Anytype vs Obsidian vs Notion: which to choose, and how to export

What's the difference between Anytype, Obsidian and Notion?

The biggest difference is how each one stores your notes.

• Obsidian is a folder of Markdown files on your disk. The app reads and writes those files, and anything else that reads Markdown can open them. It's free with no sign-up. Sync is an optional paid add-on with end-to-end encryption (Obsidian pricing).
• Anytype is a graph of objects. Each note is an object with a type and relations, which are its properties, and you build sets and collections on top of them. Your vault lives on your device with local, on-device encryption, and syncs through Anytype's network, your own self-hosted setup, or peer-to-peer on a local network (Anytype).
• Notion is a cloud workspace. Your pages and databases live on Notion's servers and you open them in a browser or an app. It's built for teams sharing one workspace, with databases, sites, forms and AI (Notion pricing).

Everything else follows from that. Obsidian is the most portable, Anytype is the most structured without a cloud account, and Notion is the easiest to share.

How do Anytype, Obsidian and Notion compare at a glance?

Anytype vs Obsidian: which is better?

It depends on whether you want files or objects.

Choose Obsidian if you want your notes to outlast any app. A folder of Markdown files is about as portable as data gets. You can back it up however you like, put it in git, and open it in another editor tomorrow. The plugin ecosystem is huge. The trade-off is that you build the structure yourself, and official sync costs money unless you set up your own.

Choose Anytype if you want structure built in: types with their own fields, relations between objects, and database-style views, with encrypted sync on the free plan (which includes 100 MB of remote storage). The trade-off is that your data lives in Anytype's own format, so moving out means an export, not just copying a folder.

If the Anytwo news has you thinking about how long your notes will outlive the app they're in, that's a point in Obsidian's favour. If you rely on types and relations every day, it's a point for staying with Anytype, or for waiting to see Anytwo.

Anytype vs Notion: which is better?

Notion if you collaborate, Anytype if you want your data on your devices.

Notion is the more mature product for teams: real-time editing, permissions, databases, sites, forms and a lot of integrations. The price of that is that it's cloud-first. Your workspace lives on Notion's servers, and offline is something you prepare for ahead of time. I go into that trade-off on Koru as a Notion alternative.

Anytype gives you a Notion-like object and database model, local-first and encrypted, with no cloud account to depend on. That's why some people move from Notion to Anytype, and Anytype has a built-in Notion importer that works through the Notion API (Anytype Docs: Migrate from Notion). Anytype says not every Notion feature is supported: formulas come in as values, for example, and date ranges as text.

What is Anytwo, and do Anytype users have to switch?

No. Moving to Anytwo is optional, and Anytype says the current app keeps working.

Here's what Anytype announced in its official recap on September 11, 2026 (Anytwo and the future of Anytype):

• Anytwo is a rebuild: a new database replacing the old middleware layer, a new editor, a revamped Types system ("Collections 2.0"), rebuilt search, and global peer-to-peer sync.
• It isn't backwards compatible: "if you want to use the new build, you will need to commit to a hard migration from Anytype. We will build a bridge from Anytype to the new build to make the migration as smooth as we can."
• Timing: "We plan to release the product in its first iteration publicly by the end of the year. It will not have feature parity to Anytype in its first releases, however it may have enough depending on your individual needs."
• Current Anytype stays: "You can continue to use Anytype forever, it's not going anywhere." Anytype says it will move from source-available to the MIT open-source license, and that development "will slow down because we're focusing on Anytwo".
• Pricing: Anytype says it hasn't decided on the membership model for Anytwo yet, but that Anytwo will have a free tier, structured differently from Anytype's.

You may see claims online about what Anytwo will cost or what its free tier will include. Anytype hasn't announced that, so treat them as rumours until it does.

So the real question for an Anytype user isn't "am I being forced out?" It's this: when I eventually migrate, do I migrate to Anytwo or somewhere else? Either way, the first step is the same: know what your export looks like.

How do I export from Anytype?

On desktop: open Channel Settings, choose Export, and pick a format. Import and export are available on desktop only (Anytype Docs: Import & Export).

1. Open Anytype on your computer and go to your Channel Settings › Export. You can also export one object (three-dot menu › Export), several selected objects, or a whole view, such as a Type, Query or Collection.
2. Pick the format: Markdown, "to use the content in other apps"; Any-Block, Anytype's own format, in JSON or Protobuf; or PDF or HTML, for reading rather than moving.
3. Turn on Include files (images, videos and other files) and Include linked Objects. Turn on Include archived Objects if you want those too. Choose Zip archive to get a single file.
4. Know what's missing: Anytype says chats, discussions and space members aren't exported, so a property such as "assignee" or "created by" may not show the right person after an import.

Which format should I pick? For another Markdown app, Markdown. Anytype staff say the Markdown export "writes properties as YAML frontmatter and includes a schema for your types" (Anytype Community). To keep everything, save an Any-Block copy as well. Anytype says the format is open and MIT-licensed (any-block on GitHub), and describes the new any-block v2 as "fully documented, and lossless", keeping "object types, relations and links between objects". Anytype's recap lists any-block v2 among the improvements coming to Anytype, so check which version your app writes before you rely on it.

My advice: export both, and open the Markdown in a plain text editor before you commit to anything. An export is a copy; your Anytype space stays as it is, so you lose nothing by trying.

How do I move from Anytype to Obsidian?

Export Markdown with files included, unzip it, and open the folder as an Obsidian vault.

Obsidian reads YAML at the top of a file as properties (Obsidian Help: Properties), so the properties Anytype writes as front matter should come through as properties. Check how links between objects arrived and fix any that point to the wrong file name.

If the built-in export doesn't fit, people in Anytype's community have built converters from Any-Block to Markdown, such as AnyBlock-To-Markdown and anyMD. They aren't official, so try them on a copy.

How do I move from Anytype to Notion?

There's no direct Anytype-to-Notion importer that I could find. The usual route is to export Markdown from Anytype and use Notion's own import: Settings › Import › Text & Markdown for files, or the ZIP importer to bring in a whole folder at once (Notion Help: Import data into Notion).

Expect to rebuild databases, because Anytype's sets and relations won't turn into Notion databases by themselves. Notion also says anchor links and nonstandard Markdown extensions may not import cleanly.

Where does Koru fit?

Koru is my app, so here's the honest version.

Koru is a free, open-source (MPL-2.0), local-first desktop workspace for notes, docs and files, built in Rust, for Windows and macOS (the Mac build is for Apple silicon). Your notes live on your computer, and it works with no connection and no account.

• Versus Anytype: Koru is document-first. It has no types, relations or sets, no mobile apps, and no Anytype importer. If your Anytype setup is mostly writing, you can bring it over today: export Markdown from Anytype, unzip it, and import the .md files with Koru's Markdown import. Types, relations and sets don't carry over, and links between notes may need fixing by hand.
• Versus Obsidian: Obsidian's plain-files approach and plugins are hard to beat. If editing a folder of .md files in place is what matters most to you, stay with Obsidian. More on Koru as an Obsidian alternative.
• Versus Notion: Koru is for your own notes, not a team wiki. It imports a Notion export zip on your computer, without connecting your Notion account. More on Koru as a Notion alternative.

More detail on the Anytype comparison: Koru as an Anytype alternative. Or download Koru: it's free, and your notes stay on your computer.