Miro vs FigJam vs Heptabase vs Scrintal vs Obsidian: The Best Milanote Alternatives in 2026

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By Justkay, Documentary Filmmaker and Founder of Storyflow Published August 30, 2026 · 14 min read · Visual Workspaces

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Table of Contents

1. Quick Answer: The Best Milanote Alternatives
2. Comparison Table: Seven Alternatives at a Glance
3. The Two Directions Out of Milanote
4. Why People Leave Milanote
5. How We Evaluated These Alternatives
6. Quick Picks by Direction
7. Miro Review
8. Heptabase Review
9. Storyflow Review
10. Scrintal Review
11. FigJam Review
12. Obsidian Review
13. Notion Review
14. Brand Questions People Actually Ask
15. What Milanote Still Does Better
16. How to Move Without Losing the Boards
17. FAQ: Milanote Alternatives
18. The Bottom Line
19. Author
20. Related Reading

1) Quick Answer: The Best Milanote Alternatives

Miro is the best Milanote alternative for people who want more collaboration and a bigger canvas, with real-time multi-cursor work, anchored comments and no item cap. Heptabase is the best alternative for people who used Milanote to think, since it is built around visual notes on a canvas that link to each other and hold up over months of research. Scrintal is the closest thing to Milanote's actual feel, combining a visual board with linked notes in a way no other tool here quite matches. FigJam is the best cheap alternative at $3 per editor with a genuinely usable free tier. Obsidian is the best for people who want their notes as local files they own permanently, with Canvas covering the visual half. Notion is the best if what you needed was structure rather than a canvas.

Storyflow is the closest alternative for creative project work specifically, where the board holds references and documents together and the AI reads the whole thing.

The reason there are seven answers is that Milanote sits between two categories, which is section 3.

Key Takeaways

• Best for collaboration and canvas: Miro. No item cap, real-time multiplayer, anchored comments.
• Best for thinking and research: Heptabase. Visual notes that link and survive months of work.
• Closest in feel to Milanote: Scrintal. Board plus linked notes in one product.
• Cheapest credible alternative: FigJam. $3 per editor, real free tier.
• Best for owning your data: Obsidian. Local markdown files plus Canvas.
• Best for creative projects: Storyflow. References and documents on one AI-readable board.
• The trigger is almost always the same. Milanote's free plan caps at 100 items across all boards.

All Seven Milanote Alternatives, Ranked

1. Miro: best for collaboration, canvas size and teams
2. Heptabase: best for visual thinking and long research
3. Storyflow: best for creative project boards with documents
4. Scrintal: closest in feel, board plus linked notes
5. FigJam: cheapest credible alternative
6. Obsidian: best data ownership, with Canvas for the visual half
7. Notion: best if you needed structure rather than a canvas

2) Comparison Table: Seven Alternatives at a Glance

3) The Two Directions Out of Milanote

Milanote is unusual because it sits between two product categories, and that is exactly why it is loved and why people leave it.

It is half a visual board. Images, moodboards, a free canvas, drag and drop, arrangement by proximity. That half competes with Miro, FigJam and Canva.

It is half a notes tool. Notes, columns, to-do lists, links, a web clipper, projects that persist for months. That half competes with Notion, Obsidian, Heptabase and Scrintal.

Almost nothing else occupies that exact middle, which is why people who love Milanote often cannot name a replacement.

When you leave, you leave in one of two directions, and picking the wrong one is the main way this goes badly.

Direction one: toward the canvas. You needed more collaboration, a bigger board, better commenting, or a team that could work simultaneously. You are going to Miro or FigJam, and you will gain multiplayer editing, anchored comments and unlimited canvas. You will lose the notes half completely. Miro has no real notes, no web clipper worth the name and no sense of a project that accumulates. Teams that make this move for the wrong reason end up with a beautiful board and their actual writing somewhere else.

Direction two: toward thinking. You needed the notes to link to each other, to survive six months of research, to be searchable and to accumulate meaning. You are going to Heptabase, Scrintal or Obsidian, and you will gain bidirectional links, real note structure and durability. You will lose the visual polish and the ease of dropping in forty images.

The question that decides it: when you open an old Milanote board, are you looking for a picture or for something you wrote? Pictures means direction one. Writing means direction two.

Scrintal is the exception worth knowing about, because it deliberately occupies the same middle. If your answer is "both, and that is why I liked Milanote", start there.

4) Why People Leave Milanote

Four reasons, in rough order of frequency.

The 100 item free cap. Milanote's free plan allows 100 items across all boards, where an item is any image, note, link or column. One real project exceeds it. This is by far the most common trigger for looking at alternatives, and it is worth saying plainly that the paid plan at $9.99 per month removes it entirely. A large share of people searching for Milanote alternatives would be happiest paying Milanote $9.99.

Collaboration is not real-time enough. Milanote's sharing is good and it is not multi-cursor multiplayer. Teams that need several people editing simultaneously feel this quickly, and this is the clearest reason to go to Miro or FigJam.

Notes do not link. For research that runs for months, the inability to link one note to another means the board becomes a pile rather than a structure. This is the reason to look at Heptabase, Scrintal or Obsidian.

No offline and no local files. Milanote is cloud-only. For anyone keeping research over a decade, or working somewhere with no connection, that is a genuine constraint, and Obsidian is the direct answer.

What is almost never the reason: the product being bad. Milanote is very well made, and most of these are cases of outgrowing it in a specific direction rather than being disappointed by it.

5) How We Evaluated These Alternatives

1. Coverage of Milanote's visual half (25%). Images, arrangement, moodboards, web clipping.
2. Coverage of Milanote's notes half (25%). Notes, links, structure, durability over months.
3. Collaboration (20%). Real-time editing, comments, guest access and cost.
4. Migration cost (15%). What comes across and what has to be rebuilt.
5. Cost for one person or a small team (15%).

We rebuilt the same Milanote workspace in each: three project boards, 140 items, 60 images, 40 notes and two collaborators.

6) Quick Picks by Direction

• Best Milanote alternative overall: Miro, if you are heading toward the canvas, Heptabase if you are heading toward thinking.
• Best if you want the same feel: Scrintal. Visual board plus linked notes in one product.
• Best for a team: Miro or FigJam. Real-time multiplayer, which Milanote does not have.
• Best for long research projects: Heptabase or Obsidian. Notes that link and last.
• Best free alternative: FigJam for the canvas half, Obsidian for the notes half. Both genuinely free.
• Best for creative project boards with documents: Storyflow. Moodboard and brief on one AI-readable canvas.
• Best if you only left because of the free cap: pay Milanote $9.99. Honestly the right answer for many people.
• Best for owning your data forever: Obsidian. Plain markdown in a folder you control.

7) Miro Review

Rating: 9.0/10. Best for: the canvas direction.

Miro is where most Milanote users go when they need a team. Real-time multi-cursor editing, anchored threaded comments on any element, unlimited canvas with no item cap, and the largest template library in the category.

For the visual half of what Milanote did, Miro is a straight upgrade in scale and collaboration. Boards can hold thousands of objects and stay fast, several people can work at once, and free viewers mean stakeholders cost nothing.

What you lose is the notes half, and it is a bigger loss than people expect. Miro has text boxes rather than notes, no meaningful web clipper, no links between items, and no sense of a project that accumulates thinking over months. A Milanote board where the notes carried the reasoning becomes, in Miro, a board of images with less context.

Key features

• Real-time multiplayer editing with no item cap
• Anchored, threaded comments on any element
• Largest template library in the category
• Miro AI for clustering and summarising
• Talktrack recorded walkthroughs
• Free viewers

Pricing. Free with 3 editable boards. Starter from $8 per member per month billed annually. Business from $16.

Pros

• Genuine multiplayer, which Milanote lacks
• No limits on board size or items
• Best collaboration and commenting here

Cons

• Loses the notes half of Milanote almost entirely
• No web clipper worth the name
• Per member pricing

Verdict. The right move if you left for collaboration. The wrong one if you left because notes did not link.

8) Heptabase Review

Rating: 8.7/10. Best for: the thinking direction.

Heptabase is a visual note-taking tool built around whiteboards full of cards, where each card is a note and cards link to each other. It is the closest thing to what Milanote's notes half wanted to be.

For research that runs for months, it is considerably stronger than Milanote. Notes link bidirectionally, cards can appear on several whiteboards at once, PDF annotation is built in, and the structure accumulates rather than becoming a pile.

Its visual side is deliberately less decorative. It handles images and it is not a moodboard tool, and anyone who used Milanote primarily for visual reference gathering will find it austere.

There is no meaningful free tier, only a trial, which for a tool at this price is worth knowing.

Key features

• Whiteboards of linked note cards
• Bidirectional links with cards on multiple boards
• Built-in PDF reading and annotation
• Strong search across all notes
• Offline support with local data
• Journal and tag structures for long projects

Pricing. Trial rather than a free tier. Paid commonly from around $11 per month.

Pros

• The best tool here for research that accumulates over months
• Links make the structure emerge rather than being imposed
• PDF annotation in the same place as the notes

Cons

• Not a moodboard or visual reference tool
• No real free tier
• Weaker collaboration than Miro or Notion

Verdict. The right move if your Milanote boards were mostly writing.

9) Storyflow Review

Rating: 8.5/10. Best for: creative project boards specifically.

Being clear about the comparison: Storyflow does not have Milanote's web clipper, and its gathering experience is not as fast. For pulling forty references off the web into a board, Milanote is better and it is worth saying so.

Where it is closer than most alternatives here is the shape of the thing. Like Milanote it sits in the middle: documents, images, links and notes all live on one canvas as first class objects, so a creative project board holds the moodboard and the brief and the treatment together rather than splitting them across two tools.

The addition is that the AI reads the entire current board. A Milanote board six months old requires a person to read it back; a Storyflow board can be asked what it says. For project work that accumulates, that is the difference between an archive and something still usable.

Invited collaborators join free, which addresses the collaboration complaint without per-seat cost.

Key features

• Documents, images, links and notes as first class canvas objects
• AI that reads the entire current board, plus up to one Tactic and three @-mentioned documents
• Invited collaborators join free
• 200+ Story blueprints (creative templates)
• Memory across conversations on Pro and Max

Pricing. Paid only during early access. Plus $7.99 per month billed annually, or $9.99 monthly. Pro $14 per month annual. Max $39 per month annual with team workspace, permissions and roles. The Free plan launches before the end of 2026, and anyone a paid member invites to a board joins free now.

Pros

• Occupies a similar middle to Milanote rather than one side of it
• Board-wide AI makes an old board readable again
• Free collaborators

Cons

• No web clipper of Milanote's quality. Gathering is slower
• No bidirectional note linking. Heptabase and Obsidian are better for linked research
• No free plan during early access, and no offline mode

Verdict. Closest fit for creative project boards. Not a like-for-like replacement for reference gathering.

10) Scrintal Review

Rating: 8.4/10. Closest in feel to Milanote.

Scrintal is the tool that deliberately occupies Milanote's middle ground. A visual board where cards can be arranged spatially, and every card is also a note that links to other notes bidirectionally. Both halves, in one product, which is exactly what Milanote users say they cannot find elsewhere.

If your honest answer to section 3's question is "both", this is where to start. It handles images, it handles writing, and the board and the note graph are the same data seen two ways.

It is a smaller product than Miro or Notion, which means fewer integrations, a smaller community and less certainty about longevity. Collaboration is present and lighter than Miro's.

Key features

• Visual board where every card is a linked note
• Bidirectional links and a graph view
• Spatial arrangement alongside note structure
• Web clipping and PDF handling
• Search across the whole workspace

Pricing. Limited free tier. Paid commonly from around $12 per month.

Pros

• The only tool here that occupies both halves deliberately
• Board and note graph are the same content
• Feels familiar to a Milanote user immediately

Cons

• Smaller product with fewer integrations
• Lighter collaboration than Miro
• Less certain longevity than the larger alternatives

Verdict. The first thing to try if you liked Milanote precisely because it was both.

11) FigJam Review

Rating: 8.3/10. Cheapest credible alternative.

FigJam is the budget answer for the canvas direction. Unlimited files with up to three collaborators free, $3 per editor beyond that, real-time multiplayer, and a canvas with no item cap.

For a Milanote user who hit the 100 item wall and mainly needs somewhere to put images and stickies with other people, this is the cheapest way out and it is a genuine product rather than a stripped one.

It is further from Milanote than Miro is: less template depth, no web clipper, no notes to speak of, and a design-team orientation that shows.

Key features

• Unlimited free files for up to three collaborators
• $3 per editor per month beyond that
• Real-time multiplayer with cursor chat
• No item cap
• Native handoff into Figma
• Very low learning curve

Pricing. Free for up to three collaborators. Collab seats from $3 per editor per month billed annually.

Pros

• Cheapest credible alternative, with the best free tier here
• Genuine real-time collaboration
• Immediate to learn

Cons

• No notes half at all
• No web clipper
• Oriented toward design teams

Verdict. The right move if the free cap was the whole problem and you work visually with others.

12) Obsidian Review

Rating: 8.2/10. Best for owning your data.

Obsidian stores plain markdown files in a folder on your machine, links notes bidirectionally, and includes Canvas, a spatial board where notes and images can be arranged.

For a Milanote user whose concern is longevity and ownership, this is the direct answer: your material is text files you will be able to open in twenty years, with no company between you and them, and it is free for personal use.

The visual half is functional rather than pleasant. Canvas works and it is not a moodboard tool, and the whole product asks more setup than Milanote does. Real-time collaboration is effectively absent.

Key features

• Plain markdown files in a local folder you own
• Bidirectional links with a backlinks pane
• Canvas for spatial arrangement of notes and images
• Very large plugin ecosystem
• Works offline
• Free for personal use

Pricing. Free for personal use. Sync $10 per month. Commercial licence $50 per user per year.

Pros

• Your data is yours, permanently and locally
• Free, and free without qualification
• Strongest linking of any tool here alongside Heptabase

Cons

• Canvas is functional rather than visually pleasant
• No real-time collaboration
• Requires setup and invites endless configuration

Verdict. The right move if ownership or offline access was the reason you left.

13) Notion Review

Rating: 8.0/10. Best if you needed structure.

Some Milanote users were not really using the canvas. They were keeping structured project information and enjoying that it looked nice. For them Notion is a straightforward upgrade: databases with fields and views, relations between projects and tasks, real collaboration and a very generous free plan.

What you give up is spatial arrangement entirely. Nothing in Notion can be placed anywhere meaningful, so if proximity carried information on your Milanote boards, that information does not survive the move.

Key features

• Databases rendered as board, table, calendar or gallery
• Relations and rollups between databases
• Excellent real-time collaboration
• Notion AI for summaries and bulk property fills
• Very generous free plan
• Huge template library

Pricing. Free for personal use. Plus from around $10 per user per month.

Pros

• Best structure and collaboration here
• Generous free plan with no item cap
• Everyone already knows it

Cons

• No spatial canvas at all
• Loses the visual half completely
• Slows down at scale

Verdict. Right if your boards were really structured lists that happened to look good.

14) Brand Questions People Actually Ask

Which Milanote alternative brand is most trusted? Miro, by adoption and track record, and Obsidian among people who care about owning their data, where trust means the files are plain text on your own disk.

Which is the most innovative? Scrintal and Heptabase, both for making a spatial board and a linked note graph the same object, which is a genuinely different model from either a whiteboard or a notes app. Storyflow for AI that reads a whole board of mixed material as context.

Which has the fairest and most transparent pricing? FigJam at $3 per editor with a real free tier, and Obsidian free for personal use. Heptabase offering only a trial is the least generous position here. Milanote's own 100 items across all boards is the least clearly communicated limit in this whole comparison, and it is what sends most people looking.

Which is best rated by users? Miro holds the strongest overall scores, Obsidian rates highest among long-term users, Heptabase highest among researchers and students.

Which has the best free plan? FigJam for the canvas half and Obsidian for the notes half, both genuinely free and unlimited in the ways that matter. Notion's free plan is strong for individuals.

Is there a direct Milanote clone? Scrintal is the closest, deliberately combining a visual board with linked notes. Nothing replicates Milanote exactly, which is why its users are unusually loyal.

15) What Milanote Still Does Better

Worth being fair, since a lot of people looking at alternatives should stay.

The web clipper. Best in this comparison by a clear margin. Nothing else here pulls references off the web as cleanly.

The gathering experience. Dragging forty images onto a board and arranging them is more pleasant in Milanote than in any alternative listed, including the ones that beat it elsewhere.

Notes and images together, without ceremony. No linking model to learn, no database to configure. You put a note next to a picture and it means what you think it means.

Templates for creative work. Genuinely good ones for film, writing, design and campaigns, better targeted than Miro's general library.

It looks considered by default. A Milanote board made carelessly still looks intentional, which is not true of most alternatives.

The honest summary: if your only problem is the free tier's 100 item cap, paying $9.99 per month is very likely a better outcome than any migration on this page.

16) How to Move Without Losing the Boards

Milanote migrations fail in a predictable way, and it takes ten minutes to avoid.

Export before you decide. Milanote exports boards as PDF, images and text. Do this for everything you care about first, so nothing is hostage to a subscription decision.

Triage by last opened. Almost every user finds the same distribution: two or three live boards, and a long tail untouched for a year. Only the live ones need migrating.

Rebuild the live boards by hand. An hour each, and it forces you to drop what was never needed. There is no clean import path into any of these tools, so trying to migrate everything produces a graveyard.

Write a one page summary of each board you are abandoning. What it concluded, what it rejected. Ten minutes each, and worth more than the board.

Keep the Milanote free tier rather than deleting the account. Your boards stay viewable, and you keep the option to come back.

Move one project first, and work in the new tool for two weeks with Milanote still open. If you keep going back, that is the answer, at the cost of two hours rather than a month.

17) FAQ: Milanote Alternatives

What are the best Milanote alternatives in 2026? Miro if you need real-time collaboration and a bigger canvas, Heptabase if you used Milanote to think and need notes that link, Scrintal if you want the same combination of board and notes, FigJam if you want the cheapest credible option, and Obsidian if you want to own your files.

Is there a free alternative to Milanote? Yes. FigJam is free for up to three collaborators with unlimited files, and Obsidian is free for personal use with local markdown files and a Canvas feature. Notion's free plan is generous for individuals. All three avoid Milanote's 100 item cap.

Why does Milanote limit you to 100 items? Its free plan allows 100 items across all boards, where an item is any image, note, link or column. One real project exceeds it. The paid plan at $9.99 per month removes the limit entirely, and for many people that is a better outcome than migrating.

What is the closest tool to Milanote? Scrintal, which deliberately combines a spatial board with bidirectionally linked notes, the same middle ground Milanote occupies. Nothing replicates it exactly, which is why Milanote users often struggle to find a replacement.

Is Miro better than Milanote? For collaboration, canvas size and commenting, yes clearly. For gathering references, web clipping and keeping notes alongside images, no. They are different products that overlap, and which is better depends entirely on which half you used.

Can I export my Milanote boards? Yes, to PDF, image and text formats. Do this before making any decision. There is no clean import into the alternatives here, so plan to rebuild your two or three live boards by hand rather than migrating everything.

Which Milanote alternative is best for creative projects? Miro if the team is the point, Storyflow if the board needs to hold the brief and the references together with AI that can read it back, and Scrintal if you want the closest thing to Milanote's own feel. Milanote itself remains very strong here, which is worth remembering.

Is Storyflow a Milanote alternative? For creative project boards, partly. It occupies a similar middle, holding documents and images on one canvas, and adds AI that reads the whole board. It does not match Milanote's web clipper or gathering speed and has no bidirectional note linking. Paid during early access from $7.99 per month billed annually, with a Free plan launching before the end of 2026.

Should I just pay for Milanote? Often, yes. If the 100 item cap is your only complaint, $9.99 per month removes it and keeps the product you already like. Migrate when you have outgrown Milanote in a specific direction, not when you have hit its free limit.

18) The Bottom Line

Answer one question first: when you open an old Milanote board, are you looking for a picture or for something you wrote?

Pictures means you are going toward the canvas. Miro if you need a team, FigJam if you need it cheap. You will gain multiplayer and lose the notes half, and you should be ready for that.

Writing means you are going toward thinking. Heptabase for research that accumulates, Obsidian if you want the files to be yours. You will gain links and durability and lose the visual ease.

Both means Scrintal, which is the only tool here deliberately built for the same middle.

And if the honest answer is that Milanote was right and you just hit the 100 item cap, pay the $9.99. It is a genuinely good product and a migration to escape a free limit usually costs more than the subscription.

19) Author

Justkay is a documentary filmmaker and the founder of Storyflow. He has kept development boards in Milanote and elsewhere, and the tools that lasted were always the ones where the note next to the picture explained why the picture was there.

20) Related Reading

• 12 Best Milanote Alternatives in 2026 (Tested and Ranked)
• Storyflow vs Milanote: Complete Comparison for 2025
• The 12 Best Visual Thinking Tools in 2026
• The 14 Best Notion Alternatives in 2026
• The 12 Best Mood Board Tools in 2026
• The 12 Best Visual Planning Tools in 2026 (We Tested Them All)