Capacities: a studio for your mind
If you make heavy use of the room feature here, particularly if you tend to save a single rec to multiple rooms (Powells in both 'bookstores' and 'Portland', for example), your brain might really like Capacities. It's halfwayish between Obsidian and Notion, and better than both, from someone who has tried all three and thinks a lot about PKMs, zettelkasten, note-taking, indexing, library science, etc. It's functional and good and useful and makes me happy in the way that Rec League does.
I absolutely love how compatible it has been with an otherwise very analog and offline existence. The majority of my note-taking and research is on paper, but if there's something from the internet that I'd ever want to reference back to, particularly research for upcoming trips and projects, this is where it lives. I like how a concept is linked to other concepts, and the tag and sort features are intuitive and effective. The solve-the-murder-map-type web of ideas pairs so well with a visual brain. I find that I spend my time actually making and referencing back to notes rather than endlessly tweaking the architecture of my filing system.
AI is an optional and non-default variant that I can't speak to, as it's not something I use at all. The team that runs Capacities is small, responsive, innovative, and Europe-based, with all of the data privacy rights that that brings. It works online and offline, on Apple, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android, etc. The free tier is fully fledged and robust, and I haven't found any limitations.
2 days ago
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I think they're picking up steam a bit. I've seen a lot of (really good) new updates over the past year, and that video is all of two days old, which means they have an advertising budget now? Wouldn't be surprised if they release some better onboarding videos over the next month or so. Any questions, just ask! I'm not an expert at it; just think it's a really good tool made by good people.
Good luck! A new master's program is both daunting and exciting.
I've found Obsidian to be more technical (probably a good thing) and more hierarchical (less desirable). Backlinking and tagging works better for me in Capacities, but Obsidian has a very robust community of add-ons... If you love Obsidian and find the folder-based filing aligns with your thought patterns already I don't see a super compelling argument for switching. Obsidian wins out over pure offline-ness. In Capacities both offline storage and syncing is very good across devices and free, but its origins are from the cloud (although I've used it offline for a month on a trip without issues). I like the way the properties of each object/concept/idea work in Capacities slightly better too, but it's close between both, and both are great. Object properties works slightly better for me too. The map view has pictures which tips it over for my visual brain.
Best analogy I can muddle to is that PKMs are like home libraries. When I was using Obsidian, the theme and add-on options were so vast, I spent more of my time futzing with the wallpaper and rearranging books from one shelf to another to get the display aesthetically perfect. It was a beautiful spot to be in, but finding the right book to red wasn't the easiest. In Capacities the shelves are more spartan, but I'm reading and working with the books more, and it's easier for me to find each book I want even if they are on the shelves some what randomly because the index card system is so well cross-referenced and because the books are cover forward, and I can access my books even if I'm away from home.
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