Obsidian Canvas draws lines that never become links; Heptabase's lines are remembered everywhere

An architectural comparison of Obsidian Canvas and Heptabase

Both tools offer infinite 2D canvases, but their data models are opposites. Obsidian Canvas stores visual arrangements in open JSON Canvas files, so arrows are portable but invisible to the vault's graph and backlinks. Heptabase treats whiteboards as non-owning views over a global card library, so every connection is indexed in each card's info panel—yet locked into a proprietary ecosystem. The trade-off is clear: file durability versus integrated, compounding context.