Obsidian
Note Taking Verified May 2026
Obsidian deal: Verified founder pricing
Obsidian turns plain Markdown files into a linked, searchable second brain — and the core app is free forever.
- Local-first with no required account — your notes stay on your device
- Massive plugin ecosystem (1,000+ community plugins) for any workflow
- Powerful bidirectional linking and graph view for connecting ideas
- Markdown-based files are portable — never locked in
How Obsidian scored 69/100
6 weighted criteria, each scored out of 10 and published with its reasoning. Featured placements never move a score.
Deal Strength
3.0 /10There is no exclusive coupon or limited-time discount here; the offer is simpler than that. The full Obsidian desktop and mobile app is free forever for personal and, since February 2026, commercial use too, with no revenue cap and no license to buy. You only ever pay if you add optional Sync or Publish.
Value for Money
10.0 /10On price-to-power, almost nothing in the note-taking category competes. A complete Markdown knowledge base with backlinks, graph view and thousands of plugins costs nothing, and the paid extras stay cheap: Sync runs $4/month billed annually and Publish $8/month billed annually. For most people the recurring cost is genuinely zero.
Capability
9.0 /10Obsidian is a deep, extensible second brain rather than a simple notes app. Bidirectional links, an interactive graph, the Canvas whiteboard, Bases for structured data and a vast community-plugin ecosystem let you shape it into almost any workflow. The main gap is real-time collaboration, which keeps it just short of a perfect score.
Time to Value
4.0 /10Basic note-taking works the moment you open a vault, but getting Obsidian to feel like home takes real effort. The blank-canvas philosophy, folder-versus-link decisions and plugin tuning mean most people spend a weekend or more configuring it before it clicks. Fast for jotting notes, slow to master as a full knowledge system.
Trust & Reliability
8.0 /10Obsidian has earned a strong reputation among researchers, writers and developers, backed by a large, active community on Discord and in the forums. Because it is local-first, your Markdown notes live on your own disk with no server dependency and nothing to go down, so reliability rests on your device rather than someone else's uptime.
Flexibility & Exit
10.0 /10Lock-in is effectively nonexistent. Every note is a plain Markdown file sitting in a normal folder on your disk, readable in any text editor and portable to any other app at any time. There is no account to cancel for the free app and no proprietary export step, so you own your data for good.
Verified founder pricing
Core app is free for personal and commercial use as of February 2026. Sync and Publish billed annually for the listed price.
Affiliate link — same price for you, and it never moves the score.
- Local-first with no required account — your notes stay on your device
- Massive plugin ecosystem (1,000+ community plugins) for any workflow
- Powerful bidirectional linking and graph view for connecting ideas
- Markdown-based files are portable — never locked in
About Obsidian
Quick answer
Obsidian is a local-first Markdown note-taking app built around backlinks, a graph view, and a huge plugin ecosystem. The core app is free for personal and commercial use on every platform; you only pay for add-ons like Obsidian Sync (E2E-encrypted cloud sync), Obsidian Publish (turn notes into a website), or Obsidian Catalyst (one-time payment for early-access insider builds). For anyone serious about owning their notes in plain .md files, it is the strongest option in 2026.
What is Obsidian?
Obsidian is a local-first Markdown knowledge base created by Erica Xu and Shida Li, the duo behind Dynalist, and first released in 2020. Unlike cloud-native tools such as Notion, Obsidian stores your notes as plain .md files in folders you control on your own computer. The app itself is essentially a sophisticated viewer, editor, and link-engine for those files.
Because your vault is just a folder, you can open it with any text editor, sync it with Dropbox, iCloud, or Git, and never worry about a vendor going bankrupt. That local-first philosophy is the single biggest reason PKM enthusiasts gravitate toward Obsidian, and it is also why the core app can ship for free: there are no server costs to recoup for the personal-use product.
Obsidian runs on Windows, macOS, and Linux as a desktop app, plus iOS and Android for mobile. It is built on Electron, so it is technically cross-platform, not native — a trade-off worth knowing if you live in low-RAM environments.
Key features that make Obsidian different
Plain Markdown files
Every note is a .md file on your disk. Open them anywhere, version them in Git, search them with ripgrep. There is no proprietary export to worry about.
Backlinks & unlinked mentions
Type [[Page Name]] to link notes, and Obsidian automatically builds a backlink panel so you can see every note that references the current one — the core mechanic of a "second brain."
Graph view
An interactive force-directed map of your entire vault. Zoom in to study clusters of thought, zoom out to spot isolated notes that need linking. Filter by tags, folders, or orphans.
Canvas
An infinite whiteboard for visual thinking. Drag notes, PDFs, images, and web links onto a canvas to plan projects, sketch mind maps, or build storyboards.
1,500+ community plugins
From Dataview (SQL-like queries over notes) to Templater (dynamic templates) to Excalidraw (hand-drawn diagrams), the plugin ecosystem is Obsidian's superpower.
Bases (database views)
Newer feature that turns note frontmatter into structured rows you can filter, sort, and group — Notion-style tables, but living on top of your local files.
Obsidian pricing in 2026: still mostly free
Obsidian's pricing model is unusually generous for a SaaS company: the core app is free for personal and commercial use, forever. You only pay if you want one of three optional services.
- Obsidian Sync — E2E-encrypted cloud sync across desktop and mobile. Useful if you don't trust third-party sync tools. Pricing has historically been a flat monthly fee per user, with a free trial for new accounts. Confirm current rate at obsidian.md.
- Obsidian Publish — Publish a curated subset of your vault as a static website at a custom domain. Great for digital gardens, research blogs, or documentation.
- Obsidian Catalyst — A one-time payment that unlocks insider builds and funds development. No recurring fees, no feature gating forever — it is essentially a tip jar with perks.
You can use 100% of Obsidian's note-taking features, including plugins and themes, for free. That is a remarkable position in 2026, when most "AI-powered" note apps charge $10–$20/month for the basics.
Obsidian vs Notion vs Logseq vs Roam
How does Obsidian stack up against the other big names in the linked-notes space? Here is a side-by-side look.
| Feature | Obsidian | Notion | Logseq | Roam Research |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where data lives | Local .md files | Notion cloud | Local Markdown or org-mode | Roam cloud |
| Free tier | Full app, all platforms | Limited blocks for individuals | Full app | No free tier |
| Collaboration | None built-in (use Git/Sync) | Real-time multi-user | Limited, peer-to-peer | Real-time multi-user |
| Plugin ecosystem | 1,500+ community plugins | API + integrations | Many plugins, smaller base | Limited |
| Graph view | Yes, core feature | No native equivalent | Yes | Yes |
| Best for | Solo PKM, ownership | Teams, shared wikis | Outliner fans, open source | Researchers with budget |
The honest summary: Obsidian wins on ownership and extensibility, Notion wins on collaboration, Logseq wins on open-source purity, and Roam wins on brand cache — at five times the price.
Who should (and shouldn't) use Obsidian
✓ Use Obsidian if you:
- Want your notes in plain Markdown you can read in 10 years.
- Enjoy tinkering with plugins, themes, and CSS snippets.
- Do solo research, writing, journaling, or studying.
- Care about offline access and not being at a vendor's mercy.
- Already use (or want to use) a graph-style "second brain" workflow.
✗ Skip Obsidian if you:
- Need real-time multi-user editing with a small team.
- Want a turnkey, polished outliner with zero setup.
- Prefer Apple-native apps and live entirely in the iCloud ecosystem.
- Need a built-in CRM, kanban, or database tool with rich relations.
- Get frustrated by configuration menus and reading documentation.
What's included
- Markdown files stored locally on your own disk, fully owned by you
- Bidirectional links and graph view for surfacing connections between notes
- Plugin ecosystem with 1,800+ community plugins for almost any workflow
- Canvas for whiteboard-style mind maps and visual outlining
- Optional end-to-end encrypted Sync across desktop and mobile
- Optional Publish for turning vaults into a public digital garden
- Mobile apps for iOS and Android with full plugin and theme support
- Free for personal and commercial use as of February 2026
Obsidian pricing
Verified May 2026. Vendor's published rates at the time we checked — always confirm at checkout.
| Plan | Price | Term | What you get |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | Free | forever | Full local note-taking, no sign-up required, unlimited notes |
| Sync | $4/user/mo | annual | $5/mo monthly; end-to-end encrypted sync across devices, version history, shared vaults |
| Publish | $8/site/mo | annual | $10/mo monthly; publish notes as a website with custom themes and graph view |
| Catalyst | $25 | one-time | Early beta access, community badges — supports development |
| Commercial | $50/user/year | annual | Required for commercial use in organizations |
How to claim it
4 steps. The last one is the part most people skip.
- 1
Open Obsidian through the link on this page
It carries our referral tag. The price you pay is identical either way, and it never changes the score on this page.
- 2
Pick the plan that matches your usage
This offer applies automatically through the link — there is no code to enter.
- 3
Confirm the discount before you pay
The order summary should show the reduced amount. If it does not, stop and tell us — we re-test listings that stop working.
- 4
Check what happens at renewal
Core app is free for personal and commercial use as of February 2026. Sync and Publish billed annually for the listed price.
Where Obsidian wins and loses
What works
- Local-first with no required account — your notes stay on your device
- Massive plugin ecosystem (1,000+ community plugins) for any workflow
- Powerful bidirectional linking and graph view for connecting ideas
- Markdown-based files are portable — never locked in
What doesn't
- Sync and Publish require paid add-ons separate from core app
- Steeper setup curve than cloud-native tools like Notion
- Mobile app lags behind desktop experience
- No real-time collaboration without third-party plugins
The bottom line
Obsidian is one of the best note-taking apps you can run without ever opening your wallet: a local-first Markdown knowledge base that links every note into a searchable second brain, and the core app is now free for personal and commercial use. A genuinely steep learning curve and paid add-ons for sync and publishing are the only real friction, but for anyone who wants to own their notes for life, it is a clear Buy.
Yes. As of February 2026 the core Obsidian app is completely free for both personal and commercial use, with no revenue limit and no commercial license required. You get unlimited vaults and every editing, linking and plugin feature at no cost. Only the optional Sync and Publish services carry a fee, and a $50/user/year commercial license is now a voluntary way to support development.
Obsidian Sync costs $4 per month billed annually, or $5 month-to-month. It adds end-to-end encrypted syncing of your Markdown notes across desktop and mobile, version history so you can roll back changes, and support for shared vaults. Sync is entirely optional; if you would rather not pay, you can keep vaults in sync yourself using iCloud, Dropbox or git.
It depends on what you value. Obsidian stores everything as local Markdown files you own outright, works fully offline and never locks your data in a vendor's cloud, which makes it the stronger pick for long-term ownership and privacy. Notion wins on real-time team collaboration, databases and a gentler setup. Choose Obsidian for a durable personal knowledge base, Notion for collaborative workspaces.
No. Out of the box Obsidian is already a capable Markdown editor with backlinks, tags, search and the graph view, enough to run a solid second brain. Community plugins like Dataview, Templater and Calendar add power once you know what you want, but you can be productive with none installed and add them gradually rather than all at once.
For anyone building a lasting personal knowledge base, yes. The learning curve is real, since Obsidian hands you a blank canvas and expects you to design your own system, and most people spend a weekend configuring it. But the payoff is a fast, private, plugin-extensible note-taking app you fully own, with no recurring cost unless you choose Sync or Publish.
Partly. Obsidian is built around single-user vaults, and even with Sync shared vaults you do not get true real-time multiplayer editing, comments or presence like Notion or Google Docs. Small teams sometimes coordinate through a shared vault, git repository or cloud folder, but Obsidian is best treated as a personal knowledge base first and a light collaboration tool second.
