3 Best Heptabase Alternatives for 2025

Heptabase is perfect for visual note-taking, but isn't right for everyone. Let's explore the best Heptabase alternatives to optimize your note-taking & digital brain.

Heptabase is an interesting software primarily because a lot of people like the ability to manage your notes in a canvas-like view, which is great for visual thinkers and note-takers. But many people might not like the experience that Heptabase offers, so many people are looking around for alternatives on the market, and there are a few that do a brilliant job when it comes to visual note-taking.

However, we've decided to put together a list of the best visual note-taking applications similar to Heptabase. Here they are, and a little bit more about how they best align with Heptabase's features.

Why we picked these Heptabase alternatives?

We selected these options based on two key criteria for these alternatives:

Canvas View

First, they include a Canvas feature, allowing users to visually organize media, notes, and other elements to connect ideas seamlessly. Many note-taking applications lack this capability, but these options prioritize it, mirroring a core feature of Heptabase.

Bi-Directional Linking

Second, they support bidirectional linking, a significant function for research and synthesizing ideas, just as in Heptabase. These applications were explicitly chosen for their similarity in these aspects.

1. Obsidian

Best Free Alternative

Obsidian is a free note-taking application that is similar to Heptabase in terms of bringing together ideas in a PKM style, but it differs from Heptabase by presenting itself as a plain-text, markdown-focused experience first, whereas Heptabase primarily focuses on the visual aspect of the experience as the core part of how you use Heptabase. However, Obsidian actually offers an Atlas view, which is perfect for organizing your images, ideas, and your notes, all in a view that can be accessed and managed through a clean, offline experience.

A lot of people like the fact that, much like Heptabase, it's a local first experience, and it operates as a way for you to map your notes visually, but doesn't have as good of features when it comes to popping notes open on the side and seeing connected notes as Heptabase does. But essentially, for the free value, which compared to Heptabase's pricing, Obsidian is free, and Heptabase is priced at around $8 to $10 a month. Many people like this as a free alternative.

Pros:

• Comes with PKM abilities
• Powerful graph view for networked notes
• Obsidian adds new features fairly regularly
• You can switch on and off features

Cons:

• Lacks project management
• Does not have database abilities

Pricing:

Obsidian is free to use with no limits; there is a $4 per month pricing for E2E notes & sync.

2. Scrintal

Scrintal is probably the closest alternative as an experience to Heptabase and offers a pretty similar ability for creating notes. And as they’ve recently revamped their experience, many people view it as a direct alternative.

Scrintal includes a board-like view in the same capacity that Heptabase offers but has, in our opinion, slightly better abilities when it comes to managing your visual notes together and a much better design, which Heptabase did lack. The speed and functionality are similar, and Scrintal does have collaborative abilities, which is good. The only thing that Scrintal lacks in comparison with Heptabase is that it doesn’t access mobile applications, which is a bit of a limitation for many people.

Pros:

• Great for researchers
• Comes with interactive cards
• You can upload and manage PDFs & media
• Connect up cards between notes for idea generation
• Real-time collaboration for team members

Cons:

• Not ideal for the traditional note-taker
• No free plan to play around with the tool

3. AFFiNE Pro

AFFiNE Pro is probably one of the wilder alternatives to Heptabase, but it is very much like Heptabase with the whiteboard collaborative abilities that many people are looking at. It does have better sketch abilities and more creative element to it, as well as having a way to turn your whiteboards into documents really simply, which doesn’t seem to be as available in apps like Heptabase or Scrintal.

It’s an interesting alternative as a way to quickly switch between whiteboards and documents and feels like a strong experience that many users might be considering if they’re in a small team or they want more sketch abilities alongside being able to connect their notes up.

Pros:

• Has some light database abilities
• Amazing whiteboard to document abilities
• Comes with collaboration for team members

Cons:

• Lacks powerful databases
• Comes with a learning curve