Heptabase vs Capacities: whiteboards or objects in 2026?
Capacities vs Heptabase is usually asked by someone who already suspects the answer is “both”: Heptabase for the whiteboard where understanding happens, Capacities as the everyday notes app where everything else lives. The comparison still matters, because they overlap more than that framing admits — both have cards or objects with properties, tags, backlinks, journals, built-in AI and MCP — and because one has no free plan and the other does. Here is what each is for, with prices and versions dated.
The short answer: Capacities is the better primary notes app — typed objects, daily notes, free sync and a free plan that is a real plan. Heptabase is the better thinking surface — cards you arrange, connect and annotate PDFs beside on an infinite whiteboard — and worth its subscription only if that is how you learn. Many people run Capacities as the home and Heptabase as the workshop; the mistake is paying for Heptabase as an archive.
- Choose Heptabase if you understand topics by laying them out — cards, sections, mindmaps, PDF highlights that become cards — and want built-in AI that works across the whole knowledge base. Budget from $8.99/month billed annually; there is no free plan.
- Choose Capacities if you want a polished everyday notes app organized by what things are — people, books, meetings — with daily notes, free sync across every device, and a paid tier only when you need tasks, calendar and AI.
| Capacities | Heptabase | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary surface | Typed objects, daily notes, calendar | Cards on infinite whiteboards; journals, tags |
| Price | Pro $9.99/mo (annual; $11.99 monthly); Believer from $12.49 | Pro $8.99/mo (annual; $11.99 monthly); Premium $17.99; Premium+ $53.99 |
| Free plan | Yes — unlimited notes, sync; 5 GB media | No — 7-day trial |
| AI | Assistant on Pro; Pro+ add-on for more budget | Whole-base AI, agent mode, AI tutor — credit-metered |
| Agents | Hosted MCP server + REST API (OAuth) | MCP server (public beta) + CLI |
| Offline | Cached per device, merges on reconnect | Offline-first desktop, cloud-synced |
| Collaboration | None — stated as not planned | Shared whiteboards |
| Export | Markdown; object types flatten | Markdown per card; board layout does not survive |
As of September 2026 — Capacities Release 69 (Aug 2026), Heptabase v1.108.1 (Sep 3, 2026).
What is Capacities?
Capacities organizes your knowledge by what things are. Instead of files in folders, you create objects — people, books, meetings, projects, quotes — each with its own properties and views, connected through backlinks and daily notes. Browsing by object type (every book you’ve noted, every person you’ve met) falls out of the design for free, and a calendar-centric daily view ties it to your day.
It’s a polished, cloud-based app on web, desktop and mobile, with a generous free core plan; Pro (about $10/month billed annually) adds the AI assistant, calendar sync and advanced queries. In July 2026 it shipped a developer API with OAuth, opening it up to integrations. One deliberate omission to know about: there is no collaboration, and the team has said it isn’t planned — Capacities is intentionally a personal tool.
What is Heptabase?
Heptabase is for people who think spatially. Notes are cards; understanding happens by laying them out on infinite whiteboards, drawing connections, grouping into sections and mindmaps, and annotating PDFs alongside. It’s a deliberate take on learning deeply — less “capture everything” and more “make sense of what you’re studying” — and nothing else in this list matches its canvas experience.
Cards support Markdown, backlinks, tags with table views, and journals, so it still functions as a complete note system off the whiteboard. It runs on desktop, web and mobile with offline support and cloud sync. There’s no free plan (7-day trial); 2026 pricing is AI-credit-tiered — Pro at $8.99/month (annual) with Premium tiers above it for heavier AI use.
Capacities vs Heptabase at a glance
| Capacities | Heptabase | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Pro ~$9.99/mo annual ($11.99 monthly); Believer ~$12.49/mo | Pro $8.99/mo (annual); Premium tiers for more AI credits |
| Free plan | Yes — generous core plan | No — 7-day trial |
| Platforms | Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android | Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android |
| Storage model | Cloud (offline support, not local-first) | Cloud-synced with strong offline support |
| Editing model | Object-based pages with properties, blocks and daily notes | Cards on infinite whiteboards; Markdown, mindmaps, sections |
| Backlinks & wiki links | Yes — backlinks between objects | Yes — card links and backlinks |
| Graph view | Yes — per-object connection views | Whiteboards serve as the visual map |
| Search | Full-text; AI search on Pro | Full-text |
| Web capture | Weblink reader and mobile share | Limited — no first-party clipper |
| Email-in capture | No | No |
| RSS / feeds | No | No |
| Team collaboration | No — explicitly not planned | Limited — shared whiteboards |
| Publishing & sharing | Read-only share links for pages | Read-only whiteboard sharing |
| AI assistant access | Built-in AI assistant (Pro); developer API (OAuth) since 2026 | Built-in AI (credit-metered); official MCP server (beta) and CLI |
| Offline access | Partial | Yes |
| Open source | No | No |
| End-to-end encryption | No | No |
| Data export | Markdown export | Markdown, PDF |
Pricing and features as of mid-2026 — check each product’s site for current details.
New to personal knowledge management? Start here: choosing a second brain app — every tool on this page, with a pick for each kind of thinker.
Cards on whiteboards vs typed objects — what each is for
Heptabase’s unit is the card, and the card’s home is a whiteboard: you drag cards into sections, draw connections, build mindmaps, open a PDF beside the board and turn highlights into cards. Journals, tags with table views and backlinks mean it works as a complete note system off the board, but the board is why people pay — it is the best spatial thinking tool in the category, and spatial thinking is the whole design bet.
Capacities’ unit is the object. A book, a person, a meeting each has a type with properties and views; browsing everything of a kind falls out of the design, daily notes and a calendar anchor your day, and the app stays out of the way. There is no whiteboard. So the real question is whether you think by arranging or by typing — and if you are honestly unsure, the Reddit thread that ranks first for this comparison is titled “Heptabase or a primary note-taking tool like Capacities”, which is the right way to put it. (For each against a files-first app: Obsidian vs Heptabase and Obsidian vs Capacities.)
Heptabase pricing vs Capacities pricing — no free plan vs a real one
Is Heptabase free? No — a 7-day trial, then a subscription. As of September 2026: Pro at $8.99/month billed annually ($11.99 month-to-month) with 100 AI credits a month, Premium at $17.99/month annual with 1,800 credits and unlimited PDF parsing, and Premium+ at $53.99/month annual with 8,100 credits for heavy AI use. You are paying for the whiteboard engine and, increasingly, the AI layer.
Capacities is free for unlimited notes and objects, custom types, sync across devices and export, capped at 5 GB of media (then 100 MB of new uploads a month). Pro is $9.99/month billed annually ($11.99 monthly) — the AI assistant, tasks, calendar integration, queries, formulas, unlimited media and API access — Believer starts at $12.49, and since August 2026 the optional Pro+ / Believer+ add-ons (about $8.33/month, annual) buy a larger AI budget. Paid-for-paid the two cost about the same; the difference is that Capacities lets you not pay.
AI and agents — both have gone deep, differently
Heptabase has invested harder in AI than almost anyone in the category: AI context across the whole knowledge base, an agent mode that edits and organizes cards (and since v1.108, in September 2026, reads block links and embeds), an AI tutor for learning workflows, a model picker across OpenAI, Anthropic and open-source models, a Zotero integration (February 2026), an official MCP server in public beta since December 2025 and a CLI (April 2026). All of it metered by the credits that differentiate its tiers.
Capacities bundles a more modest assistant on Pro and opens the other door wider: a full REST API with OAuth (API 2.0) and an official hosted MCP server, so Claude or any MCP client can work a chosen space. If you want AI to think inside the tool, Heptabase; if you want your own assistant to reach in, both work.
Can you use Heptabase alongside a primary notes app?
Yes, and it is a common setup: Capacities (or another daily driver) as the home for people, meetings, reading notes and the journal, Heptabase for the topics you are actively trying to understand — a course, a research question, a book you are mapping. The rule that makes it work is deciding where a note lives by whether it needs a board: if it does, it is a Heptabase card; if it is reference, it is a Capacities object. Link across with URLs, accept that search is split, and export finished boards’ cards back to Markdown when a project ends. What does not work is trying to keep both complete — that is two archives and no thinking surface.
Offline, export and lock-in
Both are cloud-resident. Heptabase is offline-first in architecture — edits land locally and sync in the background — with data encrypted in transit and at rest but not end-to-end, and 60 days of version history. Capacities caches your notes on each device and merges edits on reconnect, and documents openly why it is not end-to-end encrypted. Neither self-hosts; for an object app that does, see Capacities vs Anytype.
Export is where Heptabase’s bet costs you: full-workspace Markdown with one file per card, plus whiteboards as images — but positions, sections and mindmap structure exist only on the board and do not survive. Your words leave cleanly; your maps don’t. Capacities exports Markdown in which object types and properties flatten to text. Both are recoverable exits; neither is “just files”.
Where Capacities shines
- Object types with properties give structure without the rigidity of databases or the chaos of free-form notes.
- One of the most polished, beautiful interfaces in the category, consistent across web, desktop and mobile.
- A genuinely useful free plan, with Pro at a mid-pack price.
- Daily notes plus calendar integration make it a natural journal-of-record.
Worth knowing: No collaboration — explicitly not supported and not planned; sharing is read-only page links. Cloud-first and proprietary, with no local-first storage or end-to-end encryption. Power features like queries sit behind Pro, and the object model can feel like ceremony for quick, messy capture.
Where Heptabase shines
- The best whiteboard-native note experience available — cards, sections, mindmaps and connections feel built-in, not bolted on.
- PDF annotation on the same canvas as your notes suits deep study workflows.
- Tags double as tables, giving light database views over cards.
- Solid offline support with sync across desktop, web and mobile.
Worth knowing: No free plan — only a 7-day trial. Collaboration is limited to shared whiteboards; it’s primarily single-player. Spatial organization is the point — if you don’t think in maps, the canvas is overhead rather than insight.
Which should you choose?
Choose Capacities if:
- You think in entities — people, books, meetings — and want your tool to as well.
- Interface polish and aesthetics genuinely affect whether you’ll keep using a tool.
- You’re strictly solo and don’t need sharing or teamwork.
Choose Heptabase if:
- You learn by arranging ideas spatially and drawing the connections yourself.
- You study from PDFs and want annotation living next to your notes.
- A visual overview of a topic matters more to you than fast capture.
A third option: Dexi
Heptabase and Capacities both center on knowledge you deliberately sit down to work with. If a lot of yours arrives as things you find — articles, newsletters, feeds — Dexi starts at the collection end: everything you capture from the web, your inbox or RSS becomes a searchable note, #tags and [[wiki links]] connect it as you write, inline key:: value properties feed table and card views when you want them, and an interactive 2D and 3D graph gives you the visual overview without arranging cards by hand. Semantic search and an MCP server for Claude round it out. Free for up to 1,000 notes, $5/month after.
Frequently asked questions
Is Heptabase free, and is Capacities?
Heptabase is not — a 7-day trial, then Pro at $8.99/month billed annually ($11.99 monthly), Premium at $17.99/month annual or Premium+ at $53.99/month annual for more AI credits. Capacities is free for unlimited notes with a 5 GB media cap, and Pro is $9.99/month billed annually ($11.99 monthly). Prices as of September 2026.
What are some good alternatives to Heptabase?
For a whiteboard-first tool: Scrintal, or Obsidian’s Canvas if occasional diagrams are enough. For an everyday notes app with objects and daily notes but no whiteboard: Capacities. For visual overview without arranging anything by hand: a notes app with a knowledge graph, such as Obsidian, Logseq or Dexi. If PDF-to-cards study workflows are the point, RemNote covers the flashcard side.
Does Heptabase work as a full note-taking app?
Yes — cards support Markdown, backlinks, tags with table views and journals, so it functions as a complete note system off the whiteboard. It is designed for sense-making rather than capture-everything archiving, and many users pair it with a primary notes app like Capacities for that reason.
Which has better AI, Heptabase or Capacities?
Heptabase, by depth: whole-knowledge-base AI context, an agent mode that edits and organizes cards, an AI tutor, a model picker, an MCP server in public beta and a CLI — all metered by plan credits. Capacities has a lighter assistant on Pro plus a hosted MCP server and a REST API, which is enough if the AI you use is an outside assistant like Claude.
Do Heptabase and Capacities work offline?
Both, within a cloud model. Heptabase’s desktop apps are offline-first — edits are stored locally and sync when you reconnect. Capacities downloads your notes to each device, stores offline edits locally and merges on reconnect. Neither keeps your data as local files you can open elsewhere, and neither is end-to-end encrypted.
Which is better for personal knowledge management, Heptabase or Capacities?
Capacities for personal knowledge management as a daily habit — typed objects, daily notes and free sync in a polished app with a free plan. Heptabase when knowledge management means understanding: mapping a topic on a whiteboard with PDFs beside it, and a subscription is acceptable. Plenty of people use both.
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