Compare / Capacities vs Anytype

Capacities vs Anytype

Capacities is an object-based notes studio where every note is a typed thing — a person, a book, a meeting; Anytype is a local-first, end-to-end-encrypted object workspace you can even self-host. Here’s how they compare on pricing, platforms, linking, search, capture and collaboration — and how to decide between them.

What is Capacities?

Capacities organizes your knowledge by what things are. Instead of files in folders, you create objects — people, books, meetings, projects, quotes — each with its own properties and views, connected through backlinks and daily notes. Browsing by object type (every book you’ve noted, every person you’ve met) falls out of the design for free, and a calendar-centric daily view ties it to your day.

It’s a polished, cloud-based app on web, desktop and mobile, with a generous free core plan; Pro (about $10/month billed annually) adds the AI assistant, calendar sync and advanced queries. In July 2026 it shipped a developer API with OAuth, opening it up to integrations. One deliberate omission to know about: there is no collaboration, and the team has said it isn’t planned — Capacities is intentionally a personal tool.

What is Anytype?

Anytype wants to be the privacy-maximalist answer to Notion: objects with types, relations and sets, composed from blocks — but stored on your device, end-to-end encrypted, and synced peer-to-peer through a network you can self-host. The source is available (under its own license), and the free plan includes the full feature set with local storage limited only by your disk.

Collaboration arrived in 2024–25 via multiplayer shared Spaces, and publishing to the web followed, so it’s no longer strictly single-player. Paid tiers (Plus $4, Pro $8, Ultra $16 per month) mostly buy network storage rather than features. An official API and MCP server (2025) let AI assistants work with your data — notably, without Anytype itself pushing your notes through cloud AI, in keeping with its privacy stance.

Capacities vs Anytype at a glance

Pricing and features as of mid-2026 — check each product’s site for current details.

Where Capacities shines

• Object types with properties give structure without the rigidity of databases or the chaos of free-form notes.
• One of the most polished, beautiful interfaces in the category, consistent across web, desktop and mobile.
• A genuinely useful free plan, with Pro at a mid-pack price.
• Daily notes plus calendar integration make it a natural journal-of-record.

Worth knowing: No collaboration — explicitly not supported and not planned; sharing is read-only page links. Cloud-first and proprietary, with no local-first storage or end-to-end encryption. Power features like queries sit behind Pro, and the object model can feel like ceremony for quick, messy capture.

Where Anytype shines

• The strongest privacy architecture in the category: local-first, end-to-end encrypted, peer-to-peer sync, self-hostable.
• Object types, relations and sets bring real database power to personal notes.
• Nearly everything is free — paid tiers mainly add network storage.
• Official API and MCP server let AI assistants integrate on your terms.

Worth knowing: No web app — desktop and mobile apps only. The object/relation model has a steeper learning curve than plain notes. Web capture, feeds and email-in aren’t part of the picture; it expects you to create, not collect.

Which should you choose?

Choose Capacities if:

• You think in entities — people, books, meetings — and want your tool to as well.
• Interface polish and aesthetics genuinely affect whether you’ll keep using a tool.
• You’re strictly solo and don’t need sharing or teamwork.

Choose Anytype if:

• End-to-end encryption and local storage are your first filter, not a nice-to-have.
• You want Notion-like structure (types, relations, sets) in a personal tool.
• Self-hosting matters to you, now or as an exit option.

A third option: Dexi

If what you actually want is one searchable place for notes, bookmarks, newsletters and RSS — with tags, @mentions and [[wiki links]] that organize themselves as you write, semantic search that finds ideas even when the words don’t match, and an MCP server so Claude and other AI assistants can work with your notes directly — take a look at Dexi. It’s free for up to 1,000 notes, with no app to install.

• Dexi vs Capacities
• Dexi vs Anytype

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