Miro puts a whole team on one infinite, multiplayer canvas, and it’s very good at getting a room’s ideas up fast. Filamental is a desktop app for the structure that has to outlast the session: every node a full document, every connection a relationship you name, all of it kept as plain Markdown in a folder you own.
On a board an idea is a sticky, a shape or a card, and the reasoning around it tends to live somewhere else: a document linked from the corner, a thread, the memory of whoever was in the room.
In Filamental every node is a full document, with headings, tables and attachments, and the line between two nodes is a type you name, such as “funds”, “blocks” or “contradicts”, with its own colour, direction and pull. Press Dark Energy and the layout spaces each part by how connected it is, so the structure arranges itself from what you’ve said about it, and a cluster shows before anyone thought to draw a box round it.
Miro’s AI runs on credits per member per month, and its MCP server on a daily allowance of calls, both set by the plan you’re on.
Filamental has no AI of its own. Connect Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, Gemini CLI, VS Code or Zed over MCP, and the server they talk to runs on your own computer, with nothing of ours counting the calls. Or add your own key for the provider you choose, or run a model locally through Ollama or LM Studio. Every request goes straight to your provider, on your account, and nothing passes through us.
A Miro board sits in Miro’s cloud and belongs to the team’s workspace, where it connects to a long list of other apps. A Filamental space is a folder of Markdown files on your own disk, readable in any editor with Filamental closed, and private on every plan without asking. Nothing reaches our servers unless you publish a link, and a published link is encrypted on your device before it leaves.
When the thinking’s done, Publisher Studio turns the space into something a person can read: a link that opens in any browser, on a phone as readily as on a desktop, with nothing to install and no account, or a single HTML file. Press Present and it fills a screen for the room, turning slowly so everyone sees the whole of it.
Miro’s free plan keeps three boards editable, open to the whole team, with exports at low resolution. Private boards, sharp exports and more AI all come with the paid plans, priced per member.
Filamental’s Personal plan is free and permanent, with no account and no card, unlimited spaces and everything AI, and every space on it is private because it lives on your computer. The paid tier is $120 a year, or $12 a month, and covers handing work over beyond the one live link that’s free, including presenting.
For some jobs. Miro is an online whiteboard where a whole team works on one canvas at the same time, and it suits workshops and getting ideas up fast. Filamental is a desktop app for the structure that has to last: every node is a full document, every connection is a relationship type you name, and the whole thing is kept as Markdown files on your own computer. Run the workshop on a board, and keep what it decided in Filamental.
Not live, the way a multiplayer whiteboard allows. A Filamental space is a folder of files, so a team shares it through a synced or shared folder, and each person sees the others’ changes as the files update. Anyone can read a published link in a browser, with no install and no account.
There’s no direct Miro import. Export the board or a frame as an image or a PDF, attach it to a message in Filamental’s built-in AI window, and ask it to build the space, with the ideas as nodes and the lines between them as typed connections. How well it reads the board depends on the model you’ve connected, and the result is a first draft that’s yours to arrange.
No. Filamental has no AI of its own, so there are no credits or call allowances from us. You connect the AI you already use: an MCP client such as Claude Desktop or Cursor, your own API key for the provider you choose, or a local model through Ollama or LM Studio. Requests go straight to your provider and are billed to your own account.
Filamental’s Personal plan is free and permanent, with no account and no card, unlimited spaces and everything AI, and every space on it is private because it lives on your own computer. The paid tier, at $120 a year or $12 a month, covers handing work over beyond the one live link that’s free, such as more links, updating a link already sent, the HTML download and presenting. Miro publishes its own prices on its pricing page.
Bring in the stickies that mattered, give each one the reasoning it never had room for, connect them, then press Dark Energy.