Constella
Constella is an infinite canvas memory layer that auto-links your notes, files and screen captures so Claude, ChatGPT and Codex can read
Pick Constella if your bottleneck is recall, not capture — auto-linking and meaning-based search are where the hours come back, and the free tier costs nothing to test with no card. The ceilings are real: Free gives you 3 canvases and roughly 20 questions a month, and Ultra's 10,000 credits and 3 synced apps will feel tight if the board becomes your daily driver. This is a memory layer, not a task manager — Obsidian still wins on unlimited local control and plugins, and Notion still wins if the
Verified 4d ago · liveness 80/100 · cite: rightaichoice.com/tools/constella
- Researchers and academics whose papers, notes and citations live in different apps
- Founders and consultants who need instant recall of a decision, a call or a pricing debate
- Developers running Claude Code or Codex sessions who want agent output landing on a shared board
- Writers and journalists assembling research across tabs, PDFs and Gmail threads
- Teams that need task tracking, sprints or project management in the same tool
- Users who prefer manual folders and hand-drawn links over AI auto-linking
- Heavy AI users who will burn past 10,000 Ultra credits and 3 synced apps
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Skip Constella if you need project tracking, sprints and task boards in the same tool as your knowledge — it is a memory layer, so those workflows still live in Linear or Notion.
Ultra caps AI Connections at 300; if your canvas becomes a daily driver you will hit that wall and the only path past it is the $39/month Mega plan.
The free on-your-device tier is the cheapest serious entry in this category — no account and your own models. Ultra at $19/month and Mega at $39/month sit in the same band as Notion AI and below enterprise knowledge tools. Check whether those rates assume a yearly commitment, since Constella's pricing page shows a monthly/yearly toggle with 25% off annual.
In short
Constella — Constella is an infinite canvas memory layer that auto-links your notes, files and screen captures so Claude, ChatGPT and Codex can read. Best for Researchers and academics whose papers, notes and citations live in different apps, Founders and consultants who need instant recall of a decision, a call or a pricing debate, Developers running Claude Code or Codex sessions who want agent output landing on a shared board. Free to start; paid plans from $5.
What's new in Constella
Checked 4 days agoAcross the latest 4 updates: 4 changelog entries.
Constella 2.5.20: Ask Stella from any note, new free and Ultra plans, credit packs
Ask questions directly from a note; AI answers land as one grouped, linked block. iMessage and Apple Notes sync to cloud. New free and Ultra plans with credit packs; deletions no longer return on sync.
Constella 2.5.15: Typed relationship lines and per-note comment threads
Lines between cards can be typed as supports, contradicts, builds on or example of. Generate renamed to build. Quote cards became real notes; groups and shapes get new colour set.
Constella 2.5.14: Build on any card, Earshot creator plugin, local models removed
Build on this pill turns any card or group into an AI card that reads its upstream chain. Earshot plugin surfaces top TikTok, Instagram and YouTube videos. App halved in size; local AI models removed in favour of cloud.
Constella 2.5.13: Rebuilt onboarding and self-assembling canvas
New onboarding connects your sources, indexes them, and generates a starting canvas. (Release entry truncated in source.)
What people actually say about Constella — is it worth it?
We scanned public community sources for Constella on Aug 2, 2026 and could not establish that the discussion we found is about this tool rather than something else sharing its name. Our own analysis of that scan says the posts were off-subject. Rather than publish a sentiment score built on the wrong subject, we publish nothing here and re-run the scan.
Viability Score
How well maintained and how widely used is Constella? Built from what the vendor actually publishes (docs, changelog, tutorials, integrations, pricing), whether the site is live, and how much real users discuss it. How we calculate this
Last calculated: October 2026
How we score →Key Features
- Infinite canvas that auto-links related notes, files and screen captures
- Shared memory readable by Claude, ChatGPT and Codex
- constella-canvas MCP connection lets Claude Code and Codex open, read and write to a canvas
- AI card placed on the canvas gathers your notes and draws grouped answers with a takeaway
- Choose Constella AI, Claude Code or Codex to run a canvas AI card
- Stella answers inside the canvas scoped to your selected notes, as a draggable pinned thread
- Semantic search across notes, PDFs, chats and files, with exact-word matches ranked first
- Gmail sync (last 20 days, promotions and social skipped, new mail within 30 minutes)
- Google Drive files searchable by content
- Chrome extension for clipping pages and sidekick research
- Global overlay screen capture from any app with one keypress
- Cards, tables and charts switch shape in place on the board
- Single dock row for draw, erase, shape, text, recall and search memory
- Canvas export to Markdown, HTML mind map or PNG
- macOS desktop app, web app and mobile app
About Constella
Constella turns your scattered research into one board. Notes, PDFs, web clips, screen captures, iMessage, Gmail, Drive, Notion and Slack records all land on an infinite canvas that auto-links the ideas that belong together, so you stop filing things by hand. It is built for researchers, founders, consultants and writers whose best context is buried across a dozen apps and whose memory of it is worse than they think. The bet is on the board over the chat box. Type a question in plain words and Constella searches every connected app, drops what does not fit, and groups the rest as cards, a table or a chart that you can switch in place. From the latest 2.5.x releases, an AI card placed on the canvas gathers your notes and draws an answer with grouped ideas, quotes and a takeaway — you choose whether Constella AI, Claude Code or Codex does the work. Stella answers inside the canvas scoped to whatever you have selected, returning a floating thread card you drag, resize and pin next to the notes it read, and threads save to your account. Agent support is the differentiator. Any Claude Code or Codex session on your Mac opens a canvas through the constella-canvas MCP connection, reads what is on it, and adds notes, tables, charts and answers beside yours — every card stays a normal card you can edit, draw on, or undo in one step. Gmail and Google Drive reconnected in 2.5.7 and sync on their own, with new mail arriving within half an hour and Drive files searchable by content. Pricing splits cleanly: Free is $0 forever with 1,000 AI credits a month and 3 canvases, Ultra runs $19.99/month monthly or $179.88/year ($14.99/month) for 10,000 credits, up to 3 synced apps and unlimited canvases. Notion AI writes inside one doc at a time and Miro AI keeps boards with no memory of your own notes; Constella's pitch is the memory underneath both.
Behind the Verdict
The fastest way to know whether Constella fits is to ask what you actually lose time on. If it is capture — getting the thought down — every notes app is fine and you do not need this. If it is recall — the text from March, the PDF page, the Slack line you half remember — the auto-linking and semantic search are the parts that pay for themselves, and they are the parts we would test first. Reach for it when your research lives across apps you cannot be bothered to reconcile: Gmail and Drive reconnected in 2.5.7 and sync by themselves, and a question pulls a Gmail thread, a Notion page and a Drive PDF onto one board side by side. The Chrome extension clips pages; the desktop overlay captures any screen in one keypress; a screen capture becomes just another card. The Claude Code and Codex angle is the piece we have not seen elsewhere at this price. An agent session opens the canvas through MCP, reads what is already there, and drops a competitor table, a chart or a takeaway beside the notes it belongs with. Because everything it adds is a normal card, you can circle it, edit it, or undo the whole run in one step — that last part matters more than it sounds once an agent is writing into your memory. Where it bites: credits. Free's 1,000 AI credits is about 20 questions on the default model, and Ultra's 10,000 will not survive a heavy thinking month. Credit packs at $5 for 2,000 or $20 for 10,000 never expire and are spent after your monthly ones, so budget them rather than assuming the subscription is the ceiling. Plan mechanics worth knowing before you buy. Monthly credits reset on the 1st and do not roll over; yearly is $179.88, which is $14.99/month and saves 25%; switching between monthly and yearly prorates automatically. The first Ultra payment carries a 14-day
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Real-world workflow fit
Concrete scenarios for the personas Constella actually fits — and what changes day-one when you adopt it.
You save a launch decision from Claude Code, a pricing thread from Slack, a Notion Q4 roadmap and a screenshotted pricing page. Later you search 'launch date' and Constella returns the Slack message, the Notion page and the PDF page side by side.
Outcome: You answer 'what did we decide about launch' in seconds instead of scrolling four apps, and Claude, ChatGPT and Codex all read the same memory when you ask them.
You run AI Research Agents across 475M+ papers, set Paper Alerts for your field, drop the PDFs onto a canvas and ask Stella about the notes you have selected.
Outcome: A floating thread card pins next to the papers it came from and saves to your account, so your literature review keeps its provenance.
You clip pages with the Chrome extension, save interview notes from iMessage and Gmail, then place an AI card on the canvas asking it to gather everything on a topic.
Outcome: The card returns grouped ideas, quotes, links and a takeaway, and you export the whole canvas as Markdown or an HTML mind map for your draft.
Use Cases
- Capture meeting notes, emails and research papers into one auto-linked knowledge graph
- Query your firm's knowledge base in natural language and get the note, chat and PDF page side by side
- Visually map complex topics and decisions on an infinite canvas with pen, shapes and arrows
- Give Claude Code, ChatGPT and Codex the same memory so you never re-explain your world
- Ask a canvas AI card to gather your notes on a topic and draw a grouped answer with a takeaway
- Scoped Q&A on selected notes so you can interrogate a specific cluster of research
- Track new academic papers in your field with Paper Alerts and research agents over 475M+ papers
- Onboard new team members by letting them explore the firm's collective memory
Models Under the Hood
as of 2026-10-17
Limitations
- Free tier is limited to 3 canvases, 1,000 AI credits a month (about 20 questions), 30 days of history, and one connected app free for 24 hours; paid Ultra ($19.99/mo) adds 10,000 credits, 1 year of history, up to 3 apps in sync and unlimited canvases.
- AI usage is credit-metered (monthly credits reset on the 1st and don't roll over; extra credit packs cost $5 for 2,000 or $20 for 10,000).
- Local AI models were removed in 2.5.14 and everything now runs in the cloud.
as of 2026-10-04
Verification history
We have re-verified Constella 10 times since . Each pass re-reads the vendor's own pages and re-checks every listed field against that evidence; passes where nothing had changed are marked as such.
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
- — re-verified summary, description, our verdict, our analysis, pricing model, pricing tiers, features, integrations, who it suits, who should skip it
- — re-checked, vendor evidence unchanged
Showing the 6 most recent of 10 verification passes.
Free to cite with attribution — this page re-verifies continuously.
12-month cost
Project the real annual outlay, including the implied monthly cost when only an annual tier is published.
Vendor list price only. Add-on usage, seat overages, and contract minimums are surfaced under Hidden costs & gotchas.
Plans compared
For each published Constella tier: who it actually fits, and what it adds vs. the previous tier. Cross-reference the cost calculator above for projected annual outlay.
Free
$0 forever
Ultra (monthly)
$19.99/mo
Ultra (yearly)
$179.88/yr ($14.99/mo)
Credit packs
$5 for 2,000 / $20 for 10,000
Where the pricing makes sense
The company stage and team size where Constella's pricing actually pencils out — and where peers do it cheaper.
The free on-your-device tier is the cheapest serious entry in this category — no account and your own models. Ultra at $19/month and Mega at $39/month sit in the same band as Notion AI and below enterprise knowledge tools. Check whether those rates assume a yearly commitment, since Constella's pricing page shows a monthly/yearly toggle with 25% off annual.
Setup time & first value
How long it actually takes to get something useful out of Constella — broken out by persona, not the marketing-page minute.
Free tier: about five minutes — download the macOS app and start a local canvas with no account. Ultra or Mega: roughly 15–30 minutes including connecting Notion, Gmail and Slack — note Gmail's first sync pulls your last 20 days of mail and new mail lands within 30 minutes.
Switching to or from Constella
How to bring data in from common predecessors and how to get it back out — written for the switcher, not the buyer.
- →From Obsidian: drop your .md files onto a canvas — they become readable notes, then let auto-linking replace your manual links.
- →From Notion: connect Notion as your first integration on Ultra so pages land in the library grid alongside new notes.
- →From Apple Notes or a plain folder: export to text or Markdown and drag the files onto the canvas to seed the memory.
- →From Gmail and Google Drive: reconnect both (restored in 2.5.7) so mail and files become searchable by content automatically.
- ↗To Obsidian: export any canvas as Markdown and open the vault locally — Constella states you can export everything with no lock-in.
- ↗To Notion: export canvas Markdown and paste into Notion pages, or keep Notion connected and rebuild structure there.
- ↗To a task manager like Linear: keep task tracking there; Constella is a memory layer and does not hold sprints.
Integrations
Resources & Guides
Tutorials & Learning
YouTube returned 6 videos for “Constella”, and we withheld 6: 6 could not be judged, because “Constella” is a single word that other videos use for other things. We are showing none, because we could not prove any of them are about Constella.
Official links
Tools that pair well with Constella
Common stack mates teams adopt alongside Constella, with the specific reason each pairing earns its keep.
Paxton AI
Paxton AI is a legal AI assistant that grounds litigation research and drafting in your case's matter record.
Mem
Mem is an AI knowledge base that captures your notes and meetings and organizes them for you.
Humata AI
Humata AI is a PDF AI that answers questions across your documents with cited links into the exact source section — citations you can trace
Featured Head-to-Head Comparisons
Constella vs Praktika
Choose Praktika if you want to practice languages through conversation with AI tutors that correct pronunciation and grammar in real time. Choose Constella if you need a visual knowledge management tool that AI-links your notes, files, and research papers for deep synthesis and discovery. They serve completely different needs—language speaking versus knowledge organization.
Constella vs Surge Ai
Constella empowers individuals and teams to visually manage knowledge with AI auto-linking and local privacy, while Surge AI provides expert human evaluation and RLHF for frontier AI alignment. Choose Constella if you need a smart notebook that connects your ideas; choose Surge AI if you are building or training large language models and require rigorous human feedback.
Constella vs Gitbook
Choose Constella if you need a visual, AI-linked knowledge graph for personal research and synthesis with local-first privacy. Choose GitBook if you're a product or engineering team that needs AI-driven documentation synced with Git and embedded in your product.
Alternatives to Constella
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Frequently Asked Questions
Best-of guides
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