yEd is a desktop graph editor with some of the best automatic layouts around, turning a spreadsheet of relationships into a clean diagram at the press of a button. Filamental is for the structure that has to carry more than a label: every node a full document, every connection a relationship you name, and a result people can open and explore.
In a diagram a node is a shape with a label, and the explanation of why it’s there usually lives in a document beside it. In Filamental the node is the document: headings, tables, attachments and the reasoning, saved as a plain Markdown file any editor can open. The structure and the writing are the same files, so they can’t drift apart.
Each Filamental connection is a type you name, such as “depends on”, “feeds” or “replaces”, with its own colour, direction and pull, so what each line means is something you decide rather than something the reader infers. Dark Energy then spaces the structure by how connected each part is, in three dimensions or flat in 2D, so the busy parts and the quiet corners read differently at a glance. Show one connection type at a time to read a single layer, or ask Pathfinder for the route between two nodes and read it back as a chain of named relationships.
A diagram usually leaves as an image or a PDF. Publisher Studio hands over the structure itself: 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, where the reader can move through it and open the document behind any node. Press Present and it fills a screen for a room.
The space stays a folder on your own disk or your own network, with no telemetry of any kind, and a published link is encrypted on your device before it leaves.
Filamental’s Personal plan is free and permanent, with no account and no card, unlimited spaces and everything AI. 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 the HTML download and presenting.
For some jobs. yEd is a free desktop graph editor with strong automatic layouts, made for producing diagrams you export as images or PDFs. Filamental is for a structure that carries more than labels: every node is a full Markdown document, every connection is a relationship type you name with a direction and a pull, and the result is shared as a page people can explore. A clean diagram from a list of relationships suits yEd, and a structure with the reasoning inside it suits Filamental.
Yes, through an AI that can read files on your computer. yEd saves diagrams as GraphML. Connect an MCP client such as Claude Code to Filamental, point it at the file and ask it to build the space, with the nodes as nodes and the edges as typed connections. The result is a first draft that’s yours to arrange.
Yes. Dark Energy spaces the structure by how connected each part is, in 3D or flat in 2D, and Layers stacks it in bands by type when you want a hierarchy. You can also arrange it by hand, and the layout you settle on is kept.
Yes. Every node is a full document, with headings, lists, tables, code blocks and attachments, saved as a Markdown file in your folder. Properties hold structured fields, and the connections are written into the note’s own front matter.
The Personal plan is free and permanent, with no account and no card, unlimited spaces and everything AI. 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.
Bring it in, move the explanation into the nodes it explains, name the connections, then press Dark Energy.