Capacities

Capacities is a personal knowledge management and note-taking application developed by Capacities Labs GmbH. It is designed as a digital “studio for your mind,” helping individuals capture, organize, connect, and retrieve information without relying primarily on traditional folders and files. Instead, Capacities organizes information as connected objects, such as people, books, projects, meetings, notes, and other custom content types. The company is based in Freiburg im Breisgau, Germany, and is bootstrapped with no outside investors. Work on Capacities started in 2020, and the product entered public beta in 2022.

A key part of Capacities is its object-based knowledge system. Every piece of information can be represented as an object with properties, links, tags, dates, and other structured information. Users can create custom object types and templates for different kinds of information. This approach makes Capacities useful for building personal knowledge bases around subjects such as books, people, projects, research topics, meetings, and courses.

Capacities automatically creates two-way links and backlinks between related objects. When a person, project, book, or other object is referenced, the relationship can be explored from either side. A graph view can also show the network of connections between information. This connected structure is intended to make it easier to discover relationships between ideas rather than simply storing notes independently.

The platform also provides Daily Notes, which create a note for each day. Objects created during the day can be associated with the relevant daily note, providing a chronological record of thoughts, activities, research, and tasks. Users can also send content to their daily notes through integrations such as WhatsApp, Telegram, and email.

Capacities includes an AI Assistant for users on Pro and Believer plans. The assistant can chat with notes, search a user’s knowledge base, read relevant notes, work with selected context, summarize information, rewrite text, translate content, generate research questions, identify assumptions, find evidence, and help with other knowledge-work tasks. It can also plan multi-step work and propose changes to objects, tasks, properties, and content for the user to approve.

The AI system includes AI Chat, an AI Panel, AI auto-tagging, AI collection selection, AI Property Auto-Fill, AI image analysis, and the Ask AI command. These features allow AI to work directly with the information stored in Capacities rather than requiring users to repeatedly copy information into a separate chatbot.

AI Chat can use selected notes, blocks, objects, backlinks, search results, queries, and analyzed media as context. It can also search the web for additional information when appropriate. For larger tasks, the assistant can create a plan and propose actions such as creating objects, updating properties, creating tasks, creating queries, or appending content to notes. Users can approve or reject these changes, and an optional Auto-approve setting can allow changes to be applied automatically.

Capacities also provides AI media analysis. Images can be analyzed to extract titles, descriptions, text through OCR, color palettes, and categories. The platform has expanded its AI capabilities to include analysis of images, audio, web links, and PDFs, with additional AI-powered media workflows continuing to be developed.

Another feature is AI image generation, allowing users to generate images from prompts directly within the application. AI can also assist with automatic tagging, collection selection, and property completion, reducing the amount of manual organization required when adding information to a knowledge base.

Capacities supports multiple AI providers rather than relying on a single model provider. Its documentation currently lists OpenAI, Anthropic, Google Gemini, xAI, Mistral, DeepSeek, and Moonshot as available model providers, with the exact model selection changing over time. Users can configure their preferred provider in the AI settings.

The platform also supports AI Chat Connectors using the Model Context Protocol (MCP). Capacities Pro users can connect external AI applications such as ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and Le Chat to a Capacities space. These assistants can search the user’s space, read objects, create pages and tasks, update properties, append content, upload files, and modify blocks depending on the available permissions.

For developers, Capacities provides a public REST API, an OpenAPI specification, a TypeScript SDK, and a hosted MCP server. This allows developers to build applications and workflows that interact programmatically with Capacities content. The current API documentation has moved to the new developer platform, while the older API Beta was scheduled for discontinuation on September 1, 2026.

Capacities also provides several productivity integrations. Official integrations include Google Calendar, Microsoft Calendar, Readwise, WhatsApp, Telegram, email, Todoist, TickTick, Google Tasks, Microsoft To Do, Things, Apple Reminders, Kindle, Raycast, and Web Highlights. Community-developed integrations are also available, although Capacities notes that these are maintained externally.

The platform is available across web, Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android, giving users access to their knowledge base across desktop and mobile devices. Capacities also supports offline work, although AI and integrations require an internet connection.

Privacy is an important part of Capacities’ positioning. User data is stored in the European Union, and the company states that its AI features are opt-in. Capacities says that data is not used to train AI models and that AI providers operate under agreements that prohibit training on user data. Users can also restrict AI access to selected spaces.

Capacities is primarily designed for individual users, rather than organizations requiring real-time collaboration or team workspaces. The company explicitly states that it does not offer team or organizational plans and has no plans for real-time collaboration. This makes the platform particularly focused on personal knowledge management, research, writing, learning, and individual productivity.

Pricing

Capacities offers a free Basic plan, a paid Pro plan, and a Believer plan. The current official facts page lists Capacities Pro at $11.99/month or $119.88/year, while Capacities Believer starts at $14.99/month or $149.88/year. The pricing page displays local-currency pricing in supported regions.

The Basic plan includes unlimited spaces, objects, and blocks, synchronization across devices, custom object types, import and export, full-text search, offline support, and limited media storage.

Pro adds AI Assistant, task management, calendar integrations, smart queries, task actions, related content, weblink analysis, image analysis, version history, Smart Search, unlimited media uploads subject to fair use, table formulas, additional extensions, and API access.

Pro and Believer include a monthly AI budget. Users who need significantly more AI capacity can purchase the optional Plus AI Power-Up, available as Pro+ or Believer+. Plus provides a substantially larger AI budget and enables additional top-ups.

Review

Capacities’ strongest feature is its object-based approach to personal knowledge management. Instead of forcing users to organize information primarily through folders, it connects people, projects, books, meetings, ideas, and other objects into a network of related information.

Its AI Assistant makes this knowledge graph more useful by allowing users to ask questions about their notes, summarize information, generate queries, translate text, find evidence, and perform other knowledge-work tasks directly inside the application. The ability to propose changes for approval also gives users control over AI-generated modifications.

The combination of AI, connected objects, Daily Notes, tasks, queries, and calendar integrations makes Capacities useful for researchers, writers, students, developers, managers, and other individual knowledge workers. The company specifically identifies researchers, writers, developers, students, managers, and founders among its target users.

The external AI connectors are another notable capability. Connecting Capacities to ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, or other MCP-compatible applications allows users to work with their stored knowledge from outside the Capacities interface.

The main limitation is that Capacities is intentionally designed for individual use. It does not provide real-time collaboration or team/organization plans, so it is not aimed at teams that need shared workspaces.

Another consideration is the AI budget. AI is included with Pro and Believer, but usage is subject to a monthly budget. Users with heavy AI chat, media analysis, or autofill workloads may need the Plus add-on or additional top-ups.

Capacities is therefore best suited to individuals who want a connected personal knowledge system combining structured notes, research, tasks, AI assistance, media analysis, and external AI integrations.