Lattuce tutorial · Comparisons & assistant
Lattuce vs research and team apps
Compare Lattuce with NotebookLM, Heptabase, Obsidian, and Notion for research, writing, study, and notes.
Lattuce is a cloud research studio for source-grounded writing, study, notes, and language learning, with optional self-hosted deployments for teams that need them. This page maps common workflows when you are coming from Fabric, Heptabase, NotebookLM, Obsidian, or Notion.
The useful comparison is not a feature-count contest: choose the system that owns each stage of your work. Keep team coordination or personal capture in the tool that already fits your habits, then move evidence into Lattuce when you need a traceable source, a grounded synthesis, or a cited manuscript.
Quick comparison
| App | Best for | Lattuce overlap | Largest gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| NotebookLM | Fast digest of uploads | Study grounded chat, Source Digest studio | Audio polish, Google-native sharing, zero-setup hosted notebooks |
| Heptabase | Spatial synthesis | Notes whiteboards, vault graph, Guided study | Audio/table/mindmap digest artifacts |
| Obsidian | Local PKM | Markdown vault, wikilinks, graph, offline shell | Plugin ecosystem; Lattuce adds PDF/sources/compose without plugins |
| Fabric | AI second brain + deep search | Notes vault, whiteboards, Spotlight Ask, hybrid search | Cloud integrations hub, apply-preview edits, meeting notes, publish-anything — see Fabric vs Lattuce |
| Notion | Team wiki + databases | Boards, calendar, projects | Real-time co-edit, unified relational DBs — see Lattuce with Notion |
Workflows
Choose a starting point
| Your immediate goal | Start here in Lattuce | Next handoff |
|---|---|---|
| Turn a PDF pile into a review | Library catalog | Literature review |
| Make a visual map of an idea | Notes Whiteboards | Notes workflows |
| Learn from a bounded source set | Study workspace | Guided learning |
| Practice a foreign-language article | Learner import | Learner study |
| Turn an accepted outline into prose | Writer Compose | Paper lifecycle |
NotebookLM → Lattuce
- Add sources to Library or a paper.
- Open Study or Revise for grounded chat.
- Use Digest this collection (Study tools) for audio, quiz, study guide, tables, mind maps, flashcards, and export pack artifacts.
- Send highlights to whiteboards for spatial synthesis.
- Draft in Writer with citation-verified compose.
For catalog discovery, missions, and multi-page DOCX with real references, see Literature review with real references.
Heptabase → Lattuce
- Notes → Whiteboards for canvas cards and clips.
- Vault graph for backlinks (default 2D on large vaults).
- Guided study (
/study/start) for goal-first courses. - Export sections to DOCX when ready.
Obsidian → Lattuce
- Notes vault for markdown, tasks, calendar, boards.
- Optional notes-shell (Tauri/Capacitor) for offline notes.
- Integrated PDF reader, sources, and missions — no plugin stack.
- Workspace Ask for cross-vault Q&A (operator LLM required).
Fabric → Lattuce
- Library — import PDFs and references (Zotero or URL ingest) instead of cloud connectors.
- Study or Revise — grounded chat over your sources (replaces Fabric AI assistant on research).
- Notes → Whiteboards — spatial synthesis with source clips and note cards.
- Spotlight (Cmd/Ctrl+K) — search notes, library, and navigate; hybrid FTS + semantic on vault.
- Writer — citation-verified compose and section approval → Word export.
Use Lattuce when research should end in cited papers, not a published second-brain folder. See Fabric vs Lattuce.
Notion → Lattuce
Use Lattuce for research and papers, not general team wiki. See Notion vs Lattuce and Lattuce with Notion.
Migration checklist
- Export or collect only the sources needed for the current question; do not migrate an entire workspace before testing the workflow.
- Put PDFs and bibliographic records in Library, durable working notes in Notes, and language-learning articles in Learner.
- Run a small grounded question and confirm that extracted text is ready before drafting.
- Keep the original app as the source of truth for team pages until the Lattuce handoff has been reviewed.
- Export the finished paper or note and record the destination so collaborators can follow the trail.
Smoothness (parity you can trust)
| Feature | Status |
|---|---|
| Whiteboard save conflicts | Card-level merge + Keep both |
| Large vault graph | Defaults to 2D above 120 nodes |
| Study chat without LLM | Banner + clear message |
| Zotero sync | Metadata by default when not configured; rich import on when Zotero keys are set (ZOTERO_RICH_IMPORT=0 to disable) — panel shows status |
Operator setup
Lattuce Cloud handles the hosted product path; optional self-hosting adds Postgres, the Writer API, and Weblate/LLM configuration for your operator. Start with Getting started and choose the deployment path that matches your data and maintenance requirements.
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