⚡ Quick Verdict:
- Pricing: Capacities starts at $9.99/month. XTiles starts at $8.25/month per user. Both have a free version.
- Best for: Capacities suits a personal knowledge base. XTiles suits visual organization and project management.
- Key difference: Capacities builds notes around objects and links. XTiles builds pages from drag and drop blocks.
- Our pick: Capacities, because its search and backlinks turn scattered notes into real knowledge.
Both of these tools want to be your one app for everything.
Only one of them treats your notes as connected knowledge.
Capacities calls itself a studio for your mind.
XTiles calls itself a visual canvas for tasks and projects.
That single gap decides which one fits your brain.
Overview
This Capacities vs Xtiles comparison covers pricing plans, key features, and ease of use.
We also break down who each app works best for.
Our writers spent hands-on time with both tools.
Those notes appear in the “What Our Team Noticed” sections below.
The rest comes from published docs, pricing pages, and G2 reviews.
What is Capacities?
Capacities is a note taking application built around objects.
Every note, book, person, or meeting becomes its own object type.
Those objects link to each other instead of sitting inside folders.
The result is a personal knowledge base that grows on its own.
You get a desktop app, a web app, and an iOS app.
Most people pick it to build a second brain for research and creative thinking.
🏆 Winner: Capacities
Our top pick for anyone building a knowledge base. Objects, tags, and daily notes keep every idea in reach.
Capacities Pricing
Here is what Capacities offers across its three pricing plans.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Testing the core note taking app |
| Pro | $9.99/month | AI features, uploads, and advanced features |
| Believer | $12.49/month | Early access to new features |
Pricing verified July 2026.
Free trial: The free version runs with no time limit and no card needed. Pro trials last a single month.
Money-back guarantee: No published refund window. You can cancel your account from billing settings at any time.
📌 Note: The Believer plan is the same product as Pro. You simply pay more to fund the developer team and get new content early.
⚠️ Warning: The AI assistant and file uploads sit behind Pro. The free plan gives you notes and search, but not the full ai features.
Key Benefits of Capacities
Here is what makes Capacities worth a look:
- Object-based notes: You create notes as typed objects, not loose files. Each type carries its own fields and tags.
- Powerful search: One bar searches every object, page, and block. The powerful search find bar also filters by object type.
- Hidden connections: Backlinks surface related notes you forgot you wrote. That is where new ideas usually appear.
- Daily notes and calendar: A daily log page opens by default. It doubles as your calendar view of past work.
- Quick capture anywhere: The mobile app uses the iOS share sheet save content flow. Web pages and links land in your inbox instantly.
- Comfortable writing: Markdown notes, dark mode, and offline access on desktop keep the focus on the text.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer used Capacities as a daily research log for several weeks. Here is what stood out from that hands-on time:
Capacities Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Object types turn scattered notes into a real knowledge base
- Backlinks expose hidden connections between older notes
- Quick capture works from the iOS app share sheet
- Free version has no note or storage cap
❌ Cons
- No native Android app at the time of writing
- Task management is thinner than in project tools
- The object model has a steeper learning curve
What is XTiles?
XTiles is a visual workspace for notes, tasks and projects.
You build each page from tiles on a flexible grid.
Tiles hold text, images, links, YouTube videos, and Google Docs embeds.
You drag, drop, and resize different blocks until the layout makes sense.
It sits between structured apps like Notion and whiteboards like Miro.
Visual thinkers pick it to organize information they cannot hold in lists.
XTiles
The runner up, and the better pick for visual planners. Free templates and a drag and drop interface get you moving fast.
XTiles Pricing
Pricing XTiles is simple once you know the four tiers.
| Plan | Price | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | Unlimited blocks, projects and 100+ free templates |
| Plus | $8.25/month/user | Unlimited storage and premium templates |
| Family | $12.42/month/3 users | Households sharing one app |
| Team | $24.92/month/team | Team collaboration and priority support |
Pricing verified July 2026.
Free trial: The free plan never expires. It caps file storage at 5MB per file.
Money-back guarantee: Paid plans carry a 30-day money-back guarantee. Subscriptions renew automatically until you cancel.
📌 Note: The Plus plan lifts the 5MB file cap and unlocks premium templates. The free tier still gives you unlimited blocks projects and unlimited spaces for personal work.
⚠️ Pricing conflict: Our source sheet lists four tiers at the rates above. Older XTiles marketing listed three tiers instead, with Plus at $10 per user monthly and a Business plan at $20 per user monthly. We treat the four-tier table as current. Check the billing page before you pay.
Key Benefits of XTiles
Here is what XTiles helps you do best:
- Visual organization: A drag and drop interface arranges tiles in a grid. Visual thinkers see the whole plan at once.
- Templates for every start: Over 100 free templates cover project plans, meeting notes, and daily planning.
- Tasks inside documents: You create to do lists in any note. Every task rolls up into one sidebar so you can track tasks.
- Team collaboration: Real time collaboration lets team members edit a collaborative workspace, assign tasks, and leave comments.
- Extensive integrations: Google Calendar, Google Meet, and a Chrome clipper connect to your day. Zapier integration reaches over 7,000 other apps.
- Room to grow: The free plan already gives unlimited personal spaces pages. Paid plans add unlimited storage and advanced features.
What Our Team Noticed
Our writer built a client work dashboard in XTiles across a full sprint. Here is what stood out:
XTiles Pros & Cons
✅ Pros
- Free plan includes unlimited blocks and 100+ free templates
- Intuitive interface that visual planners pick up in minutes
- Tasks, deadlines and notes live on the same page
- 30-day money-back guarantee on paid plans
❌ Cons
- Free plan limits file storage to 5MB per file
- Search is weaker than in dedicated note taking apps
- No AI assistant on the level of Capacities
Feature Comparison
Ready to dive deep into how these two tools actually differ?
We compare nine key features, then finish with pricing. Each one changes who the app suits.
| Feature | Capacities | XTiles |
|---|---|---|
| Starting Price | $9.99/month | $8.25/month/user |
| Free Version | ✅ | ✅ |
| AI Assistant | ✅ | ❌ |
| Backlinks & Hidden Connections | ✅ | ✅ |
| Drag and Drop Canvas | ❌ | ✅ |
| Task Management | ✅ Basic | ✅ Full |
| Real Time Collaboration | ❌ | ✅ |
| Android App | ❌ | ✅ |
| Best For | Personal knowledge base | Visual project management |
1. Note Structure and Content Blocks
Capacities: Every page is an object with a type. A book note holds different fields than a meeting note. That structured content is the whole point, and it separates Capacities from other note taking apps built on folders.
XTiles: Every page is a canvas of tiles. You place different blocks side by side instead of stacking them down the page. Nested documents keep deeper material one click away.
2. AI Features and Assistant
Capacities: The Pro plan adds an ai assistant inside the editor. It drafts new content, summarises long pages, and answers questions about your own notes. Think of it as a powerful assistant right where you write.
XTiles: AI assistance is lighter here. It helps generate organized pages from a prompt, which is useful at setup. It will not act as a research partner across your whole account.
3. Hidden Connections and Linking
Capacities: Contextual backlinks show every mention of an object in one panel. Tags and object links let you trace an idea across multiple notes. There is no full mind map canvas, but the link graph does similar work.
XTiles: Bi-directional linking exists and works well enough for a workspace of this size. It surfaces related pages, though it will not build the dense web of hidden connections that Capacities produces.
4. Powerful Search and Retrieval
Capacities: Search reads titles, body text, tags, and object types together. You can filter to one type before you even type a word. This is the single biggest reason to pick it over lighter tools.
XTiles: Search covers page titles and text inside tiles. It does the job for a few dozen project plans. Past a few hundred pages, retrieval gets slower to navigate.
5. Quick Capture and Web Pages
Capacities: Quick capture is a first-class feature. The iOS share sheet save content flow drops web pages, quotes, and voice notes into a daily inbox. You sort them later on desktop.
XTiles: A Chrome extension clips web content into a tile. Capture is fine, but it lands in a page rather than a triage inbox. Data syncs across devices either way.
⚠️ Warning: Capacities has no Android app yet. If your phone runs Android, that alone may settle the choice.
6. Task Management and Deadlines
Capacities: Tasks live inside daily notes and sync with your calendar. Google Calendar events can appear beside the day’s log. Task management stays basic on purpose.
XTiles: You create to do lists anywhere, set deadlines, and track progress in a timeline view. Every task rolls into one sidebar. This is the stronger side for real project management.
7. Templates and Setup Speed
Capacities: Templating works per object type, so every new book or meeting page opens pre-shaped. There is no large public gallery to browse.
XTiles: More than 100 free templates ship with the free version. Premium templates arrive with the Plus plan. Daily, weekly, and yearly planners are ready to duplicate.
8. Structuring Different Projects
Capacities: Custom object types let you invent your own structure. A student can model courses, lectures, and readings as separate objects. It rewards people who enjoy creative thinking about data.
XTiles: Structure comes from ready-made workspaces instead. A student workspace, a freelancer dashboard, and marketing boards cover most cases. Less setup, less flexibility.
9. Team Collaboration and Client Work
Capacities: This is a single-player app today. You can publish a page and share ideas by link, but there is no shared editing. Teams should look elsewhere.
XTiles: Collaboration tools cover the basics well. Team members edit together, assign tasks, and leave comments in the same collaborative workspace.
Agencies get the most out of this. A shared board can hold briefs, digital products, and delivery dates for several clients at once.
10. Pricing & Cost
Let’s compare the pricing plans side by side.
| Plan | Capacities | XTiles |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $0 |
| Entry paid plan | Pro — $9.99/month | Plus — $8.25/month/user |
| Household plan | ❌ | Family — $12.42/month/3 users |
| Top plan | Believer — $12.49/month | Team — $24.92/month/team |
Capacities: $9.99 buys the ai features, uploads, and priority support queue. There is no per-seat cost because there are no seats. Solo users get more features for their money here.
XTiles: $8.25 per user is cheaper alone but scales with headcount. The Family and Team tiers are the real value. A five-person team pays less than five separate Capacities accounts.
Different Scenarios
| If You Need… | Choose | Why |
|---|---|---|
| A second brain for research | Capacities | Objects and backlinks |
| Visual project management | XTiles | Tile canvas and timeline view |
| Team collaboration | XTiles | Shared editing and comments |
| An AI assistant in your notes | Capacities | Pro plan includes it |
| An Android app | XTiles | Capacities is iOS only |
| Tight budget | XTiles | Cheaper entry plan |
💰 Your Budget
Both free tiers are usable for months. XTiles offers the cheaper paid entry point, while Capacities offers more depth per dollar for one person.
🔌 Your Tech Stack
XTiles connects to Google Calendar, Google Meet, and thousands of other tools through Zapier. Capacities keeps its integrations narrow and its editor fast.
📝 Your Thinking Style
If you organize notes by writing and linking, Capacities fits. If you organize by moving things around a page, XTiles fits.
🎓 Your Experience Level
Beginners tired of complex apps will feel at home in XTiles on day one. Capacities asks you to learn objects first.
🆓 Free Trials and Demos
Run the same real project in both for a week. Content creation work usually exposes the difference faster than a demo does.
🛟 Support Options
Both run email support with active community forums. XTiles adds priority support on its Team tier.
Switching Guide
Already using one of these? Here is what changes if you switch.
🔄 Switching from Capacities to XTiles?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- A visual canvas for different projects on one page
- Real shared editing with your team
- An Android app and a Chrome clipper
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Custom object types and typed fields
- The in-editor AI assistant
- Deep backlink panels across every note
📋 How to switch:
- Export your Capacities pages as markdown files
- Create a free XTiles account and one workspace
- Paste content into tiles, starting with active work
🔄 Switching from XTiles to Capacities?
✅ What you’ll gain:
- Search that actually scales past a thousand pages
- An AI assistant trained on your own library
- Daily notes that build a searchable log over time
❌ What you’ll lose:
- Drag and drop tiles and grid layouts
- Shared workspaces and task assignment
- The template gallery and timeline planning
📋 How to switch:
- Export XTiles pages to markdown or PDF
- Sketch your object types before importing anything
- Import notes, then tag and link them in batches
People moving to note taking apps with stronger structure usually make this jump for search alone.
What Our Review Didn’t Cover
This comparison focused on solo users and small teams. We did not audit network security, data residency, or how quickly support agents respond. Neither company publishes its source code, so we could not inspect sync internals. Enterprise contracts and bulk licensing sit outside our testing. If you manage fifty seats, your priorities will differ from ours.
Final Verdict
| Category | Winner |
|---|---|
| 💰 Pricing | XTiles |
| 🚀 Note Structure | Capacities |
| 🔎 Search | Capacities |
| 🤖 AI Features | Capacities |
| 👶 Ease of Use | XTiles |
| 👥 Collaboration | XTiles |
| 🧠 Knowledge Management | Capacities |
| 🏆 Overall Winner | Capacities |
🏆 WINNER: CAPACITIES
Capacities wins 4 out of 7 categories.
Best for: Research, writing, and building a personal knowledge base that lasts
These two apps are aiming at different people. Capacities is a studio for your mind, and it treats notes as objects worth keeping for years.
XTiles is a visual planner. It is the better pick for teams and for anyone who plans by arranging things on a page.
XTiles is excellent for shared project work and quick setup. But if you want the app to help you create amazing things from old research, Capacities is the better choice.
More of Capacities Compared
Capacities pitches itself as an artist’s studio for ideas. Here is how it holds up against the wider field:
Capacities wins on: Faster daily capture, object types that need no database setup, cleaner writing surface
Notion wins on: Shared team editing, a far bigger template market, relational databases and permissions
Capacities wins on: Zero configuration, built-in sync across devices, a friendlier first week
Obsidian wins on: Local plain-text files you own, a huge plugin library, a true graph and mind map view
Capacities vs Anytype
Capacities wins on: Simpler onboarding, stronger AI features, more polished mobile capture
Anytype wins on: Local-first storage, end-to-end encryption, offline sync between your own devices
More of XTiles Compared
Our full XTiles review goes deeper, but here is the short version against three rivals:
XTiles wins on: Free-form tile layouts, a gentler first hour, planning boards that need no formulas
Notion wins on: Databases and rollups, granular permissions, a much larger integration catalogue
XTiles wins on: Notes and tasks on one canvas, far less setup, calmer interface for small teams
ClickUp wins on: Sprint and workload views, time tracking, automation rules across large teams
XTiles vs Coda
XTiles wins on: Visual grid pages, ready-made planners, lower price for a small crew
Coda wins on: Formula-driven docs, packs that pull live data, deeper document automation
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the difference between notion and capacities?
Notion organizes pages inside databases you design. Capacities organizes typed objects that link themselves. For linked research, it ranks with the best note taking apps available today.
What is the difference between xTiles and notion?
XTiles arranges content as movable tiles on a grid. Notion stacks blocks down a page and adds databases. XTiles is simpler, Notion is more powerful.
How much do xTiles cost?
The free tier costs nothing. Plus is $8.25 monthly per user, Family is $12.42 monthly for three users, and Team is $24.92 monthly.
Does capacities use AI?
Yes. The Pro tier includes an assistant that drafts text, summarises pages, and answers questions using your own notes. The free tier does not include it.
Is xTiles Premium worth it?
Worth it if you hit the 5MB file limit or want premium layouts. A 30-day refund window makes the risk small either way.
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