There have been some discussions on this forum on Craft Doc (craft.do , not craft.io) . I guess most people agree that it is a very pretty app, I just cannot decide whether I should and how to use it.
If writing , Ulysses may be better
for PKM , Obsidian or Logseq may be better
for note taking, there are many similar apps
for linking images , Museapp may be better
So do people use it as a “Swiss army knife” or one stop shop for everything ?
Interesting in knowing your use cases
Many of us have faced a similar quandary, not just about Craft compared to … but across a range of app options for different needs. You may find this post of interest:
As to Craft, I have gone back and forth between Craft, Notes, Ulysses and several other options. Frankly, it’s been a frustrating experience. I am hoping that I’ve finally settled on my apps and workflows recognizing there will always be the siren call of something better.
I’ve settled on Apple Notes for all note taking – work and personal. I’ve moved all of my writing to Obsidian and iA Writer–everything from short communications to a book all reside in Obsidian. I use Apple Reminders, Apple Calendar and Mail. All research articles start in DEVONthink but are ALSO exported monthly to an Obsidian vault giving me the best of DT and Obsidian and a “backup” of the DT files in case there is ever a non-recoverable database corruption.
I tend to agree with you. I too move back to Reminder as my simple task management. However, the ongoing iCloud woes stop me from building confidence on using Notes. One of the reason for me looking for something like Craft is to see whether any app that is less dependant on iCloud sync. Craft may not help in this regard.
There might be better solutions out there but I find that Craft makes it very easy to publish beautiful documents to the web when you want to share some standalone doc.
I wouldn’t choose to write in Craft—that I would undoubtedly prefer to do in Ulysses. I’ve tried using Obsidian and find it to be “structurally” preferable to Craft, but I really struggle with the aesthetics of the app. It sounds trite, I suppose, but every time I play around with Obsidian, I find myself trying theme after theme and then giving up as none of them look right for me. I do have zettelkasten content in Craft, using DEVONthink as a backend to house PDFs etc., but recently I’ve been thinking about taking a pause on these text-oriented PKM apps and simply relying on DEVONthink to do both jobs.
Otherwise, I’m a teacher and I need to return feedback documents/rubrics with students, as well as share content on the web with students and for professional development purposes when presenting at conferences and so forth. To echo what @MarcMagn1 said, Craft indeed “makes it easy to publish beautiful documents to the web”, as well as export to PDF, which is really useful.
I agree with this. There’s also a bit of monkey see, monkey do involved as well. If the general tide of people seem to gravitate towards Obsidian or Notion, then that can bias people (myself included) in that direction. I’ve installed so many apps because they’re the hot new thing, and after a month or two I realize they’re not what I want/need at all.
This isn’t exclusive to tech. I play guitar as well and once a few of the big YouTubers start reviewing certain gear it becomes the defacto “must have”.
I’m not necessarily saying this is all bad. If experts/people more familiar with a certain industry all seem to push for a handful of the apps/guitar gear, then it’s likely among the best – it just may not be the best for us as an individual, and I think David S has said as much on the forum and in the show.
I’d say too much choice and too many voices pulling us in different directions can cause this.
For long-form writing, I agree that Ulysses is best but for quickly getting into action on a project like outlining a brain dump, going a level deep into each item and making sub items and so forth is where Craft really shines for me. To add to it, the ability to make shareable secret links and have them displayed in an intuitive manner just adds to the usefulness.
I have been using Craft for almost a year now since moving on from a Obsidian + Noteplan3 setup and I don’t really miss the PKM-ness features like a knowledge graph and block embeds.
I have tried Craft a few times, but it just did not click with me… not sure why. I guess it is a combination of subscription, and what i also experienced with Notion… the block-based editing on not something need. I also prefer ‘simple’ files (markdown or sometimes RTF).
With the recent updates to DEVONthink To Go (better markdown and RTF support) i’m also moving to DEVONthink for my notes.
Same here… when in Obsidian i end up using it as markdown editor, i do not need all the features it has. When making notes i am used to create outlines, which Obsidian does not do that well (there are plugins), i find LogSeq better in that regard and would probably find it easier to adopt LogSeq. I do find Obsidian interesting and keep playing around with it, maybe someday it will stick. 
One thing that is important for me is secure syncing. With DEVONthink i can do this easily, for Obsidian i need to subscribe to their (expensive) service and Craft is (as far as i’m aware) not yet end-to-end encrypted.
I am in the same boat, I am gradually move away from using Obsidian as my main driver, but I still keep that in the back end. I use Logseq on a daily basis now, and Obsidian can easily open the Logseq iCloud folders with most the links still intact (as I started Logseq using a cloned Obsidian vault to start with).
I do not mind the block based approach in Logseq compares to page based approach in Obsidian. I think it just let me link to a smaller resolution (to individual block rather than at page level). I am not sure it is the same structure in Craft but I do not see the use case for myself to pay for the subscription.
I am also moving from Craft (after the trial) to using Bear Notes as my markdown files and notes reader. I like Bear Notes from a look and feel perspective , hopefully the new features (including backlinks) will come soon
just trying to determine whether I can use Craft to publish blog. I saw this and not sure whether just Craft.do alone can publish all the articles
I now discovered that UpNote is a good replacement of Craft.do . I sync very fast, multi-platform (Mac, iOS, Windows, Linux, Android) . Have almost the same features as Craft (may be note as pretty) but only charges $20 for lifetime license. I bought that without blinking. I think this app is under-rated
But are they deploying extensions/plug-ins? One of the great features of both Obsidian and Craft (Obsidian is ahead in this area) is the expandability of the feature set using plugins or extensions. I’ve come to consider this, if not essential, important.
I agree that it’s underrated. I started using it about a month ago as an Evernote replacement, and I really enjoy using it.
I’ve recently started using Craft thru a SetApp sub.
I’ve decided to go this way:
Craft: Journal and personal notes. Will see if it works form me.
Obsidian: Academic, Projects and Work notes.
Ulysses: writing articles for websites, posts for social media, newsletter articles. Mostly work related for the moment.
Typora: when a need to take a single/quick note on Mac, save the files as .md to Obsidian vault.
Craft just received a big update. The app has become more expensive for new paid users and severally restricted for new free users.
It got a little mention in the Verge’s weekly newsletter as well. That said, they also gave the “Not Boring” app line a plug, and those are useless apps that make a nice social media post IMO. (I feel the writer often puts form over function.)
