Obsidian vs Notion in 2026

Obsidian vs Notion at a glance

Obsidian and Notion are the two names that come up first when someone wants one place for notes, documents and personal knowledge. They solve that problem from opposite ends.

Obsidian is a desktop and mobile app that edits a folder of plain-text Markdown files on your own device. The app is free for personal and commercial use, needs no account, and works offline by default. You pay only if you want Obsidian's own Sync service (from $4 per user per month, billed annually) or its Publish hosting (from $8 per site per month, billed annually).

Notion is a cloud workspace. Pages, databases and comments live on Notion's servers and are shared with your team in real time. The Free plan covers one person with unlimited pages and blocks; teams pay per member, from $10 per member per month on Plus (billed annually, $12 billed monthly) and $20 on Business ($24 billed monthly), which is also where Notion's AI agent is included.

So the real question is not "which app has more features". It is where you want your notes to live, who needs to edit them at the same time, and how much you will pay per head once a team joins. The sections below compare the two on each of those points, using what each vendor documents on its own site as of October 2026.

Feature-by-feature comparison table

Data ownership and file format

This is the single biggest difference, and it shapes everything else.

Obsidian's home page says it "stores notes privately on your device" and "uses open file formats, so you're never locked in." A vault is a normal folder of .md files. Attachments sit next to them as normal files. Canvas boards are saved as .canvas files in the open JSON Canvas format, and Bases views are saved as .base files or as code blocks inside a note. If Obsidian disappeared tomorrow, your notes would still open in any text editor, and you could keep them in Git, Dropbox, a USB stick or a backup tool of your choice.

Notion stores your content as blocks in its own cloud database. You own the content under its terms, and you can get it out: Notion exports any non-database page as Markdown, full-page databases as CSV, and pages as HTML or PDF. A whole workspace can be exported as HTML, Markdown or CSV along with uploaded files. The help center notes some friction: workspace exports can take "up to 30 hours to process" for large workspaces, export links expire after 7 days, form views cannot be exported, and exporting a PDF with subpages needs the Business or Enterprise plan.

The practical difference: with Obsidian your working copy and your backup are the same plain files. With Notion your working copy is in the cloud, and a portable copy is something you generate on demand.

Editor and linking

Obsidian is a Markdown editor at heart. You type Markdown, and it renders as you write. Its linking model is the reason many people choose it:

• Wikilinks such as [[Project plan]] (or standard Markdown links if you prefer interoperability).
• Heading links like [[Project plan#Budget]] and block references with #^, so you can point to a single paragraph.
• Embeds: prefix a link with ! to show the linked note or block inline.
• Automatic link updates when you rename a file, and hover previews with Ctrl or Cmd.
• Canvas, a core plugin that gives "infinite space to lay out notes and connect them to other notes, attachments, and web pages."

Notion is a block editor. Every paragraph, heading, image, toggle or database is a block you can drag around. Links work through @-mentions, typing [[, or the + command, and each page lists its backlinks under the title ("Backlinks show you all the pages that link to the page you're currently on"). A "Link to page" block behaves like a sub-page in the sidebar, while an @-mention behaves like an ordinary hyperlink.

In short: Obsidian gives finer-grained linking (to headings and individual blocks inside plain files) and treats links as the main way to organise. Notion's linking is good enough for most teams, but its main organising tool is the page hierarchy and databases.

Structure and databases

Notion's databases are its strongest feature. A database can be shown as a table, board, timeline, calendar, list, gallery or chart, and fed by a form. Each item is itself a page, so a "Projects" database can hold the project brief, tasks and meeting notes in one place. Plus adds unlimited charts, custom forms and database automations; Business adds granular database permissions; the Free plan is limited to one chart, basic forms and button automations.

Obsidian has closed much of the gap with Bases, a core plugin that "lets you create database-like views of your notes." Bases reads the properties (front matter) of your Markdown notes and shows them as a table, list, cards, kanban or map. Because each row is still a Markdown file, the data stays portable. What Bases does not have, compared with Notion, is timeline, calendar and chart views, forms, database automations or per-row permissions.

If your work is mostly structured records (a content calendar, a CRM-like list, a task tracker shared by a team), Notion is the more complete tool. If your structure is mostly "notes with a few properties I want to filter", Bases is enough and keeps everything in files.

Collaboration and sharing

Notion is built for teams. Several people can edit the same page at the same time, and the page shows avatars of who is viewing or editing; clicking an avatar jumps to where they are working. Sharing is page-level, with six documented access levels: Full access, Can edit, Can edit content (databases), Can create (databases, Business and Enterprise), Can comment and Can view. Guests are free and see only the pages they are invited to (10 guests on Free, unlimited on paid plans). Business adds private teamspaces and SAML SSO; Enterprise adds SCIM and an audit log.

Obsidian's team story is shared vaults on Obsidian Sync. The help center is explicit about the limits:

• "All collaborators must have an active Sync subscription to access a shared vault."
• "The maximum number of collaborators on a shared vault is 20 users."
• "Obsidian does not yet support collaborative live editing on the same file. You will not see the other user's cursor, and their edits will only appear once the changes are synced."

Concurrent edits are merged during sync and can be reviewed in version history. There are no per-page permissions inside a vault: if someone is in the shared vault, they see the vault. That works for a small group that edits separate notes (a research team, a writing duo), and poorly for a team that co-writes meeting notes live or needs to hide some pages from some people.

For sharing outward, Notion's Publish tab puts a page on the web, with 1 notion.site domain on Free and 5 on paid plans, and a custom domain for $8 per month billed annually ($10 monthly). Obsidian Publish costs $8 per site per month billed annually ($10 monthly), includes up to 4GB of hosting per site, a custom domain, password protection, and graph and full-text search on the published site.

Offline and sync

Obsidian is offline-first: the files are on your disk, so search, editing and opening notes do not need a connection. Sync is optional. Obsidian Sync works "across any device and OS" (Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android), merges offline changes on reconnect, and lets you choose which file types sync to which device. Because the vault is a folder, you can also sync it with any file-sync tool you already use, at no cost from Obsidian.

The two Sync plans differ in capacity:

Notion is online-first with an offline mode. On the desktop and mobile apps you mark pages "Available offline", and on Business and Enterprise your Recents and Favorites download automatically. The help center lists the limits: when you download a database, "the first 50 rows download automatically" and further rows need downloading individually; sub-pages must be marked one by one; embeds, forms and buttons need a connection; and you cannot change sharing or permissions while offline. Text edits merge automatically on reconnect, but non-text changes may need review.

For someone who writes on planes or in places with patchy internet, Obsidian is the safer choice. For a team that is always online, Notion's offline mode covers the occasional gap.

AI

Notion has AI built in. On Business ($20 per member per month annual, $24 monthly) and Enterprise you get Notion Agent (chat, generate, autofill, translate), AI Meeting Notes and Enterprise Search (beta), which can search connected tools such as Slack, Microsoft Teams and GitHub. Free and Plus get only a "limited trial" of Notion AI. Custom Agents, which run tasks on their own, are free to try and then cost $10 per 1,000 monthly Notion credits. Notion says customer data is not used to train AI models, and Enterprise adds zero data retention with its LLM providers (other plans have 30-day retention).

Obsidian lists no AI feature on its pricing, Sync or home pages. If you want AI in Obsidian, you add a community plugin and usually connect it to a model provider yourself. That gives you control over which model sees your notes, but also leaves the setup, cost and privacy review to you.

If AI search across your team's documents is a reason to buy, Notion Business is the only option of the two that includes it.

Plugins and extensibility

Obsidian's community directory says it holds "8,999 plugins and 886 themes built by the community." Core features such as Canvas and Bases are themselves plugins you can switch on or off, and community plugins can add almost anything: task managers, calendars, spaced repetition, Git sync, diagrams. The trade-off is that third-party plugins vary in quality and maintenance, and a heavily customised vault can be hard to hand to a colleague.

Notion extends through its public API and webhooks, embeds and link previews (GitHub, Jira, Figma), one-way database syncs from Jira, GitHub and Asana, basic Slack and Google Drive connections from Plus, and Notion Workers for running custom code. Extensions talk to Notion from outside; you do not change the editor itself the way Obsidian plugins can.

Mobile

Both have iOS and Android apps. Obsidian's mobile app opens the same vault, which you sync with Obsidian Sync or another method. Notion's mobile app is a client for your cloud workspace and supports offline pages the same way as the desktop app. Neither vendor's site documents a detailed feature-parity list for mobile, so test the workflows you rely on (quick capture, search, database editing) on your own phone during a trial.

Security and encryption

Obsidian Sync supports end-to-end encryption: data "is encrypted from the moment it leaves your device, and can only be decrypted using your encryption key." It uses AES-256 in GCM mode with scrypt key derivation. The flip side is spelled out too: if you forget your encryption password, "your data remains encrypted and unusable forever." You can choose standard encryption instead, where Obsidian manages the keys. Sync servers run in four regions (Singapore, Frankfurt, San Francisco and Sydney), assigned at setup. If you do not use Obsidian Sync, your notes never touch Obsidian's servers at all.

Notion encrypts data in transit (TLS 1.2 or higher) and at rest (AES-256). It lists SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISMAP, BSI C5 and ISO 27701/27018, aligns with GDPR and CCPA, and offers HIPAA support with a BAA on Enterprise. Data residency is available to Enterprise customers only. Notion does not advertise end-to-end encryption, which is expected: a cloud workspace with server-side search and AI needs to read your content.

For a company that needs SSO, audit logs and compliance paperwork, Notion has the answer and Obsidian does not. For an individual or small team whose priority is that the provider cannot read the notes, Obsidian Sync's end-to-end encryption is the stronger guarantee.

Pricing: one person, a 5-person team and a 20-person team

All figures use list prices from each vendor's pricing page in October 2026. Annual billing is shown first, then monthly billing. Obsidian's optional Commercial License ($50 per user per year) is not required for business use, so it is left out of the totals and shown separately.

One person

For a solo user, both are free. Notion Free gives one person unlimited pages and blocks, with a 5MB upload limit and 7-day page history. Obsidian Free has no limits at all, but you sort out sync between devices yourself.

5-person team

Notion's Free plan is not a real option for a team: workspaces with 2 or more members get only a limited block trial. If the team also wants a public or password-protected Obsidian Publish site, add $96 a year ($8 x 12), which brings Obsidian Sync Standard plus Publish to $240 + $96 = $336 a year.

20-person team

Twenty is the hard ceiling for an Obsidian shared vault, so a team expecting to grow past 20 people would need several vaults or a different sync method. A company that wants to pay for Obsidian's optional Commercial License for all 20 people would add 20 x $50 = $1,000 a year, taking Sync Standard plus licenses to $960 + $1,000 = $1,960, still below Notion Plus at $2,400.

What the numbers leave out: Notion's per-member price buys real-time co-editing, page permissions, guests and (on Business) SSO and AI. Obsidian's lower price buys file-level sync with no live co-editing and no per-page permissions. Compare like with like before treating the cheaper line as the better deal.

Migration between Obsidian and Notion

Notion to Obsidian. Obsidian's official Importer plugin has two routes. The recommended one connects to your Notion account and "lets you preserve Databases and formulas which are converted to Bases", turning the workspace into Markdown files. The alternative is a .zip import, and Obsidian's help center says to export from Notion as HTML, not Markdown, because Notion's Markdown export "omits important data." Limits to plan for: only the primary view of each database is imported, linked data sources are not imported, a few formula functions (such as name(), email(), style()) do not convert, and large workspaces can take a long time because of Notion's API rate limits.

Obsidian to Notion. There is no dedicated Obsidian importer in Notion. You import the vault as "Text & Markdown" files, one at a time or as a folder inside a ZIP. Notion handles plain text, headings, lists and code blocks, but warns that "anchor links and nonstandard Markdown extensions may not import cleanly", which covers Obsidian's wikilinks, block references and embeds. File imports are limited to 5 MB each on Free and 50 MB on paid plans, at roughly 120 file imports every 12 hours, so a large vault takes several sessions. Plan to rebuild links and databases by hand after the import.

The asymmetry is worth noting: moving from Notion to Obsidian is a supported, documented path that keeps databases; moving from Obsidian to Notion is a generic Markdown import that loses Obsidian-specific syntax.

Choose Obsidian if...

• You want your notes as plain Markdown files on your own device that will outlive any app.
• Most of your writing is personal knowledge: research notes, journals, drafts, reading notes, where dense linking matters more than shared databases.
• You work offline often, or you want the provider to be unable to read your notes (Sync with end-to-end encryption, or no cloud at all).
• You are a small group (up to 20) that can live without live co-editing and per-page permissions, and you want to pay $4 per person per month (annual) instead of $10 or more.
• You like tuning your tools with plugins, themes and Canvas boards.

Choose Notion if...

• Several people need to edit the same documents at the same time and see each other's changes live.
• You need page-level permissions, free guests, private teamspaces or SAML SSO.
• Your work runs on shared databases with board, calendar, timeline and chart views, forms and automations.
• You want AI built in: Notion Agent, AI Meeting Notes and Enterprise Search across connected tools (Business plan).
• You need compliance documentation (SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA BAA on Enterprise) for your buyer or IT team.

Other options worth a look

If neither fits, four other tools sit somewhere between the two. Each is covered briefly here, from vendor sites only.

Logseq

Logseq is a free, open-source (AGPL-3.0) outliner that describes itself as "a privacy-first, open-source platform for knowledge management and collaboration." The original file-based version, now called Logseq OG, keeps notes as Markdown or Org-mode files, much like Obsidian. Logseq is in the middle of a big change: the database version (Logseq 2.0) has been in public beta since July 2026 (2.0.2 shipped on 7 October 2026), stores graphs in a local SQLite database, and adds a new mobile app. Its README warns that the DB version is in beta, its real-time sync is in alpha, and "data loss is possible." Sync testing has been open to Open Collective sponsors, with no published price. A good fit for outliner fans who want free and open source and can tolerate beta software.

Evernote

Evernote is the long-standing cloud note app, now with AI features (AI Assistant, Semantic Search, AI Transcribe, AI Edit) and a connector for AI tools over MCP. Its Free plan is tight: 50 notes, 1 notebook and sync on 1 device. Starter costs $14.99 per month billed monthly or $99 per year, for 1,000 notes, 20 notebooks, 3 devices and 5GB. Advanced costs $24.99 per month billed monthly or $249.99 per year, with unlimited notes, devices and storage. It is cloud-based like Notion, with in-note encryption on Mac and Windows. A fit for people who clip and capture heavily and want strong search, less so for teams on a budget.

Craft

Craft is a polished document editor for Mac, iOS, iPadOS, Windows, Android and the web, with Markdown support, publishing to the web, real-time collaboration and structured Collections. Free covers up to 1,500 blocks and 1 GB of storage. Plus is $6.40 per month billed annually ($8 monthly), Family is $12 per month annually ($15 monthly) for 2 to 6 accounts, and Team is $50 per month for up to 10 Plus accounts, which works out to $5 per person at the full 10 seats. Craft states encryption at rest and in transit. A good middle ground for small teams that want something nicer-looking than Notion and more collaborative than Obsidian.

Capacities

Capacities organises notes as typed objects (people, books, meetings) rather than pages or files. Its Basic plan is free with unlimited objects, sync and offline support. Pro is $9.99 per month billed annually ($119.88 a year) and adds the AI assistant, tasks, queries and calendar integration; Believer is from $12.49 per month billed annually ($149.88 a year). Capacities says it uses "cloud storage with a full offline cache", encrypts in transit and at rest but is not end-to-end encrypted, and is "designed for individuals", with no team plans. A good fit for solo users who want Obsidian-style linking with less setup.

How to decide in 15 minutes

1. Write down who edits. If two or more people will edit the same page at the same time, start with Notion. If edits are mostly by one person per note, Obsidian stays in the running.
2. Check your team size. Obsidian shared vaults stop at 20 collaborators. Above that, Notion (or several vaults) is the realistic choice.
3. Decide where data must live. If plain files on your own device or end-to-end encryption is a requirement, choose Obsidian. If SSO, audit logs and compliance reports are requirements, choose Notion.
4. Price your real headcount. Use the tables above: for 5 people, Obsidian Sync Standard is $240 a year against $600 for Notion Plus (annual billing); for 20 people, $960 against $2,400.
5. Test the migration path. If you might switch later, remember that Notion to Obsidian keeps databases through the Importer plugin, while Obsidian to Notion is a plain Markdown import.

Conclusion

Obsidian and Notion are both excellent, and they are excellent at different jobs. Obsidian is the better personal knowledge tool: free, fast, offline, built on plain Markdown files you control, with deep linking, a huge plugin library and end-to-end encrypted sync for $4 per user per month on annual billing. Notion is the better team workspace: live co-editing, page permissions, rich shared databases, built-in AI on Business, and the admin and compliance features a growing company needs, from $10 per member per month on annual billing.

Many people end up using both: Obsidian for private thinking and drafts, Notion for the documents a team has to share. If you must pick one, let the collaboration question decide. If your notes are mostly yours, pick Obsidian. If your notes are mostly the team's, pick Notion.