Pando vs Tana Outliner, now that Tana is two products
by Andreas Tissen · · updated
tana.inc now sells a meeting product, and the outliner with supertags moved to outliner.tana.inc. The home page at tana.inc calls it "an agentic meeting platform". It describes itself as "a separate product from Tana Outliner, the company's note-taking outliner". The outliner's own page says the same from the other side.
This page is for somebody choosing a place where Claude or ChatGPT should read and write notes, with Tana Outliner on the list. It compares Tana Outliner with Pando. I build Pando, so read my side with that in mind; Tana's facts come from its own pages and Claude's connector directory, read on 14 November 2026.
Local and hosted servers in Tana Outliner
Most note apps now let an outside agent in over MCP, the protocol Claude and ChatGPT use to reach other apps. The server can run on your own computer or on the internet. A server on your computer is only reachable from tools on that computer, such as Claude Code. Claude's phone app and claude.ai connect from Anthropic's servers, so they need a hosted one. Which notes can Claude reach from your phone? has this for 21 note apps.
Tana Outliner offers both. Its documentation page "API and MCP" describes a local server inside the desktop app, free for everyone, which needs the desktop app running. It also describes a hosted server at https://app.tana.inc/mcp, with OAuth. That one works without the desktop app. As of 14 November 2026 that page says: "The hosted server is in beta and requires a paid plan."
From the phone on the free plan
So, as of 14 November 2026, Claude on your phone can reach Tana Outliner only on Plus or Pro. On the free plan, Claude reaches your notes only from your own computer, with the desktop app open. Tana may change this while the hosted server is in beta.
Pando's hosted MCP server and the memory bullet are on the free plan. Claude on your phone, claude.ai, ChatGPT and Claude Code reach https://pando.ink/mcp without any computer of yours running.
Feature table
| Pando | Tana Outliner | |
|---|---|---|
| Typed notes | tags, layouts, tables and boards; no fields or types on a tag | supertags: a tag is a type with fields |
| Built-in AI | none; you bring Claude or ChatGPT | yes, paid in AI credits: 500 on Free, 2,000 on Plus, 5,000 on Pro |
| MCP on the free plan | hosted, 12 tools | local, in the desktop app |
| Hosted MCP | every plan | beta, paid plans |
| Meeting transcription | none | yes, up to 100 minutes on Free |
| Price | free up to 5,000 bullets, then Pro | Free; Plus $8 a month billed yearly or $10 monthly; Pro $14 yearly or $18 monthly |
| Export | Markdown, OPML, a spreadsheet, formatted text | Markdown or JSON |
Where Tana Outliner wins
Supertags are the reason people choose Tana, and Pando has nothing like them. In Tana Outliner a supertag turns a bullet into a task, a project or a meeting with its own fields. Saved views gather them. Pando has tags, layouts and tables, and a tag carries no fields. If typed notes are the point for you, the comparison ends here, in Tana's favour.
Tana Outliner also brings its own AI: chat with your notes, voice memos that land as tagged notes, meeting transcription, and a choice of models from OpenAI, Anthropic and Google, all paid in credits. Pando has no AI of its own. And the free plan on Tana Outliner's pricing page names no limit on the number of notes, where Pando's stops new bullets at 5,000.
What Pando does
You add Pando in Claude as a custom connector and approve it on a page like this one, read and write or read only, with a bullet for Claude to remember in.
The server has 12 tools: remember and recall for the agent's memory, tree, search and changes for reading, create, update, move, mirror and delete for writing, shared_with_me for branches other people shared, and whoami. What Claude keeps lands in its memory bullet, in your outline, where you read it and fix it. Give your agent a memory shows what it holds after a while. The agent can also leave you tasks only a person can do, as checkboxes with the reason underneath, which The inbox your agent writes for you describes.
Pando does not transcribe meetings and runs no model. The tokens your agent spends come out of your own Claude or ChatGPT plan. It is run by my company, Pyfio UG, in Soltau, Germany.
The new Tana, briefly
The product at tana.inc brings your own agents, Claude and ChatGPT among them, into calls on Zoom, Teams and Google Meet. Its connector in Claude's directory, added in August 2026, lists 35 tools. It does a different job from an outline, so it is left out of the comparison above.
Pages read on 14 November 2026: Tana's home and pricing pages (tana.inc, tana.inc/pricing), Tana Outliner's home and pricing pages (outliner.tana.inc), its documentation page "API and MCP", and the Tana entry in Claude's connector directory.
If you want Claude in an outline it can reach from anywhere without a paid plan, create a free Pando account and connect Claude and start with one branch.