I used to keep every note, draft, project, and list inside Notion. All my pages lived in one workspace, but it quickly became like a messy pile of digital junk. Notion has a lot of muscle, but it can still feel like dragging a suitcase of bricks because there’s just so much going on at once. So a tool that was supposed to help me organize my life just ended up being another point of friction.

I’ve tried several Notion alternatives at this point, and have come across some true gems. And eventually, I discovered Capacities. It’s considered one of the top PKM apps out there, so I had to give it a go, and it ended up really surprising me. It has a slightly similar structure to Notion, but with many key differences, and those are ultimately what made me want to switch. Here’s how my journey with it has been so far…

The UI is much better

Capacities is a calmer and more intuitive workspace

Capacities does make the onboarding longer than it needs to be, but once I was in, it felt worth it. I was met with a much cleaner and simpler layout than Notion, and immediately felt like I could dive in without getting overwhelmed. The sidebar is minimal, with your workspaces at the top and options to create new content underneath. The first thing you’ll be directed to is the calendar board, which you can view by day, three days, week, or month. It’s an excellent way to get an immediate overview of past, current, and upcoming projects without having to go digging for them.

From the New Content button, you can create pages, tables, and insert images, links, and so on. Each content piece you create gets grouped under a section called Objects (more on those later). And each one opens to its own page which you can elaborate on with a title and text. Just like Notion, the text area lets you use the slash command to insert headers, tables, lists, code, and more. Plus, you can link to other pages, insert web links, and create tags.

And that’s all there is to it. It feels a little more barebones on the surface, but that’s only because Capacities trims the visual noise. Everything you could need for project and knowledge management is within reach in a few clicks; you don’t have to wonder where anything is hiding or watch a million tutorials to learn how to use it.

Objects instead of folders or databases

It’s a different approach to task management

Objects is Capacities’ signature feature. As abovementioned, every type of content you create in Capacities is an “object”. They’re reusable, customizable, and linkable entries that comprise all the content you create in the app. The most notable difference about objects is that they replace folders as well as databases.

Objects are grouped into categories, namely Tables, Pages, Weblinks, Images, Meetings, and so on. Within each category, you’ll find the same objects in their respective groups. For example, every table I make goes into the Table category, each image I insert goes into the Image category. From there, I can also sort them into collections or interlink them across my workspace, effectively creating a database. Furthermore, every object category has a custom view for the entries, so you can display them as a list, as a kanban board, or as a wall with cards.

There are a bunch of object templates to help you get started or to save time. For example, the Project template already has Status, Time Frame, and Collaborators property fields. But the cool thing is that you can completely customize objects with your own properties, such as Number, Date, Checkbox, Label, and more. This system is much more approachable than Notion’s databases.

It's great for time-blocking

I use Groups and the Calendar view to do it

Although Capacities doesn’t have a dedicated time-blocking feature, you can still set up a similar structure with the Group function in the calendar view – this is mainly how I’ve been using the app. After creating an object, use the slash command to bring up the command options and select Group. This is essentially a block element; you can make as many of them as you want, and insert more elements inside them to create a hierarchical system. Having these vertical stacks of “blocks” is similar to time-blocking.

This is also where Capacities’ calendar view comes into play, because viewing my time blocks is better in the day-week-month format. It gives me a better overview of how my tasks and projects fit into my weeks, as opposed to viewing them as single pages. Everything looks clean and minimal, making my tasks simpler to navigate than in Notion.

It has web extensions

Save web pages directly to your Capacities space

Capacities has web extensions for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari. These let you save web pages directly to your Capacities space, and they are automatically grouped under the Weblinks object category. Using this couldn't be simpler. I just installed the extension, opened it on a web page I wanted to save, added some notes and tags, and hit save. It prevents me from having to manually copy over web links into my notes.

Notion was great, until now

Beyond what I’ve covered here, Capacities also integrates with other productivity tools so you can transfer tasks between them, and it has an AI assistant – both of these functions are reserved for Pro subscribers, unfortunately.

Capacities is the kind of app that keeps unfolding the more you use it, while keeping things simple and focused. I respect what Notion offers, but Capacities just fits better into my workflow and my need for minimalist navigation. If you’ve been feeling like Notion gets in the way of how you work, I recommend checking out this alternative.