This is my first impression about Personal Knowledge Management app, Heptabase. Of note, this is abbreviated version of Youtube content. For full detail, please watch Youtube.
What’s Heptabase?
Heptabase is a visual note-taking, so called personal knowledge management system app.
Similar to other personal knowledge management systems (PKMS), Hepta base aims to be the ultimate knowledge management platform. However, like other such systems, it is still in the early stages of development and cannot yet be considered a true “Knowledge OS.”
Compared to other PKMS, Heptabase stands out for its user-friendly interface and flexibility, which can truly improve the process of learning. Therefore, I would describe its current version (v1.32.14), as a learning enhancement tool.
Brief History
The company was founded in late 2021, and is based in Taiwan. In early 2022, they were able to raise nearly $1.7 million in seed funding; however, they have not spent any investor money to this date, as they are able to fully fund themselves through the revenue.
The public beta became available in 2022., and the version 1.0 was released in August 2023.
On January 2024, Heptabase was awarded for the Golden Kitty Awards on Product Hunt under Personal Productivity category. While the credibility and actual value of this site and award are unclear, other PKMS app developers have asked for votes, suggesting this recognition holds some significance within the PKMS community.
Basic app design
Cards
The fundamental unit on Heptabase is a “card.” A card can be a standard note, media files like images, videos, and audio files. As a note-taking app at its core, we are building note cards with a feature-rich text editor.
Knowledge comes from sources, and Heptabase recognizes the importance of easy accessibility to them. Therefore, similar to other PKM systems, Heptabase allows users to store source files like PDFs and media files directly within the app.
Where Heptabase shows its potential is the “highlight” card type. This feature offers an interesting and flexible design that allows us to link reference sources and notes within the application, enabling contextual retention for our notes.
Eventually, they aim to enable users to create program cards that allow custom automation and processing of other cards within Heptabase. This is a fascinating idea, and once they reach that stage, it sounds like a real knowledge operating system or platform.
White board
They also recognize that we don’t think or acquire knowledge linearly, and each of us does this differently. Therefore, Heptabase offers its main working space in the form of a whiteboard rather than a single document.
We place various cards, link them, and organize them on the infinite canvas in a way that makes sense to us. The overall design feels flexible and has the potential to create a cohesive knowledge platform or operating system that can handle all stages of the knowledge life cycle.
Pros
✅ Full Offline
✅ Cross-device Sync
✅ Web App
✅ Mobile App
✅ Flexible, yet intuitive organization including nested white board = folder 2.0
Seamless PDF workflow
PDF files can be easily imported into Heptabase using a simple drag-and-drop feature. Within the app, you can not only view these PDF files but also annotate them directly.
To understand the complex topics presented in the PDF articles, I typically highlight key points and occasionally take brief notes as I read.
In other personal knowledge management systems (PKMS) I’ve tried, I had to use external PDF organization libraries, as most of them did not support PDF annotation within the app, despite allowing the import of PDF files.
When I make notes from the reading content, I need to keep track of the original reference link. Just as in the Zettelkasten design, the reference note is important.
Then I would start writing literature notes, which are quick summaries with original reference links. These can serve as a quick knowledge reference.
Sometimes, complex topics require combining multiple concepts from literature notes and organizing them into an understandable form for me, which is what I call a permanent note in my Zettelkasten system.
Other PKMS
In other personal knowledge management systems (PKMS), this workflow required:
- Annotate PDF documents using a dedicated PDF application.
- Take literature notes in the PKMS, organizing it, usually with multiple tags.
- Upload PDF files to cloud storage, organizing them into a hierarchical folder structure.
- Create a link to the PDF file in the cloud.
- Paste the link into the PKMS literature note.
- Create a permanent note.
- If I make additional highlights on the PDF, I must download and re-upload the file.
In Heptabase,
- Upload the PDF directly into Heptabase.
- Highlight the desired sections within Heptabase.
- Drag and drop the highlighted section, which creates a highlighted card, which is “reference” note. This card allows me to click and navigate back to the original PDF and the specific highlighted section.
- Next, edit the highlight card or create a new “literature” card to summarize the highlighted content in my own words.
- With all the literature cards, and adding other cards on the whiteboard, I can visually start creating permanent cards.
The benefit here is that every step I take is relevant to my learning. There is no need to waste time uploading to two different unlinked platforms and manually creating the linking between the two.
Furthermore, this workflow allows me to decode complex PDFs in multiple sittings with ease. I can read one section, take literature notes, and then later return to the same whiteboard to immediately see where I left off. This approach also encourages me to reflect on what I have learned so far.
One reason this approach works well is that “cards” in Heptabase go to the card library, rather than being bound to a specific whiteboard. Once you have finished reading the entire article, you can simply delete the whiteboard. In other words, you have treated reading a PDF as a one-time project. Your highlighted cards and permanent notes all remain intact.
As someone who uses PDF as the main reference source, this is one of the key areas that instantly captivated me about Heptabase.
Vender lock prevention
Batch Export
Heptabase offers a convenient batch export feature with a single button click. The exported files include the cards I’ve created, even the highlighted cards imported from Readwise.
What’s truly impressive is that when I opened these notes in Obsidian, a free app, the notes retained nearly all their formatting, including links between notes, embedded images, and even tags and properties. I haven’t conducted a thorough comparison, but the data appears to be fully usable at a glance.
One catch here is that while we retain highlight notes from PDFs, the original PDFs do not retain the highlights. However, this could be a potential future feature addition.
View-only
As an additional safeguard to reduce “vendor lock-in” experiences, Heptabase will allow users to continue accessing their notes in “view-only” mode if the user decides to unsubscribe.
Open-source potential
They have also promised on their official site that if they ever go out of business, they will make the software open-source.
At this point, I am comfortable acknowledging that Heptabase is not a vendor lock-in platform.
https://wiki.heptabase.com/how-sustainable-is-heptabase
Customer & Community support
The Heptabase support system is excellent, significantly outperforming many other IT support services based on my limited interactions. They have an active Discord community, where I can quickly receive help from either community members or Heptabase team members.
The official support system workflow is impressive. During my first week of using the subscription, I’ve submitted nearly a dozen feature requests and suggestions within the Heptabase app as chat messages. I received responses to all of them in less than a day, and most were within a few hours.
While I’m uncertain whether they’ll implement any of my feature requests, I’ve felt they genuinely cared about my input, rather than denying all possibilities or using templated responses to claim they have customer service.
In some case, they’ve suggested a temporary workaround including pointing me to the third party app while promising they are still adding the feature request to the backlog. Some they have requested more details to better understand the use case for the feature.
Cons
Unlike many other personal knowledge management systems (PKMS), Heptabase does not offer a free tier, except for a 7-day trial period.
They have a single subscription plan priced at $12 per month, with a potential 25% discount if you subscribe for one year.
The functionality it currently offers is worth the price for my case, as the time-saving and productivity enhancement it provides are worth more than $12 per month. However, this can be a deal breaker to some.
Neutral
While I hope these features become available soon, their absence does not prevent me from using Heptabase. In fact, most of these points would immediately become pros if implemented, and I expect many of them to be added at some point. These are neutral points or a wishlist, certainly not extreme negatives.
Privacy
According to the official wiki, when using local-only mode, all Heptabase data is stored locally. When cloud sync for multi-device syncing is enabled, Heptabase will use Amazon Web Services (AWS), located in North America.
AWS does not automatically offer end to end encryption (E2EE), and currently Heptabase does not offer E2EE. This is demonstrated by one of their backlog item states “End-to-End Encryption for Selected Cards.”
If end-to-end encryption is an absolute must-have feature for you, you may need to wait until its release. Personally, I do not plan to store any sensitive data in any of the PKMS services, so I am comfortable with the current situation, especially since the company has a future plan to support this feature.
Other neutral points discussed in video includes:
- Card level Transclusion supported but not copy or export the transcluded content
- No built in AI support
- Web content as a reference source is no where near PDF level
- No free hand-draw
- Limited to single workspace, but multiple workspace is currently in work.
- No split column but ability to use table to achieve the similar result.
Conclusion
In conclusion, Heptabase offers one of the most intuitive and seamless personal knowledge management experience as a learning tool. The team’s meticulous attention to usability allows the system’s flexibility to adapt to the user’s workflow, rather than requiring the user to adapt to a predetermined approach.
While a subscription-only service could be seen as a drawback, Heptabase has set a high standard for subscription-based personal knowledge management systems (PKMS). I have not yet seen a free service that matches the quality and productivity enhancement offered by Heptabase, particularly in learning from PDF material.
From this point on, any PKMS I consider with a subscription model will be compared to Heptabase in terms of price, features, and functionality. It’s a challenging benchmark to surpass.
The future potential of Heptabase is also intriguing to observe. They have already demonstrated their ability to create enhanced knowledge databases from PDF sources. I eagerly anticipate their expansion into other input sources, such as web pages and media files. To fully realize the knowledge lifecycle they have defined, I also look forward to their development of creation and expression workflows, including support for long-form writing.
If anyone wants to improve their learning efficiency and quality, especially by relying on PDFs as a primary source, Heptabase is an absolute must-try app.