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Anytype – local-first, P2P Notion alternative

anytype.io

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Re: Anytype – local-first, P2P Notion alternative

#21

Post by PurpleRamen »

Why does this smell like a cult? Talking about trust and having illusive pictures and designs..

And why do I need to login for an offline app? Where does the data really go? There is some setting remote storage, and some mb already used, so is in reallity an online-app with some offline-mirroring? But it seems there is not a choice to set the local storage-path, and the saved files are just your usual electron-blob-files. Seems there is no way to really access or control my files externally.

This doesn't give much impression to be trustable.

Re: Anytype – local-first, P2P Notion alternative

#22

Post by catapart »

This is awesome! Love to see more local-first, security-focused apps! Especially ones that are free.

Asking because I'm currently working on a local-first app that I am gaming out how to sync to non-local networks: The docs state that the app syncs to local P2P networks. Does that mean it doesn't sync across the internet? If so, is that because of the cost of maintaining/renting a TURN server? Or is there a technical limitation? If it does sync across the open internet, are there restrictions to that?

Sorry for the grilling! It's just an area of interest at the right time. In trying to come up with a WebRTC solution, I think I've settled on defeat. The local network syncing works like a charm, but I haven't had any luck in trying to get around a TURN server by using an API endpoint to provide routing data. It would be nice if there were other prebuilts than COTURN (something deployable to a deno/node server would be ideal), but with what we currently have, I think I've settled on just pushing the encrypted data through my api server, letting users encrypt and decrypt with well-known hashing, based on some key they provide in each client (exporting client and importing client; they never exchange keys).

Anyway, my pet projects aside, this thing looks really full-featured! Great work here. I use Notion, daily, and this could easily replace it for me. In fairness, I don't take full advantage of Notion, but I doubt most people do either. Seems like you've covered enough of the bases to provide a real product for all but some edge cases, so that's pretty awesome! I'll echo others in lamenting a web app; that's what will keep me from switching from Notion, because its just not portable enough for the work I do. But, otherwise, I'm happy with it so far. Gonna try to plan some stuff in it and see if there are any creaky wheels!

Re: Anytype – local-first, P2P Notion alternative

#23

Post by squirtlebonflow »

digdugdirk wrote: post #3

I see this software has tables - are these able to be used like excel sheets? I see this as a necessity for software like this. It's the one feature that Notion has that the competition doesn't seem to have, and it's absolutely crucial to everyday work for so many people. It seems to be a blind spot for programmer-types, I'm guessing because they see Excel as limited?

[dead]

Re: Anytype – local-first, P2P Notion alternative

#25

Post by jordiburgos »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #21

Why does this smell like a cult? Talking about trust and having illusive pictures and designs.. And why do I need to login for an offline app? Where does the data really go? There is some setting remote storage, and some mb already used, so is in reallity an online-app with some offline-mirroring? But it seems there is not a choice to set the local storage-path, and the saved files are just your usual electron-blob-f…

I think the same. I was trying to find the "How to install the server" but here is no option. It just saves the data in their servers. There is too many wording about security and control, but only in their control.

Re: Anytype – local-first, P2P Notion alternative

#27

Post by taminka »

PurpleRamen wrote: post #21

Why does this smell like a cult? Talking about trust and having illusive pictures and designs.. And why do I need to login for an offline app? Where does the data really go? There is some setting remote storage, and some mb already used, so is in reallity an online-app with some offline-mirroring? But it seems there is not a choice to set the local storage-path, and the saved files are just your usual electron-blob-f…

> Talking about trust and having illusive pictures and designs..

it's one of the key features of the app that most other alternatives lack, it would be weird for them not to mention this

> And why do I need to login for an offline app?

it's not offline only, it can sync to your other devices over the internet

> Where does the data really go? There is some setting remote storage, and some mb already used, so is in reallity an online-app with some offline-mirroring?

it's stays on your devices, unless you pay for dedicated backups of your data

> and the saved files are just your usual electron-blob-files. Seems there is no way to really access or control my files externally.

your data is encrypted, which is why you can't just access it via your file manager

hope this helps :)

Re: Anytype – local-first, P2P Notion alternative

#29

Post by [deleted] »

jordiburgos wrote: post #25
PurpleRamen wrote: post #21

Why does this smell like a cult? Talking about trust and having illusive pictures and designs.. And why do I need to login for an offline app? Where does the data really go? There is some setting remote storage, and some mb already used, so is in reallity an online-app with some offline-mirroring? But it seems there is not a choice to set the local storage-path, and the saved files are just your usual electron-blob-f…

I think the same. I was trying to find the "How to install the server" but here is no option. It just saves the data in their servers. There is too many wording about security and control, but only in their control.

[deleted]

Re: Anytype – local-first, P2P Notion alternative

#30

Post by smokel »

whywhywhywhy wrote: post #18
lewisjoe wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Google Docs have somehow solved E2E encryption with safe sharing and collaboration. They haven't advertised it much, just a mention here and there as an enterprise requirement or something, it's good how they've implemented it on top of an existing web-first collaboration product. They do have technical challenges implementing add-on services on top of content - For example, the grammar checker or any content assista…

Operating systems should be providing spellcheck to textboxes everywhere anyway. Makes no sense every app rolling their own and not using my operating system dictionary with my own corrections. Extremely frustrating every Electron app just rolls their own rubbish spellcheck, or doesn't have it at all.

That's an interesting take on things. Would you want your operating system to provide a web browser, pdf viewer, and spreadsheet as well?

To me it makes no sense that software does not interoperate very well. I think most of this is due to the historical evolution of computers and software. A spell checker used to take up an insane amount of memory, a browser is a competitive product, and interfaces for proper interaction have to be standardized worldwide, for which we still lack some kind of governmental body.

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