Altretta vs Capacities
Two tools for thinking. One keeps your notes as connected objects in its cloud; the other keeps them as Markdown files on your disk, with proof attached.
Which one should you choose?
Capacities is a genuinely lovely product — a studio of connected objects that runs on six platforms including your phone and your browser, with capture from messengers and an AI assistant built in. If you want a beautiful, structured thinking space and you are happy for it to live in a well-run European cloud, it may simply be the right answer. Altretta starts from the opposite commitment: your notes are Markdown files on your own disk, the AI is one you bring and can point at a local model, and everything that happens to a note lands in a signed history you can verify without trusting anyone — including us. This page is about that dividing line, stated from both vendors’ own pages.
Where the two agree, and where they part.
| Capability | Altretta | Capacities |
|---|---|---|
| Notes are Markdown files you own | YesOrdinary files in a folder you chose. Open them in any editor, with or without us. | The app's own database, not filesdocs.capacities.io/misc/offline-support |
| Platforms | macOS · Windows · Linux | Mac · PC · Linux · iOS · Android · Webdocs.capacities.io/faq/general/device-support |
| Works offline | YesThe notes and the app are both on your disk. Nothing needs a connection at all. | YesOffline supportdocs.capacities.io/misc/offline-support |
| Free to use | YesThe desktop app is free forever, with one synced folder. | YesFree for personal usecapacities.io/pricing5 GB of synced storagecapacities.io/pricing |
| The plans | Free, then Pro at €4.99/mo, then Team per seat. | Basic · Pro · Believercapacities.io/pricing |
| Entry paid tier | Pro at €4.99/mo, with as many synced folders as you like. | €8.99/mobilled yearlycapacities.io/pricing€10.99/mobilled monthlycapacities.io/pricing |
| Sync | YesEncrypted, into storage you already own — your Dropbox, your OneDrive, a network share, a USB stick. No server of ours in the path and no key escrow. | YesSynchronisation across all devicescapacities.io/pricingStored in certified EU data centrescapacities.io |
| Encryption | End-to-end at the sync target: sealed on your device before anything leaves it, no escrow, no reset — we could not read it if asked. | Encrypted in transit and at restdocs.capacities.io/more/end-to-end-encryption |
| AI | YesBring your own model over MCP — including one on your own machine. Answers cite the passages they came from, with a grounding verdict. | YesAI assistantcapacities.io/pricing |
| Capture from outside the app | PartialA Web Clipper for Chromium browsers that lands clips in a review inbox. Nothing on mobile. | YesWhatsApp · Telegram · Twitter · Emailcapacities.io/pricing |
| Export | YesYour notes are already files, so leaving is closing the app. Export adds Word, LaTeX, PDF and HTML. | YesMarkdown · PDF · Word · LaTeXdocs.capacities.io/reference/export |
| Team use | YesA Team plan with a shared vault whose note contents are end-to-end encrypted, revocable per person. | Built for individuals, not teamscapacities.io |
| Signed history and time travel | YesEd25519-signed and append-only. Removal is a signed tombstone, never a delete, so you can travel back to any point. | Not verified |
| Answers that cite the note they came from | YesCited passages with the file and the line numbers, refused outright when your notes do not support an answer. | Not verified |
| Reads your code repository | YesSymbol extraction in twenty languages, in the same signed graph as the notes. | Not verified |
Verified Every figure here about another product was read from the pages linked below, on that date, and from nowhere else. Follow them and check us — that is the whole idea.
The encryption row quotes Capacities’ own documentation, which explains with unusual honesty why the product is not end-to-end encrypted — a page worth reading in their words. “Not verified” means it has not been checked on their pages, so nothing is being claimed either way.
What Altretta and Capacities share.
Underneath very different architectures, the two products want the same things for you.
Thinking in connections
Both are built on links: notes that reference each other, backlinks, and a graph that turns a pile of notes into a body of work.
A real free tier
Both are genuinely usable without paying — not a trial with a clock, but a tier someone can live in.
Offline that actually works
Both keep working on a plane. Capacities syncs your changes when you reconnect; Altretta never needed the connection in the first place.
An exit that is not a hostage negotiation
Capacities states export to standard formats as a principle, and means it. Altretta goes one step further: there is nothing to export, because the files were yours all along.
What files and proof buy you.
The dividing line is where your notes live. Everything Altretta adds follows from choosing your disk over anyone's cloud.
Your notes never enter our custody
There is no account behind the editor, no server holding your notes, and no database format between you and your own writing. Delete the app and the folder of Markdown is still there, still readable, still yours.
An AI you can point at your own machine
The assistant is whichever model you connect over MCP — including one running locally, in which case your notes never touch a network at all. There is no server-side AI reading your content, because there is no server side.
Answers with their receipts
Every answer carries the passages it was drawn from, with a verdict of grounded, weak or ungrounded — and when your notes cannot support an answer, it is refused rather than generated.
Signed history and time travel
An append-only log signed with Ed25519. Nothing is destructively deleted: go back in time, compare versions, and restore any state with provenance you can check yourself.
Encryption with no one to subpoena
Sync seals your vault on your device and writes ciphertext into storage you already own. There is no escrow and no reset — which is the same thing as saying nobody else can be made to open it.
A team vault that is stronger, not weaker
Capacities says plainly it is built for individuals. Altretta ships the shared case: an end-to-end encrypted team vault where every change is signed and attributable, and removing a person rotates the key.
When Capacities is the better fit today.
Capacities is polished, joyful to use, and ahead of Altretta in real ways. If any of this is you, it is the right choice.
You need it on your phone
Capacities runs on iOS, Android and in the browser. Altretta has no mobile build of any kind, and that alone decides it for a phone-first thinker.
You think in structured objects
People, books, meetings and projects as typed objects with properties is Capacities’ whole model, refined for years. Altretta’s semantic graph is built from plain notes; it does not give you that authoring experience.
You capture from messengers
Sending a thought from WhatsApp or Telegram straight into your notes is a genuinely great capture story, on their free tier. Altretta has nothing equivalent.
You want zero decisions about storage
Capacities hosts everything in certified EU data centres and syncs it everywhere, with nothing to configure. Altretta asks you to choose a folder and, for sync, a storage you own — a freedom some people experience as a chore.
What happens to your notes if you move.
The honest version, including the part that is manual. Capacities’ own export is what makes the route possible at all.
Export from Capacities as Markdown
Their export writes your objects out as Markdown with properties as front matter. That folder is exactly what Altretta reads, so the words arrive as ordinary files.
Objects flatten into notes
Object types, properties and views are Capacities’ own model, and they become front matter and text rather than structure. Links between notes survive; the studio around them does not.
You can leave the same way
Your vault stays a folder of Markdown files the entire time you use Altretta, so leaving is closing the app — no export step, because nothing was ever inside one.
Before you switch.
Is Altretta a Capacities alternative?
For some people. Both are tools for connected thinking, but they sit on opposite sides of one decision: Capacities keeps your notes as objects in its own database, synced through its European cloud; Altretta keeps them as Markdown files on your disk, with a signed history and an AI you bring yourself. If that decision matters to you, the rest of the comparison follows from it.
Will my Capacities notes work in Altretta?
The words will; the studio will not. Capacities exports your content as Markdown with properties as front matter, and Altretta reads that folder as-is. Object types, views and properties are their model and flatten into text — links between notes survive.
Does Altretta lock me in?
No. Every note is a plain Markdown file you can open in any editor, back up, or take with you — there is no export step because your notes were never inside anything. The signed history leaves with you too.
Where do my notes actually live?
On your disk, in a folder you chose, and nowhere else by default. Three things you switch on deliberately send content somewhere: the AI client you connect receives cited passages, hosted publishing uploads pages you selected, and encrypted sync writes ciphertext into storage you picked. Point a network monitor at the app and check.
Keep your files. Gain proof.
Download Altretta free for macOS, Windows and Linux. Export your Capacities objects as Markdown and they arrive as ordinary files — with a signed history from the first change.