Compare / Capacities vs Heptabase

Capacities vs Heptabase

Capacities is an object-based notes studio where every note is a typed thing — a person, a book, a meeting; Heptabase is a visual learning tool where notes are cards you arrange and connect on infinite whiteboards. Here’s how they compare on pricing, platforms, linking, search, capture and collaboration — and how to decide between them.

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

Pricing and features as of mid-2026 — check each product’s site for current details.

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

If what you actually want is one searchable place for notes, bookmarks, newsletters and RSS — with tags, @mentions and [[wiki links]] that organize themselves as you write, semantic search that finds ideas even when the words don’t match, and an MCP server so Claude and other AI assistants can work with your notes directly — take a look at Dexi. It’s free for up to 1,000 notes, with no app to install.

• Dexi vs Capacities
• Dexi vs Heptabase

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