Concepticon

See the connections in your thinking

Visual concept mapping built on plain text proposition files. Write relationships in plain English, explore them as an interactive graph, and generate maps from documents using AI — all free. Share maps with anyone: they only need the free version to view.

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Concept map focused on Earth, showing connections to The Moon, Inner Planet, The Sun, Life, and Atmosphere

Everything you need to map your thinking

Concepticon combines the simplicity of plain text with the power of visual graph rendering and AI assistance — available free, with no capability locked behind a paywall.

  • Plain Text Propositions

    Write concept relationships in plain English ("Dog chases Cat"). No special syntax to learn — just words connected by words.

  • Visual Graph Rendering

    Propositions become an interactive force-directed graph. Pan, zoom, and explore your concept map with full mouse and keyboard support.

  • AI-Assisted Generation

    Import a PDF, paste a web URL, or describe a topic — the AI generates propositions automatically. You review and refine.

  • Fully Keyboard Accessible

    Every feature is reachable without a mouse. Screen reader compatible. Designed by a legally blind developer who uses it daily.

  • Works with Any Text Editor

    Your proposition files are plain Markdown. Edit them in VS Code, Vim, Obsidian, or Notepad — Concepticon picks up changes automatically.

  • Rich Concept Descriptions

    Each concept can have a full Markdown description in a sibling file. View rendered descriptions as you navigate the map.

  • Focus Views

    Zoom into a subgraph around any concept to reduce clutter. Explore neighbourhoods without losing the bigger picture.

  • Import from Documents

    Generate concept maps from PDFs, PowerPoint presentations, and web pages. The AI extracts key concepts and relationships for you.

  • Private by Default

    Runs entirely on your machine. API keys are encrypted with OS-level secure storage. No telemetry, no cloud required.

How it works

  1. Write propositions

    Open any text editor and write relationships between concepts. Each line is a proposition: two or more concepts connected by a plain English phrase.

    Einstein developed General Relativity
General Relativity describes Spacetime
Spacetime curves near Mass

  2. Open in Concepticon

    Point Concepticon at your propositions file. It reads the file and renders an interactive graph with automatic layout. Save the file and the graph updates instantly.

  3. Explore and refine

    Pan and zoom the graph, click concepts to read their descriptions, use focus view to explore a neighbourhood, and add AI-generated propositions from documents or web pages.

The proposition format

Propositions follow a simple rule: one or more Concept Phrases connected by lowercase linking phrases. Concepts start with uppercase letters; linking phrases are lowercase.

  • Consecutive uppercase-starting words form a single concept (Harry Potter, General Relativity)
  • A lowercase word starts a linking phrase and ends the previous concept
  • Lines not matching the format are ignored — so you can add headings and comments freely
  • Concepts can contain letters, digits, periods, and apostrophes (F.B.I., O'Connor)

Valid propositions

Dog chases Cat
Harry Potter attends Hogwarts
Claude Code applies AI to Software Development
F.B.I. investigates Organised Crime
Michael O'Connor lives in Dublin

Try Concepticon free

The free version does everything — AI generation, document import, full keyboard access. Upgrade to Pro for the convenience of creating, editing and saving concept maps directly in the app.

See Pricing Browse Sample Maps