LayerBack vs Felo

Felo is a Swiss Army knife: it combines multilingual AI search (18+ languages) with citations, a LiveDoc infinite canvas for real-time collaboration, a no-code Agent builder, an LLM Playground to compare up to four models side-by-side, and content creation tools like AI Slides, mind maps, voice transcription, and AI art. Recent news adds Claude Opus 5 (7-day trial) and Gemini 3.6 Flash (free), plus Felo Connect to bring live search into external agents like Codex and Claude Code. LayerBack is a narrow specialist: it converts diagram images (PNG, JPG, WebP, PDF) into editable VSDX, PPTX, draw.io, and SVG files, rebuilding shapes as native objects, keeping connectors attached when you move shapes, and preserving editable text labels. It also offers a browser-based online editor for tweaks, a REST API for batch automation, completion webhooks, and an MCP server so AI agents like Claude or Cursor can trigger conversions. While Felo might generate diagrams from search results, LayerBack excels at rescuing existing ones. The key difference: Felo helps you create and research; LayerBack helps you inherit and edit.

Both are freemium, but their economics differ. Felo's free tier is genuinely broad—you get multilingual search, LiveDoc, Agent builder, and Gemini 3.6 Flash for free. Monetization comes through optional upgrades like Claude Opus 5 (7-day trial, then paid) and video generation at under $1 per video, which is unusually cheap. LayerBack gives you 20 credits on signup with no credit card; each conversion likely consumes a credit, so 20 free conversions is your trial. For regular work, you'll need a paid plan—exact rates aren't listed in the data, but the mention of 'failed conversions auto-refunded' suggests a credit-based system where you only pay for success. If your budget is tight and you need many tools, Felo's free tier wins. If you have a batch of legacy diagrams to convert, LayerBack's pay-per-success model might be more predictable than a subscription.