Obsidian pricing
Free for personal use. Free without limits for personal use, no sign-up required.
Prices checked on the Obsidian site ↗ on 2026-11-12.
Obsidian plans and prices
| Plan | Price | What you get |
|---|---|---|
| Obsidian app | Free | Unlimited personal use, no sign-up. Notes stay on your device |
| Sync | $4 per user per month billed annually, $5 monthly | Sync across devices, end-to-end encryption, version history, shared vaults |
| Publish | $8 per site per month billed annually, $10 monthly | Publish notes to the web with a customizable theme, graph and full text search |
| Catalyst | $25 one-time | Optional supporter license: early access to beta versions, community badges |
| Commercial license | $50 per user per year | Optional. The vendor says you are not required to pay for commercial use |
- Sync: $4 per user per month billed annually, or $5 billed monthly
- Publish: $8 per site per month billed annually, or $10 billed monthly
- Commercial license: $50 per user per year, optional (the vendor says commercial use does not require it)
- Catalyst: $25 one-time optional license
Is Obsidian free?
Yes. Free without limits for personal use, no sign-up required.
How much does Obsidian cost?
Obsidian pricing, plan by plan: Obsidian app: Free. Sync: $4 per user per month billed annually, $5 monthly. Publish: $8 per site per month billed annually, $10 monthly. Catalyst: $25 one-time. Commercial license: $50 per user per year.
Is Obsidian open source?
No. Obsidian is not open source. License: Proprietary, free for personal use.
What platforms does Obsidian run on?
Obsidian is available for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android. Notes are stored as: Plain Markdown files on your device.
Is Obsidian worth paying for?
What you get
- Your notes are ordinary Markdown files in a folder, so any other editor can open them
- Large plugin and theme ecosystem
- Backlinks and graph view for linked notes
- End-to-end encrypted sync (AES-256) if you pay for it
Limits to know before you pay
- The app itself is not open source
- Sync and Publish are paid add-ons
- No real-time multi-user editing like a shared workspace tool
Obsidian is a good fit if you want your notes to stay as plain Markdown files you control, or if you like extending your editor with community plugins, or if you work alone or share notes by file rather than by live workspace.
Free alternatives to Obsidian
These apps have a free app or a free plan. Prices come from each vendor's own site.
| App | Price | License | Notes stored as |
|---|---|---|---|
| Notion pricing | Free plan, paid from $10 per member per month | Proprietary SaaS | Notion cloud, block-based pages (Markdown import and export) |
| Logseq pricing | Free | Open source (AGPL-3.0) | Local Markdown or Org-mode files (outline format) |
| Joplin pricing | Free app, optional Joplin Cloud from 2.99 EUR per month | Open source | Local notes in an open format, synced to a service of your choice |
| Bear pricing | Free tier, Pro $2.99 per month or $29.99 per year | Proprietary | Bear app library, iCloud sync with Bear Pro |
| Zettlr pricing | Free | Open source (GPL-3.0) | Markdown files on disk |
| AppFlowy pricing | Free personal plan, Pro from $12 per member per month billed annually | AGPL-3.0 (per the GitHub repository) | Workspace data in AppFlowy Cloud or on your own self-hosted server |
See all Obsidian alternatives compared on price, platforms and license.
Obsidian compared with other apps
Every price on this page comes from Obsidian's own website and was checked on 2026-11-12. Prices, plans and regional taxes change, so confirm on the official pricing page ↗ before buying. Markdown Tools is not affiliated with Obsidian.