Devonthink or devonsphere if I only use the search features?

DEVONsphere
1

Hello,
I’m trying Devonthink and I love it, but I realized that what I end up doing is just throwing files in a few databases (one per very broad topic) without ever grouping them (because they’re already somewhat sorted on iCloud Drive/OneDrive as I need them on different platforms).
And that’s fine because I only use the (great) search features and See Also, so I don’t need any hierarchy there.

But at this point, I’m wondering if Devonsphere (indexing only the right folders in my cloud drives) is not more adequate for my use case.

Are the AI search features in Think better than in Sphere? If not, is using sphere has any performance drawbacks? Because with Think, I can just close and open the app when I need to search something.

Thank you for you help

2

Are the AI search features in Think better than in Sphere?

Yes, since it is indexing a larger repository of data about the items.

If not, is using sphere has any performance drawbacks?

Not unless you’e doing something we don’t advocate, like trying to index an entire machine or Home directory.

Because with Think, I can just close and open the app when I need to search something.

If you’re only searching for contents or filenames, DEVONsphere would likely be sufficient.

3

Ok thank you, I will experiment with devonsphere then!

Indeed, my searches are only related to the files content, but out of curiosity what relevant data Devonthink indexes that Devonsphere doesn’t?

4

Wondering the same thing. What does devonthink index for better search / see also that DevonSphere does not?

5

Look at DEVONthink’s Appendix > Search Prefixes in the built-in Help and manual

However, DEVONthink is not a Finder or Spotlight replacement. If you’re just looking for something similar to Spotlight searching, try DEVONsphere Express.

6

Finda is faster than spotlight, but it doesn’t look inside files.
Raycast does a bit more indexing, but uses spotlight.
Devonsphere does the most AFAIK.