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Projelli vs Tana.

Tana is a cloud outliner built around supertags, fields, and structured nodes. It's powerful, polished, and beloved by people who think in graphs. Projelli is a local-first Markdown workspace with founder-specific templates. The same indie founder might love either one; they're different shapes for different brains. The honest split: Tana for "I want to build a knowledge graph and query it." Projelli for "I want my strategic content as files I own."

The TL;DR table

FeatureTanaProjelli
Where data livesTana's cloudYour hard drive (Markdown)
Pricing$10/mo Plus, $14/mo Pro (annual)$49 once + your AI provider's API
3-year cost (typical)~$360-504~$229
Data modelOutliner with supertags, fields, queriesFiles with frontmatter, wiki-links
AIBuilt-in AI commandsBYOK Claude / OpenAI / Gemini / Ollama
Founder workflow templatesNo (templates exist but generic)15 specific templates
Wiki-links / backlinksYes (deep)Yes
Query languagePowerful structured queriesFull-text search only
MobileiOS, AndroidDesktop only
Multi-device syncBuilt-in cloudBYO via Dropbox/iCloud
Offline editingLimitedFull editing offline
Real-time collabYes (Pro tier)No
Data exportJSON / MarkdownAlready in Markdown

Where Projelli wins

1. Local-first ownership

Tana's data lives in their cloud. Export is available but the working format is theirs. Projelli's data lives on your machine in Markdown. The compounding-archive value over multiple years tilts toward Projelli for founders building a long strategic record.

2. Founder-specific templates with structured AI interview

Tana has templates (it's actually one of its strengths) but they're general-purpose, user-built. Projelli ships 15 templates designed for founder workflows, each running as a guided AI interview that produces a finished doc. Pitch deck, customer interview synthesis, financial projections, weekly review.

3. BYOK economics and provider flexibility

Tana's AI is bundled into the subscription. Projelli is BYOK: you bring your own Claude / OpenAI / Gemini key, switch per conversation. Most users pay less in BYOK API tokens than in a Tana Pro subscription.

4. Simplicity for documents that aren't graphs

Tana's outliner-plus-supertags model rewards a specific working style. If you're a pitch-deck-writer more than a knowledge-graph-builder, the data model is overhead. Projelli's flat-Markdown model fits document-shaped work more naturally.

Where Tana wins

1. Structured queries over your knowledge graph

Tana's signature feature is the ability to define a "supertag" (e.g., #person, #project, #meeting) and then query across all instances ("show me all #project where #status = 'active' and #owner = me"). This is a real superpower for users who think in structured data. Projelli has no equivalent; full-text search only.

2. Networked-thinking polish

Tana's UX for outlining, breadcrumbs, indents, transclusion is the most polished in the category. If you're already a Roam/Logseq/Workflowy user, Tana feels like the natural next step.

3. Mobile

Tana has native iOS and Android apps. Projelli is desktop-only.

4. Real-time collaboration

Tana Pro supports multi-user editing. Projelli is single-user.

Pricing comparison over 3 years

Tana PlusTana ProProjelli + BYOK
Year 1$120$168$49 + $60-180 BYOK
Year 2$120$168$60-180 BYOK
Year 3$120$168$60-180 BYOK
3-year total$360$504$229-589

Migrating from Tana to Projelli

  1. In Tana, export your workspace as Markdown
  2. The export contains your nodes converted to nested bullet lists in Markdown
  3. Drop into a new Projelli workspace folder
  4. Tana's supertag fields will appear as inline tags or YAML frontmatter (depending on export options); Projelli treats both as searchable text
  5. Wiki-links convert mostly cleanly

The biggest adjustment: you lose the structured-query feature. If your Tana workflow depends heavily on supertag queries, Projelli will feel less expressive. If your Tana workflow is mostly outlining + AI assistance, the migration is straightforward and you'll barely notice.

Free download. Pro is $49 one-time. Lifetime is $99. The first 100 buyers get Lifetime at $29.

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