Sublime vs Heptabase: Why I Switched (And What I Learned About Note-Taking)

The switch from Heptabase to Sublime comes down to a simple mismatch: Heptabase helped Greg Wheeler recognize a talent for visual thinking, but Sublime better supports the way he actually works—spontaneously connecting ideas in real time and turning those connections into output. The practical payoff is that notes stop feeling like a storage problem and start acting like a thinking partner, resurfacing relevant ideas instead of burying them.

Heptabase’s core promise—making complex ideas legible through visuals—landed with Wheeler even though he doesn’t identify as a researcher. Using it, he realized his “native language” for thinking is spatial: cards, whiteboards, clusters, and layouts that let ideas sit side by side. That discovery mattered because it clarified what he was optimizing for. Heptabase also reinforced a broader lesson: every note app reveals both what a person loves and what they don’t. In his case, the visual approach was the hook.

Sublime entered later, after an outreach that initially felt unnecessary. Once he started using it, he noticed a gap in his PKM toolkit: Sublime isn’t trying to be an all-in-one system (task manager, project hub, CRM). Instead, it focuses on collecting ideas, connecting them, thinking with them, and producing output. The feature that most changed his behavior was “related cards,” which lets one saved idea immediately surface many others—quotes, journal entries, and forgotten notes that suddenly become meaningful in context. He describes it as a creative multiplier: add one thought and watch related material appear, including book recommendations and connections he likely would have missed.

He also credits “vibe search” for searching by meaning rather than exact keywords. Typing a simple term like “snail” doesn’t just return the word; it pulls up photos and stories tied to that moment—such as a walk with his daughter where she carried a snail—because the saved content is connected through themes and metaphor. “Shuffle” further supports his spontaneous style by generating prompts: old fragments, half-written thoughts, and random notes that can kick off a new thinking session.

On organization, Sublime’s approach is intentionally light. Instead of deep folder hierarchies or heavy tag databases, it uses “collections” to create just enough structure for “idea worlds.” Wheeler names examples like “Creator Compass” (how he wants to show up), “Trails” (ideas to follow up on during walks), “God is a designer” (photo-based nature observations), and “Threading” (a small set of ideas tied to his habit of weaving analogies and stories into a unified “quilt of thought”).

The final turning point is philosophical but actionable: after years of trying apps, the question that brought clarity was why he takes notes at all. His answer—“to think with them and eventually to create from them”—made the choice straightforward. Heptabase remains strong for complex, structured thinking, but Sublime fits his creative, metaphor-driven process better, helping ideas resurface and keeping him actively thinking with his notes rather than chasing a perfect tool.