Freemium
12 votes
About Obsidian
Obsidian is a note-taking app that keeps notes as plain text Markdown files on your own device rather than on a vendor's server. It uses open file formats, so the notes are not locked into the app that made them.
The base app is free to use and needs no sign-up, and it is free for personal, commercial and non-profit use alike. A commercial licence at 50 USD per user per year is optional rather than required. A one-off Catalyst supporter licence at 25 USD grants early access to beta builds.
Desktop builds cover Windows, Mac and Linux, with the Linux version packaged as AppImage, ARM64 AppImage, Snap, Deb and Flatpak. Mobile versions are distributed through the iOS App Store and Google Play, with a direct Android APK for anyone avoiding the store. A browser clipper extension is published on the Chrome Web Store, the Safari App Store, Firefox Add-ons and Microsoft Edge Add-ons.
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Canvas is included at no extra cost and gives you a surface for arranging material visually rather than as a list. A single canvas can hold text cards, embedded Markdown notes, images, video, audio, PDFs, web pages and other canvases. Canvas files are saved in the open JSON Canvas format.
Two paid services sit on top of the free app. Sync costs 4 USD per user per month billed annually or 5 USD billed monthly, and encrypts vault contents end to end with AES-256. The Standard tier covers one synced vault, 1 GB of total storage, a 5 MB maximum file size and one month of version history. Sync Plus, at 8 USD per user per month billed annually, raises that to ten synced vaults, 10 GB of storage that can be increased up to 100 GB, a 200 MB maximum file size and twelve months of version history. Sync runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android and supports a headless server deployment, and shared vaults let more than one person work inside the same synced vault.
Publish turns a vault into a website. It costs 8 USD per site per month billed annually or 10 USD billed monthly, hosts up to 4 GB of content and carries a seven day refund guarantee. Published sites support custom domains, password protection, backlinks, graph view and full text search, and they can be excluded from search engine indexing when the site is meant for a limited audience rather than the open web.
Key features
- Stores notes as plain text Markdown files on the user's own device rather than a vendor server.
- Uses open file formats so notes are not locked into the app.
- Runs free with no sign-up, for personal, commercial and non-profit use.
- Arranges text cards, notes, images, video, audio, PDFs, web pages and canvases on a canvas.
- Saves canvases in the open JSON Canvas format, included at no extra cost.
- Builds for Windows, Mac and Linux, with AppImage, Snap, Deb, ARM64 and Flatpak packages.
- Ships mobile builds through the iOS App Store, Google Play and a direct Android APK.
- Clips web pages through extensions for Chrome, Safari, Firefox and Edge.
- Encrypts synced vault contents end to end with AES-256.
- Syncs across Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, including a headless server deployment.
- Shares one synced vault between several people.
- Covers 10 vaults, 10 GB and 12 months of version history on Sync Plus, expandable to 100 GB.
- Publishes a site of up to 4 GB with custom domains, password protection, backlinks, graph view and search.
- Excludes a Publish site from search engine indexing.
What people use it for
Key facts
| Category | Productivity |
|---|---|
| Pricing | Freemium |
| Free tier | Yes |
| Upvotes | 12 |
| Listed | 22 August 2026 |
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