Hi everyone.
I’ve played around with Supernotes and I really like it so far. UI and the philosophy is nice. So I’m considering to upgrade to unlimited.
But it suddenly occured to me that this is basically like a mindmap but on a linear dimension. I come from heptabase (if you do you’ll appreciate the UI here even more). The can do most of the features here (multi-parent, cards, backlinks, etc). In addition, I can visualize all cards in a canvas.
Since the pricing is also about the same, can someone help share the benefits and advantages Supernotes offers over say Heptabase and Scrintal?
I really want to love this app, it’s just so beautiful and makes me wanna study and work.
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I’ve used both Heptabase and Scrintal a fair amount, enough to be able to make meaningful comparisons between them and Supernotes.
I prefer using Supernotes because it feels simpler to use. I don’t have to worry about which cards should go where on a canvas. On the other hand, I do like seeing all my cards laid out before me. On the third hand (!), the graph view in Supernotes is effective. I can see my notes and how they link to each other. I don’t need to drag them around or create separate canvases.
I prefer using Supernotes because the app is incredibly opinionated. It’s very clear what it is, and what it isn’t. For example, let’s talk about the (unenforced) character limit on the cards. With Hepta and Scrintal there is no limit. This meant that I was tempted to use them for long-form writing. I’m not so tempted with Supernotes, rather I use it for what it’s meant for - atomic ideas. I wanted to use Hepta and Scrintal as everything apps, which is one reason I failed to commit to them.
I’ve found I appreciate working with short-form cards. It helps my thinking.
That’ll do for now. Hope it’s helpful.
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I had the same dilemma. I would say SN wins out in UX and is well thought out, but there are some limiting factors. For example, Heptabase allows annotating PDFs with source links, which is a complete game changer.
It is unclear to me if SN would consider adding this, so I have had to unfortunately switch back to Hepta and hold out hope that one day SN can add this and become my main note tool. Because jumping back and forth between tools is a pain and limits core functionality like linking I have had to stop using SuperNotes and probably won’t renew my subscription (unless things change).
Another downside is that visual learning is very powerful and the lack of canvas in SN is beyond limiting to power visual connections
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