill, MCP, prompt Injection. There's no one for all of it. So I ask Claude to build a one. Then Little Octopus birth am Cybersecurity app for AI agent. Here's what I learned and some limit about Claude for no-code people (all is use Claude pro) Claude opus 4.7 is powerful you should chat and plan with it until your product is very clear you know every detail or you run it w Claude Code will spend to much time and token. I try to built the Landing page with Claude Design and after I setup the system and build a one. It's look so good but I already spend all of my Claude design weekly token I can't use it to change until next week. So I use Claude Cowork instead is not the best haha I am welcome to hear people how do you think about AI Agent Cybersecurity problems? If you want to go first to access Little Octopus is [here](https://landingpage-new.pages.dev/)

Hi everyone, Following last week’s release of the Heptabase CLI, today we’ve had the official Heptabase CLI Skills cooked. With these skills installed, agents like Claude Code, Codex, and Cursor can use CLI commands more effectively and avoid common hallucinations and mistakes. Get Started: [Setup Instructions on GitHub](https://github.com/heptameta/heptabase-cli-skills) We’ll keep updating these skills as we expand the CLI’s capabilities. If you find something useful or have feedback, feel free to share with us!

Coming back a year later as the OP. Quick update for anyone landing here with the same problem. Spent the year going through pretty much every tool mentioned in the comments, plus a few more. Here's where each one fell over for me: * **Fabric** is a great capture tool and the AI search is genuinely impressive, but it never gave me the ability to *connect the dots* across customer conversations. Searching is not the same as seeing the thread. * **Reflect** is also a strong capture tool but never went in the direction of being a knowledge graph. Stayed a journal. * **Mem** felt close on paper but the linking always felt a bit off, and it sometimes pulled out notes that were not relevant. * **Obsidian** is wonderful if you do the linking yourself. I didn't want to. * **Heptabase** got the closest. I actually started building my own knowledge graph in it. The problem was it could only connect at the note level, not the topic level. And its MCP at the time didn't have the tools I needed. Looking back, I was also articulating my own need wrong. I kept asking for an AI that could *search* my notes and pull the right one out. What I actually wanted was an AI that could find the *connections between* notes and lay them out on a timeline. A tool like that didn't exist, or if it did, I never came across it. What I kept landing on: I didn't need a better notebook. I needed something that *threads a topic* through every meeting, email, and note that touched it, automatically, and lets Claude read and write directly into it. Then Claude Code changed everything. I could describe the problem, visualise what I wanted, and build it myself. Once I had it running, I realised how few tools actually do this, most are still solving capture, not synthesis. So I kept going. It's called **Runwita**. Mac, local-first SQLite, MCP server for Claude / Cursor / Cowork. Pre-launch, a few weeks out. [runwita.com](https://runwita.com/) if you want to lurk. [discord.gg/62XQwTX9w3](https://discord.gg/62XQwTX9w3) if you want to follow along. What did the rest of you land on?

I use more than one. I am a dedicated Obsidian user but that is tied to one specific ongoing project. I have another quite separate activity that generates a lot of notes, both background and writing, and I like the card and whiteboard UI of Heptabase for managing this. I also use Drafts — ‘where text starts’ and a very good starting point for quick capture. And UpNote for general stuff from the bus timetable to password hints and prompts I regularly use.

Craft isn’t well equipped for note capture. The UI has small neat text — but not the easiest to read and edit. Creating a new note takes about four presses and interactions including naming the note. That’s a lot of friction. Many broadly competitive apps eg Evernote, Heptabase, Tana, Octarine, Obsidian via plugin, Diarly, NotePlan, Raycast Notes have Whisper-standard transcription as standard. Which makes Craft an outlier. There’s no facility for OCR capture. I’m not a great fan of Evernote but it does handle capture well. There’s a nice clear Quick Note pane on opening screen and easy to use audio notes which also transcribe with some built in cleanup and further enhancement possible. A model to study, I suggest.

Heptabase just dropped a CLI so Claude Code / Codex can create, read, and update a local knowledge base from the terminal. It’s a smart move. But it made me realize most agent workflows still depend on web fetches or ephemeral vector search, so nothing really compounds over time. What feels missing is a persistent artifact where knowledge actually accumulates instead of resetting every run. * ingest information * structure and link it * reuse it later Not just retrieval, but something readable and continuously evolving that any agent can work with. Curious how others are thinking about persistent memory beyond vector search.

Heptabase just dropped a CLI so Claude Code / Codex can create, read, and update a local knowledge base from the terminal. It’s a smart move. But it made me realize most agent workflows still depend on web fetches or ephemeral vector search, so nothing really compounds over time. What feels missing is a persistent artifact where knowledge actually accumulates instead of resetting every run. * ingest information * structure and link it * reuse it later Not just retrieval, but something readable and continuously evolving that any agent can work with. Curious how others are thinking about persistent memory beyond vector search.

Heptabase just dropped a CLI so Claude Code / Codex can create, read, and update a local knowledge base from the terminal. It’s a smart move. But it made me realize most agent workflows still depend on web fetches or ephemeral vector search, so nothing really compounds over time. What feels missing is a persistent artifact where knowledge actually accumulates instead of resetting every run. * ingest information * structure and link it * reuse it later Not just retrieval, but something readable and continuously evolving that any agent can work with. Curious how others are thinking about persistent memory beyond vector search.

I just check out Heptabase, and for people like me, I don’t think it’s a great fit. What makes Capacities different is the object based system. In other apps, yes we can make a tag for it, but it’s another step to go through. Sometimes even another brain power when I forget (which I often do) the correct tag. The most similar app to Capacities is Anytype, but sadly Anytype’s UX is subpar compared to Capacities. It is confusing as well for average users when we hit the storage limit.

And we are back! YES, thank you so much, this made my day! I am back to using heptabase now as my daily driver, was using my own vibe coded app, even though i am a paying sub for heptabase. My main use is to have deep detailed conversation with AI, or even coding sessions that i want to document so i can always use as context when i need it, it’s a pain to document everything by hand, but now it’s so easy, I will share the whole process soon. PS: need the calendar sync with IOS and more types of cards.

Hi everyone, today, we're excited to release the Heptabase CLI — a new way for external AI agents to interact with your local Heptabase knowledge base from the terminal. Once enabled (Settings > AI Features > CLI), any AI coding agent (e.g., Claude Code, Codex) can: * Create, read, and edit note cards and journals * Search your Card Library * Manage tags * Read your AI Tutor courses, lessons, and chat history This is just the first step; we'll keep expanding the CLI surface so AI agents can act on your knowledge at the same depth that you can. If you build something interesting with it, feel free to share with our community!

In my head I have no sound, no words, no images (anauralia, anendophasia, aphantasia). Furthermore I feel no organisation, no structuring/ categorising/ grouping of brain bits like thoughts/ ideas/ reminders/ plans/ desires. I just exist and function sort of instinctively/ gut feeling-y/ intuitively. The closest I get to accessing brain bits is writing things down instinctively without any prior thought, then I read over it and it kinda gets into my understanding or memory, but not fully and not well. And then, to make matters worse, I have the worst memory on the planet, like a computer with no RAM. So as soon as I kinda understand something and begin trying to understand another thing, I forget completely about that prior thing… it is so frustrating. I am trying to write a dissertation and I am so so cooked, I cannot deal with such a heavy cognitive workload. (I frequently think of myself as a stupid person or an NPC, and wish I could do more with my brain and get jealous of people with more brain abilities.) But my question is how should someone like me go about the process of “thought” and “thinking”. Has any multi-sensory aphant figured it out? Or gotten close? Please share your experiences. I think the closest thing for me is a large whiteboard with a mind map and different colour markers for sections. Also apps like obsidian and heptabase. But these things just don’t feel enough, I still am not “thinking”. Is there any other method out there anyone has discovered? Would love to hear it.

I'll search your notes to pull together the exact details of your experience, and then I'll draft it as a first-person script. Here is a script that captures your exact internal experience, formatted as if you were explaining your mental framework to a psychiatrist. **The Paradox of Competence: My Experience with Asynchronous Development** "I've been paying close attention to how my brain operates, and I've realized I'm dealing with a severe case of asynchronous development, rooted in my AuDHD and Sluggish Cognitive Tempo (SCT). At a baseline, my brain has a two-part problem. On one hand, I deal with cognitive energy depletion—my brain 'runs out of fuel,' giving me mental fog and slow processing. [\[1\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/528b67f3-650f-4f5c-9a53-932bf190b006?pdfPage=1&pdfBoundingBox=%7B%22left%22%3A76.5%2C%22top%22%3A518.76%2C%22width%22%3A459%2C%22height%22%3A79.99199999999996%7D) But under stress or uncertainty, my nervous system flips into overdrive. [\[1\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/528b67f3-650f-4f5c-9a53-932bf190b006?pdfPage=1&pdfBoundingBox=%7B%22left%22%3A76.5%2C%22top%22%3A518.76%2C%22width%22%3A459%2C%22height%22%3A79.99199999999996%7D) To survive this, my primary autistic coping mechanism is detachment and dissociation. I subconsciously disengage from things I'm bad at to prevent the feeling of rejection, blunt negative emotions, and preserve my limited energy. [\[2\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/967a5ce2-cf50-444a-8f57-458366ae8eba#e55372c5-b68d-4b41-a34c-98c4f0cf3e56,0ff0488f-0f1c-4780-86cc-87e0f23d2178,0c38a68f-9e70-4da3-bf61-26f8bc5a195b,4a4f614f-a003-4199-aab1-8519d8a0ec84,bae41520-a8b5-4eee-ba4b-a0dee0ff8eac) This coping mechanism creates a massive illusion of mastery in my life, especially in competitive environments like video games. Because I naturally gravitate toward what I'm already good at, I become hyper-competent in highly stimulating, mechanical micro-skills. In *League of Legends* or *Overwatch*, I am incredible at 1v1s, landing headshots, and reflex aiming. I climbed to Gold 1 playing Tracer just by running around trying to get as many kills as possible. [\[3\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2026-04-19#031d5d6f-bef2-4bc2-823c-caade6ba9ee7,6369372c-40b1-4153-a077-4f5fc877a53e,e4dae63a-fc17-4fe4-a3e5-c4b0f559425a) But here is where the asynchronous development becomes a trap: my mechanical skill is sky-high, but my emotional regulation and macro-understanding are entirely undeveloped. [\[3\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2026-04-19#031d5d6f-bef2-4bc2-823c-caade6ba9ee7,6369372c-40b1-4153-a077-4f5fc877a53e,e4dae63a-fc17-4fe4-a3e5-c4b0f559425a) People would tell me 'space matters' or 'positioning is key.' I understood it intellectually—if you put it on a multiple-choice test, I’d get the right answer. But I had zero visceral, emotional connection to what that actually meant. [\[3\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2026-04-19#031d5d6f-bef2-4bc2-823c-caade6ba9ee7,6369372c-40b1-4153-a077-4f5fc877a53e,e4dae63a-fc17-4fe4-a3e5-c4b0f559425a) So, when I finally tried to play a macro-heavy role like Tank, I was absolutely horrendous. I was suddenly a Silver 4 player. [\[3\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2026-04-19#031d5d6f-bef2-4bc2-823c-caade6ba9ee7,6369372c-40b1-4153-a077-4f5fc877a53e,e4dae63a-fc17-4fe4-a3e5-c4b0f559425a) This is where my ego hits a brick wall. Because I expect myself to be highly competent based on my mechanical skills, being a beginner at game sense triggers immense discomfort. To protect my ego, my brain unconsciously labels these macro skills as 'unimportant' or 'too boring to learn.' [\[3\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2026-04-19#031d5d6f-bef2-4bc2-823c-caade6ba9ee7,6369372c-40b1-4153-a077-4f5fc877a53e,e4dae63a-fc17-4fe4-a3e5-c4b0f559425a) Even when I try to watch my own replays to figure out what I did wrong, the feedback loop is too hard to detect, or the sheer amount of information causes task paralysis. [\[3\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2026-04-19#031d5d6f-bef2-4bc2-823c-caade6ba9ee7,6369372c-40b1-4153-a077-4f5fc877a53e,e4dae63a-fc17-4fe4-a3e5-c4b0f559425a) So, what do I do? I retreat to the comfort of 1v1s. I grind mechanics, masquerading as being resilient, when in reality, I'm just wasting time to avoid the emotional pain of being bad. [\[3\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2026-04-19#031d5d6f-bef2-4bc2-823c-caade6ba9ee7,6369372c-40b1-4153-a077-4f5fc877a53e,e4dae63a-fc17-4fe4-a3e5-c4b0f559425a) But I know this isn't a permanent limitation, because I have successfully bypassed this exact biological trap before. When I was learning to dunk a basketball, I couldn't figure it out despite being 6'4". I felt like something was wrong with me. But I had a breakthrough when I completely surrendered my ego to external mentors. [\[4\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/c414daa5-ec0e-480b-8d1c-01cdb606ed9d#f86df523-c46c-47c1-881b-8354464b61e8,8307af42-c37b-40f0-8874-34141351797b,e4127c7a-8e5d-42c0-9e57-f5b2c78747d9,c6993df9-c1bd-4d27-8ed3-e3cc2f5d4992,a176b9de-fa68-479f-a028-4f1cfd7be2ba,4fc44fb8-bd45-482a-af3f-8fb1e84bc63a,749ce109-1e18-40ed-a3d4-4a7163138b67,abd2ff34-fef2-4d5c-ae6b-63853ad02ba9,785db9ba-6d83-479f-9733-7c59b58d5781) I accepted their feedback—like bending lower when dribbling or driving straight up—and I didn't try to learn it all at once. I focused on one single piece of advice for 2-3 days until it became automatic. [\[5\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/bae00e89-6beb-4312-8bec-a9e3cc865384#3fe3a66b-7ffe-409d-aca4-8d651d12e15c,a1a9439c-8ca4-489e-945c-4a25d325fc94,b1d62385-c198-475c-a02d-5e9eeb2ac9fe,a2e38184-d87c-4a34-9f50-54cbdb986086)[\[6\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/22489b3b-e07b-44fa-9e7e-bfa015ec36c5#2985450d-d28f-449d-91f4-140e2ac65931,5c5298fe-8bb7-4407-af33-c06dc6357bb1,4cee3ada-7a4d-4d37-be8f-4c9168df7686,9ee76523-7b51-4cf7-8327-ffbb42eca021,e51d04ef-0eba-4414-9967-373b2d6cfdfa,112629e1-1057-4d60-8d7d-b50b0cb9866a) I realized that my AuDHD brain cannot fix itself internally when it's overwhelmed. I have to externalize the problem. In gaming, that means I only see lasting improvement when I literally focus on one specific weakness—like asking myself 'where does the enemy want to go?'—for days at a time. [\[3\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2026-04-19#031d5d6f-bef2-4bc2-823c-caade6ba9ee7,6369372c-40b1-4153-a077-4f5fc877a53e,e4dae63a-fc17-4fe4-a3e5-c4b0f559425a) My biggest bottleneck isn't a lack of intelligence. It's that my brain interprets the 'desirable difficulty' of learning the fundamentals as an emotional threat. [\[7\]](https://app.heptabase.com/d7415354-1baa-4b26-91f0-20610f0349e2/card/2c49f0fd-b929-45a3-90fa-0666ef73fdfe#3343caf7-e0ac-456e-8d49-78a29bffad32,378b7cc5-90f8-476f-9f95-f5f8d80e9efa,60670995-a48d-4b73-b078-015a2e9aeaf6) To actually grow, I have to stop waiting to feel motivated, accept the brutal discomfort of being a beginner, and trust the external feedback over my own ego."

>Tinderbox 11.6 works even harder. Now, Claude Code joins Claude and Gemini to enjoy the benefits of Tinderbox by using Tinderbox to take notes — and that work can include working with you to revise and improve your Tinderbox notes. No mention of non-AI agents, are you sure a script could be used? >As a side note - your idea of **micromanaging** life would not be useful to me. I agree with the person who suggested an Obsidian plug in. Heptabase also has this potential. ? ETA: I found "Tinderbox keeps you in control. You can exclude AI from any Tinderbox document. You can switch off the AI connection whenever you like, and turn it back on when you want it." but I can't find details like what language(s) the script can be in.

I think Tinderbox does something like that. Each "note/card" can have its own autonomous agent/script that can affect or be affected by other cards in the chain. Tinderbox was way ahead of its time at one point but has crappy documentation. Not the same exact thing but maybe the thinking can inspire you. https://eastgate.com/Tinderbox/index.html As a side note - your idea of micromanaging life would not be useful to me. I agree with the person who suggested an Obsidian plug in. Heptabase also has this potential.

That’s great to hear. I’ve been beta testing the app and there’s a lot to like. An iPad app would be great for my workflow (currently using it as my only ”on the go device”. And Pencil support would also really make this a Figjam, Miro, Milanote, Heptabase etc contender. The most essential part for an iPad app would be a sense of ”native speed”. That has been the biggest gripe for me with many canvas enabled apps. Muse is the king here.

I use Heptabase, which is very similar to Obsidian. I showed my ‘system’ in a recent stream I made on YT. Basically, I’m gravitating to a micro note strategy where every card is a single element of story (NPC, location, faction, lore item etc) that I can really quickly recall using the powerful search features of the app. I can also organize using categories for my notes and whiteboards for more visual organization. My campaign is crazy complex, and that’s the best way I’ve found. https://www.youtube.com/live/go4mTxnacOk?si=5zTRQx9s-ZWHlVTw

In Obsidian you can set up the way that works for you by customizing with plugins, but what came to my mind first was Heptabase. It's a visual note taking app but incredible at exploring topics, extracting meaningful information & letting you move it around to make visual sense of it. It really shines with pdfs. For example, if you created a card with a little bit about each ingredient, you could create a whiteboard called pies linking each ingredients characteristics to a pie recipe (ie, don't melt sugar over x degrees, etc). You can use the same methodology in Obsidian. I'm playing with a few transcription apps but I have not found one that is great with PKMs. The best is to transcribe, then import the txt or md file. Just for voice notes, I am an avid user of Cleft.

Affine is a bit harder for me to work with than Heptabase or Kosmik. Both of those are visual note taking apps similar to Affine. If you want something structured like Notion, have you checked out Roam, Anytype & Capacities? At least the last two also have graphs. NotesNook is a privacy focused alternative that has some fun features. I really wanted to like Tana but it frustrates me in the same way Notion frustrates me.

It might very well be overkill for what you're looking for, and not just cause it's not free, but I use [Readwise's Reader app](https://readwise.io/read) for this. It allows one to highlight (and annotate) much more than webpages, including PDFs, YouTube videos, and more. It's also got a [Firefox add-on](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/readwise-highlighter/). If you do a lot of research and highlighting, I *highly* recommend it. As a side-note, I then use [Heptabase](https://heptabase.com/) to import and organize my Reader highlights.

Hi everyone, We’ve got some exciting news to share: the AI Tutor we’ve been building is officially in public beta! Just open the latest version of Heptabase, and you will see two modes available in the top left corner: on the left is "Home," which is your knowledge base; on the right is "AI Tutor," a personalized tutor capable of creating courses tailored for you and helping you achieve your learning goals. During the internal beta testing over the past two months, I have taken over 50 lessons using AI Tutor, covering topics such as western philosophy, modern European history, capitalism, and modern logic. My colleagues and friends have also used it to learn practical subjects like personal finance, social media marketing, and house hunting. The testing process made us extremely excited because AI Tutor truly delivers an exceptional learning experience that you can’t find in many mainstream AI products (ChatGPT, Gemini, NotebookLM): 1. **Goal-oriented learning:** In mainstream AI products, the learning method usually involves asking the AI questions directly or uploading materials first before asking questions. However, in Heptabase AI Tutor, you can directly propose your learning goals (e.g., I want to systematically study Western philosophy, understand international politics, pass the bar exam, become a physicist, achieve financial freedom, etc.). Based on this, AI Tutor will discuss with you and plan a personalized curriculum tailored to your level and preferences. If needed, you can also have AI Tutor plan the course based on the materials you upload (such as PDF textbooks). 2. **Systematic and personalized learning:** In mainstream AI products, you constantly have to think about what questions to ask. In contrast, Heptabase AI Tutor is highly guiding. In every lesson, it progressively generates the reading materials you need for your current stage and guides you through reading them step by step; you only need to ask questions about the parts you don't understand. Before each lesson ends, AI Tutor will raise a few key questions to discuss with you, ensuring you have grasped the core concepts. As the number of lessons increases, AI Tutor will remember all the questions you've asked, the areas where you got stuck, and your preferred explanation styles, dynamically adjusting the content difficulty, teaching style, and curriculum pacing to best suit you. 3. **Seamless integration with your notes and knowledge base:** In mainstream AI products, you might learn a lot in the moment, but it is easy to forget later. And when you do want to save what you learned, organizing everything can feel like a chore, with lots of copying, pasting, and rewriting. With Heptabase AI Tutor, it is much more natural. Heptabase is already a full-featured note-taking app and knowledge base (and it was once named Product Hunt’s #1 Personal Productivity Tool of the Year). While you read the materials AI Tutor generates, you can simply highlight and jot down notes as you go. Those highlights and notes are automatically saved to the course’s dedicated whiteboard, so everything stays organized. Then, after each lesson, AI Tutor also turns the lesson content and your Q&A into clean lesson notes, so you can come back and review anytime. The version entering public beta today is the first iteration of AI Tutor. In the coming weeks, we will be intensely iterating the product, enabling AI Tutor to edit cards and mindmaps on the whiteboard (just like a teacher using a whiteboard in class), create Flashcards for key knowledge points in each lesson to schedule your review progress, and even help automate the organization of your knowledge base. A quick reminder: because AI Tutor integrates state-of-the-art AI models across the Gemini, Claude, and GPT series, it consumes a significant amount of AI Credits. Therefore, the current public beta is limited to Premium Plan users. If you are a Pro Plan user, don't worry—we will soon allow everyone to experience a few AI Tutor lessons for free before deciding whether it's worth upgrading! Heptabase's mission is to give people the power to gain a deep understanding of anything. In the past, the core value of our product was to help you better organize knowledge, clarify thinking, and build a lifelong knowledge base. Now, with AI Tutor, we have taken another giant leap toward this mission: making Heptabase an all-in-one learning software. Starting directly from the origin of learning, it guides you into a state of flow, lets you experience the joy of learning, and helps you achieve your learning goals. If you haven't experienced Heptabase's AI Tutor yet, we welcome you to try it out now! If you have any feedback or suggestions, you are always welcome to let us know!

Ciao a tutti, Sto cercando un software (o una combinazione di software) che permetta un flusso di lavoro molto specifico per lo studio attivo, ma che funzioni su Windows e Android (uso un tablet Samsung con S-Pen). Vengo dall'esperienza con Braynr, ma onestamente non ci siamo: il software è ancora troppo acerbo, macchinoso, con un ecosistema chiuso e prezzi che non giustificano lo stato dello sviluppo. Cerco qualcosa di professionale che faccia "quello che promette Braynr", ma che funzioni davvero. Il mio "effetto" desiderato (Workflow ideale): Split Screen Reale: PDF a sinistra, area di lavoro (mappa concettuale) a destra. Drag & Drop Diretto: Voglio evidenziare una parola o un concetto sul PDF e trascinarlo fisicamente sulla mappa. Quel trascinamento deve creare istantaneamente un "nodo" o una card. Connessione Intuitiva: Se trascino un nodo sopra un altro, voglio che il software crei automaticamente il collegamento (freccia/relazione), senza dover disegnare ogni linea manualmente (stile MarginNote). Flashcard Manuali (fondamentale): Non mi interessa che l'IA faccia tutto per me. Voglio poter cliccare sul nodo della mappa e scrivere manualmente (spesso tramite dettatura vocale) la domanda e la risposta della flashcard. SRS Integrato: Il sistema deve avere un algoritmo di ripasso (Spaced Repetition) interno, senza dover esportare ogni volta su Anki (a meno che l'integrazione non sia invisibile e fulminea). Cross-Platform: Deve girare bene su Windows (PC) e avere un'app Android solida che riconosca il pennino e permetta di ripassare o mappare in mobilità. Cosa ho già scartato: MarginNote 4: Sarebbe perfetto, ma non esiste per Windows/Android. LiquidText: Ottimo il drag-and-drop, ma manca totalmente di un sistema di flashcard/SRS integrato. Algor Education: Manca il vero drag-and-drop fluido dal PDF alla mappa (è troppo orientato all'automazione IA). Heptabase: Molto bello, ma la connessione tra i nodi non è così "automatica" nel trascinamento e il costo dell'abbonamento è alto. Logseq: Potente, ma la curva di apprendimento è ripida e il workflow sui PDF su Android non è ancora così immediato. Esiste qualcosa che permetta questo livello di integrazione "fisica" tra documento e mappa senza dover fare mille passaggi manuali di copia-incolla? Sto quasi pensando di tornare al metodo totalmente separato (Xodo + XMind + Anki), ma la perdita di tempo nel passaggio tra le app è frustrante. Qualcuno ha scovato qualche gemma nascosta (magari tipo BookxNote Pro o simili) che abbia un'app Android decente e questo tipo di interazione? Grazie a chiunque saprà aiutarmi

To be fair, you can divide up your data visually in Heptabase quite nicely using Tab Groups and Tab Folders inside those groups. Those 'groups' can contain anything that can be shown on a tab; so cards, whiteboards, tag collections, etc. and all grouped together anyway you like. This isn't quite the same as spaces maybe but it's pretty close. I like a lot about Capacities too, but the current implementation of their 'Spaces' isn't one of them since your data is locked into the space and there currently isn't a good way to move stuff between them.

So I tried using Obsidian + Excalidraw to create a visual PKM / MOC / infinity mindmap on my iPad. I loved it, but soon ran into performance issues as the setup grew larger. Of course I could section it off into different Excalidraw mindmaps. But that… I want something like, but with many of the same features as Excalidraw. With backlinks and connections. Embed videos, etc. Any tips? Some say heptabase and affine? Milanote? With my iPad I also struggled with Miro. I heard TLDraw might be better? As it renders only what it sees? But within Obsidian it also ran into issues. And I couldn’t seem to figure it out as well as I did with Excalidraw.

Ja usei todos. Pra estudar, nao tem melhor que remnote. Pra fins gerais, não há melhor que o norueguês 'tana'. É o futuro, pois é baseado em knowledge graph. Pra quem tem TDAH o melhor é o 'mem' , pois organiza automaticamente. Melhor gratuito: logseq, o qual também possui graph view. Pra pesquisadores acadêmicos: heptabase. Não gosto: - obsidian. Porque, depois de muito conteúdo, fica ridiculamente impossível e frustrante. - notion. Porque não é nada intuitivo e dá vontade de mudar o formato de organização sempre.

**My AI Life OS — Scheduled Automations** I run a personal AI assistant setup (I call her Aria) built on Claude + [Make.com](http://Make.com) with a bunch of scheduled tasks. Here's what runs automatically every day: **Daily Briefings (Heartbeat)** * 6am and 6pm — a daily briefing that pulls my TickTick tasks, Gmail, Google Calendar, and spending data into a single conversational summary. Morning is for planning, evening is a wind-down check. **Gmail Inbox Zero** * 9am and 9pm — auto-triages my Gmail inbox. Each email either gets archived, converted into a TickTick task, or turned into a calendar event. Goal is always an empty inbox. **Max — Fitness Accountability Bot** * 8:30am and 9pm check-ins — a fitness persona that reads my Strava activity and health streaks, then nudges me to log my morning rituals or reflect on the day. Also polls Telegram every 15 min during waking hours so I can chat with Max on the go. **Aria Telegram Poll** * Every 15 minutes, 7am-midnight — reads incoming Telegram messages and responds as Aria, handling tasks, reminders, and general requests. Basically a pocket assistant via Telegram. **Nightly Journal Prompt** * 9pm — reads what actually happened today (calendar, meetings, tasks), extracts insights from the previous night's journal response, and writes one sharp, contextual reflection question into my Heptabase journal. **Monthly Finance Review** * 16th of each month — deep-dive into spending vs budget, subscription audit, frivolous spending callout, and savings snapshot. Runs the day after my billing cycle closes.

Ipad pro hands down 12" or larger to accommodate various uses. Be sure to use the pencil & you can add either a magic keyboard or a keyboard built into the cover for typing as well. Some apps that may be helpful: Cleft - voice notes & decent summaries https://moge.ai/product/cleft-notes Liquid Text - lets you highlight, note take & move highlights to a visual board, connect documents & concepts & export highlights only. https://www.liquidtext.net/ NotesNook - secure notes that you can link by block or document to other notes within notebooks. Also web clipping. https://notesnook.com/ Readwise - highlights with good AI specific to your curated library, get condensed email newsletters based on your library & companion Read It Later app Reader is included. Has a ton of integrations https://readwise.io/ Heptabase - visual note taking app & knowledge learning multiplier https://heptabase.com/ All these apps can send data between each other so you can explore your topics of interest in multiple ways. Apple just released a $599 laptop if your issue for a tablet is cost.

Have you tried thinking around this problem a bit differently? It seems to me Heptabase fits this bill. You control how tasks are viewed & created. Great for both short & long form. Ideas are cards that can be added to any whiteboard. It's information>visual first vs information>linear first. Takes a bit of getting used to but has low friction once you get divorced from hierarchy based thinking. https://heptabase.com/ Another option might be something like AnyType or Capacities.

Reddit can work as a makeshift personal knowledge repository—plenty of people use it that way by creating private subreddits (or just saving/bookmarking posts in their own profile), posting notes to themselves, or building collections via saved threads. It's free (with Premium perks like better search), searchable, supports markdown/images/links, and you already know the interface. But honestly, \*\*it's rarely the actual "winner"\*\* for dedicated personal knowledge storage in 2026. Most folks who seriously build a "second brain" or long-term knowledge base move away from Reddit because of several limitations. \### Quick Pros/Cons of Reddit for Personal Knowledge Storage \*\*Pros\*\*: \- Super familiar UI (no learning curve) \- Easy to post text, images, links, polls \- Search + saved items (Premium helps with better organization/search) \- Can make private subreddits for fully personal use \- Syncs across devices via the app/web \- Free tier is usable \*\*Cons\*\*: \- Not designed for structured knowledge (no real folders, databases, bi-directional links, graphs, or easy outlining) \- Search is mediocre for deep/personal use (especially older saves) \- Everything is post/comment-based → hard to edit/reorganize large bodies of knowledge fluidly \- Risk of shadow-bans, API changes, or platform policy shifts affecting access \- No offline access, no local-first storage, no plugins/customization \- Feels more like a social/public tool than a private brain extension If you're just dumping random thoughts, articles, and quick notes without needing advanced connections/retrieval, Reddit can suffice short-term. But for anything resembling a real \*\*personal knowledge management (PKM)\*\* system, dedicated tools outperform it by a wide margin in 2026. \### Stronger Alternatives Most People End Up Preferring Here are the current top contenders based on what's dominating discussions and reviews right now (early 2026): 1. \*\*Obsidian\*\* — Still the community favorite for power users Local markdown files → full control, offline, plugins for everything (dataview, calendars, kanban, AI integrations, graph view). Free core app, sync via your own cloud or paid Obsidian Sync. 2. \*\*Notion\*\* — Best all-in-one if you want databases + pages + wikis Extremely flexible (pages, databases, templates, embeds). Great for visual organization. Free for personal use (with generous limits), but can feel bloated/slow for pure notes. 3. \*\*Logseq\*\* — If you like outlines and daily notes flow Open-source, local-first, block-based (similar to Roam/Obsidian but more outline-focused). Strong for networked thought and queries. 4. \*\*Heptabase / Tana / Kosmik\*\* — The newer visual/AI-powered wave These emphasize whiteboards, mind-map style canvases, AI auto-organization, and fluid idea connection. Heptabase and Tana especially popular for visual thinkers right now. 5. \*\*Anytype / Capacities\*\* — Privacy-focused, object-based alternatives Local-first like Obsidian but with more Notion-like databases and nicer default aesthetics. 6. \*\*Evernote / OneNote\*\* — If you want something simpler/traditional Still solid for pure note hoarding + OCR/search, but feel dated compared to the networked tools above. 7. \*\*Craft / Bear\*\* — Clean, beautiful writing experience Great middle ground if you mostly write long-form notes. Many people run \*\*multi-tool stacks\*\* in 2026 (e.g., Readwise/Reader for highlights → Obsidian/Notion for core vault → something visual like Heptabase for synthesis). If you tell me more about what kind of knowledge you're storing (articles/highlights? code snippets? daily journaling? research notes? visual mind-maps? heavy AI summarization?), how much structure vs. freeform you want, whether you care about offline/privacy/local files, budget, etc.—I can narrow it down to 2–3 best fits for you. Reddit's convenient, but it's almost never the long-term winner once people taste a proper PKM tool. What exactly are you hoping to store and retrieve most often?

I've been going in circles trying to find the right tool and I think the problem is I keep looking in the wrong category. I don't need a note taking app or a second brain. What I need is closer to a personal Glean, but for my own reading library. The workflow is simple. I upload a PDF (paper, report, article, whatever I read) and I want to tag it with structured properties like topic, date read, source, my rating, status, custom fields. A personal catalog of everything I've read, filterable and searchable. Then I want space to write my own summary, comments and takeaways attached to that document entry. And finally, this is the key part, I want AI chat that pulls from several documents at once. Not one file at a time. Cross referencing insights, finding patterns, comparing what different sources say about the same topic. I've tried a lot of things and none of them nail it. NotebookLM has good AI chat but zero library or catalog functionality, it's project based and can't answer something as basic as "what did I read in 2025." Readwise Reader is great for articles and highlights but the metadata and catalog side is weak. I tested Remio and it felt mediocre, no structured metadata for files. Heptabase is interesting but too focused on visual dashboards, not enough on the index side. Capacities is the closest I've found with its object based structure and custom properties, but multi document AI chat isn't fully there yet. Zotero has solid catalog and metadata but AI integration is bolted on at best. And Notion AI handles the database part fine but the AI chat over PDFs is not great. Am I describing something that actually exists? Or is this genuinely a gap in the market? Open to SaaS, self hosted, whatever. I just want it to work without having to build a custom RAG pipeline. Thanks.

Creo que estás quizá tratando de pescar un pez muy grande. Si nunca has creado historias escribir una de múltiples decisiones con diferentes finales o consecuencias es realmente complejo (dependiendo qué tan profundas quieres que sean estas consecuencias). Lo que necesitas es un [software como Heptabase](https://heptabase.com) para poder hacer algo como esto: [Árbol de decisiones](https://heptabase.com/_next/image?url=%2F_next%2Fstatic%2Fmedia%2Fwhiteboard-feature.dded7d9e.png&w=3840&q=75) Una opción [más barata es AFFiNE](https://affine.pro/ai) o una aún más barata [(pero menos poderosa) es Thinkflowy](https://www.thinkflowy.com). Escribir la pura historia te podría llevar más de un año dedicado exclusivamente a eso, así que quizá podrías buscar alguien que la escriba mientras tú te dedicas a programar, pero tendrías que colaborar muy de cerca con la persona para que vayan por el mismo camino.

Hello everyone, In the latest version, we’ve introduced a new type of card: the **Web Card**. A few months ago, we introduced the Web Tab, which lets you open websites inside Heptabase so you can take notes and use AI side by side. Now, with a single click, you can save those websites as Web Cards. This allows you to view them fully offline, search them across your knowledge base, and place them on your whiteboards to connect them with your notes. Web Cards are still in the early stages, and we plan to make many improvements over time. Here are the four major updates we have planned: * Support clipping websites as Web Cards using our web clipper * Support highlighting and annotating Web Cards * Sync Zotero web snapshots into Heptabase as Web Cards * Allow AI to generate Web Cards on demand based on your needs We know many of you have been looking forward to this feature. As always, we’re taking a step-by-step approach: first laying the groundwork, then iterating based on user feedback. If this is a direction you care about, please don’t hesitate to send us your feedback through in-app support!

Did…. It told me to use Recall+MindNode+things…. It then wanted me to use Heptabase. Which for some reason would open on my iPad. Searching for Heptabase and another YouTuber led me then to Sublime…. This constant tool switching. Tried going back to basic. Even bought a Remarkable Pro Move…. But too simple = organize backlog. I am open to using different tools and not have one system for all. But then those tools need to become a pack of themselves . Sync together or use shortcuts to combine/automate. Also I think one should mostly use the tools from the same family. If you use Jira, you shouldn’t use Notion as your knowledge base but rather stick to Jira+Confluence. One can combine…. But that consideration should. If one is in Google Workspace, suit one stick mostly to their tools in that family. If one uses Microsoft and Copilot, one should stick to mostly the tools under that umbrella. Often one ends up paying for similar tools twice. And applications in the same family often sync and talk better to each other without complicated syncs and workflows that can break. Recall AI seems promising. But I do not want to go down yet another rabit hole I will leave in a week because I hit some friction or missing ability. I already ser that apple pencil scribble seems to struggle in the editor and some say also that the other app (coplex…. My short term memory could mentally copy it 😆….Cortex…I mean cortex. Leaving this in here to show my daily struggle… I had ti go back and forth 3-4 times to mentally copy the word “cortex”. This is one of the digital and mental friction I struggle on a daily basis with ) is better for creative … while recall ai is best for capture

After a few months of following a zettel style PARA/CODE method in Obsidian, I quickly became overwhelmed with all my notes, and realized I should’ve been tagging or used more backlinking along the way. As a new entrepreneur with no mentors to direct me, my research gave me so much to capture, and projects piled up. It just felt like there were too many categories, and synonyms for those categories, and possible taxonomy layers, and modules to help me. Eventually I tried Ayoa, and then Heptabase, and finally moved to Miro, where I successfully organized my info enough to produce and publish a titan of a youtube video… which flopped. But that’s beside the point. I continued to keep my business notes in there as documents splayed out on a board. But those documents piled up, and I couldn’t decide how to organize them into frames. And honestly don’t even want to figure out how to repurpose mind-mapping software as a knowledge management system. Now, I want to do it lean. Above all else, I want my business knowledge base to only serve my progress. I only want to include what adds to that progress, and I only want to organize when it would boost progress. How do you recommend I go about this? Let’s say I just start with a share drive, like google docs; when will I know I need a more sophisticated tool?

I tried to give Obsidian another go. But I fell into the same Toxic Productivity game once again. Just as I did with Notion for many years. At least Obsidian seems to work better on my iPad (Notion is a nightmare with Apple Pencil). But in my attempt to research Obsidian and try to set up my space, I then fell into Heptabase…. And I am like, fuck…. Is this the one I should use instead? Wait, I should probably go back to Apple Notes again and make a cleanup there. And use Freeform for mindmapping- But wait, Obsidian + Excalidraw is a good combo…. And it sorta works okay with Apple Pencil on my iPad. But also not…. Scribble is also unstable sometimes. And palm rejection is… well. Well, I have an old glove I can cut to make the palm rejection issue go away. Oh, there is a Scribble extension… but wait, it acts a bit weird sometimes… Hmmm, why are everyone talking about Claud Code and Claude Cowork now…. Maybe I should check that out…. But I only have an iPad Pro and an old outdated Intel Mac Mini that doesn’t get updates anymore. Well, maybe I should make a VM….. okay, there, I paid for a VM!…. Ehm, crap, I can’t seem to get the VM up and running properly without using the Mac… well, that one is in my storage. But Google Gemini and all their AI seem to excel from everyone else now, maybe I should go into that instead. And there I go again…. Same Toxic Productivity game I always fall into. Burning out trying to find the system and application that will make me productive and structured…. But not being productive or structured at all. Just more mess.

Guys I want to switch from notion to heptabase. Thing is with notion's AI you can pretty much use the premium models without worrying about hitting your limits. Now with heptabase you get access to "10x the usage of the premium models over the pro plan". That is super vague so now in your guy's experience, do you guys eventually hit your limits? This is deciding factor for me because with notion I use the AI constantly, and worrying about BYOK and using inferior models as a substitute doesn't look all that fun.

Hi everyone, In the latest version, we’re excited to introduce **Zotero integration**! You can now connect your Zotero account and choose the specific collections you want to sync. Once connected, Heptabase will import all items from those collections into your space as source cards, which contain item metadata, PDF attachments, notes, and highlights. This feature is currently in beta, and we’ll continue improving it over time. We’re planning to add the ability to place source cards directly on the whiteboard, generate citations from them during writing, and even let an AI research agent assist you with research across everything you’ve imported. To help us prioritize, please share your feedback through our in-app support. For more information, check out this document: [http://support.heptabase.com/en/articles/13832454](http://support.heptabase.com/en/articles/13832454)

Hi, regarding the Mac app, we have two versions: one for the Intel chip and another for the Apple Silicon chip. The way you described it sounds like you might have accidentally downloaded the wrong version. My suggestion is to reinstall it again to see if the freezing issue disappears. [https://heptabase.com/download](https://heptabase.com/download) If the issue still persists, please contact support in-app with your registered email, and we'll assign an engineer to help you troubleshoot the issue. [https://support.heptabase.com/en/articles/10448156-how-do-i-contact-heptabase-support](https://support.heptabase.com/en/articles/10448156-how-do-i-contact-heptabase-support)

Hellos, I was really excited about heptabase because i was looking for the perfect match between visual and well organised notes. I am so dissapointed to find out that it’s almost impossible to work with right now on my ipad, i write text and at some point it just freezes, then starts working again after 5-10 seconds, sometimes more, sometimes less. I have an ipad pro m2, this is not a hardware issue. On my mac studio it freezes sometimes, other times it crashes… How can this app have so many performance problems?!? What’s going on folks? Should i just quit trying these sor of apps and just stick to apple notes?!?