Acres
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ACRES GUIDES

Choose your tools. Put your notes to work.

Compare visual note apps, make sense of your reading, move an existing library or set up AI with your own models. Start with the job you want to do.

Choose a note app

Compare the workspace, price and compromises before moving your notes.

BUYING GUIDE

The best infinite canvas apps for notes and research

Choose the canvas around the work you want to keep: research, project notes, a mind map or a shared moodboard.

BUYING GUIDE

Heptabase, Noteey or Acres: which canvas should you buy?

Three ways to turn notes into a visual workspace. The differences show up in your sources, your files and your bill.

BUYING GUIDE

The best mind mapping apps for Mac, with AI in mind

A map can be the finished document, or the thing that helps you write it. Choose for the job.

BUYING GUIDE

Local-first note apps: choose what stays on your disk

Offline access, readable files and encrypted sync solve different problems. Check the one you actually need.

Work with your notes

Turn reading into connected ideas, or give an AI assistant a useful job.

WORKFLOW

Build a literature review canvas that leads to an argument

Put the question, evidence and disagreements where you can compare them. Keep a route back to every source.

WORKFLOW

Turn PDF highlights into notes you can use and verify

Keep the passage, the page and your interpretation together. Highlighting is the start of the note, not the finished argument.

WORKFLOW

A visual Zettelkasten for notes you'll use again

Write ideas that make sense outside today's project. Use the canvas to put them into new conversations.

WORKFLOW

Use offline AI for your notes in Acres

Run the assistant on your computer, then check that it can work with your notes.

WORKFLOW

A practical MCP workflow for your own notes

Start with one question and a few source notes. Let the agent retrieve, draft and organize in separate steps.

WORKFLOW

Local notes your AI agents can work with

Let an agent find the relevant notes, build a board and leave you something you can review.

Move your library

Prepare an import, check what transferred and keep your source library intact.

IMPORT GUIDE

Import an Obsidian vault into Acres

Bring the notes and canvases across. Check the parts that depend on Obsidian.

IMPORT GUIDE

Import a Heptabase backup into Acres

Use the complete backup to keep the structure that a Markdown-only move leaves behind.

How we write these guides

These guides are published by Acres, a product of First Aligned LLC. Our comparisons recommend Acres first because our priorities are visual notes, files you own, useful AI access and a one-time desktop purchase. Our workflow guides explain how to use those features and check the result. That is our point of view, and we make it explicit.

Acres is a newer app. A lower price doesn't mean it matches every feature or every workflow in an older tool. Each comparison names the other app's strengths, the compromises in Acres and the situations where you may prefer the alternative.

We check competitor claims against their documentation and pricing pages, linked in each guide. These are documentation-based comparisons; we don't claim hands-on testing where we haven't done it. Check the current checkout price before buying, since plans and promotions change.

Our own feature claims follow the shipped app and the release notes. Desktop license pricing is on the pricing page; optional Sync and Publish are listed separately on Acres Cloud. Model providers may charge for AI use.

For a closer look at one alternative, see all Acres comparisons. Found something that needs correcting? Email [email protected] with the page and source.

Get Acres.

Try it free for 14 days, then $59 for lifetime local use or $9/month with Sync and Publish. On macOS and Windows. Your notes remain files in a folder you own.

Download for macOSDownload for Windows
14-day free trial · then $59 lifetime or $9/month · other platforms