Obsidian Review 2026: Pricing, Pros, Cons and Alternatives

Obsidian's core is free and every paid line is optional. That makes the headline answer easy and the real bill harder to pin down, because it depends on how many devices you use, how much you store and whether you publish. This review prices those cases one by one, then sets Obsidian against four alternatives a tech professional is likely to shortlist.

Toolradar data: Toolradar, the software directory we run, evaluates 214 note-taking tools on its note-taking ranking, and Obsidian is listed as an alternative to 101 of them, second only to Notion at 120 (read November 4, 2026). In that alternatives graph, only Notion is listed against more tools. If you already know you are choosing between the two, our Notion vs Obsidian comparison covers that head to head; this page stays on what Obsidian itself costs and where it falls short.

Obsidian is a note-taking and knowledge base app that stores your notes as plain Markdown files in a folder on your own device. You link notes to each other, browse them in a graph view, and extend the app with community plugins and themes. It runs on Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, and the company says its apps collect no telemetry and need no sign-up.

The local-file design is the reason to choose it and the source of most trade-offs. Your notes stay readable in any text editor if Obsidian disappears, but nothing syncs between devices unless you set it up. Obsidian keeps shipping: version 1.15, released on November 2, 2026, renders Mermaid diagrams in your theme's colors and adds reorderable filters to Bases, its database-style views of notes, according to the Obsidian changelog. For a wider view of the category, see our best note-taking apps ranking, and if you mostly need a shared wiki, our knowledge base software guide fits better.

Obsidian separates the app from the services. The app holds every editing, linking and plugin feature, and the pricing page says it is free without limits. Two paid services sit on top: Sync moves your vault between devices with AES-256 end-to-end encryption and version history, and Publish turns a set of notes into a public website. Two optional licenses, Catalyst and Commercial, fund development and buy no extra features beyond early beta access and a supporter listing.

Sync comes in two tiers. Sync Standard covers one synced vault, 1 GB of total storage, a 5 MB file size cap and one month of version history. Sync Plus raises that to 10 vaults, 10 GB, 200 MB files and 12 months of history, and the Sync page says Plus can be upgraded to 100 GB. Both tiers sync to unlimited devices, according to Obsidian's March 2024 plan announcement.

You do not have to buy Sync to use several devices. Obsidian's own announcement of the Standard plan notes that its add-on services have many free alternatives and self-hostable options, because the vault is a normal folder. The trade-off is setup and conflict handling, which you take on yourself.

Obsidian prints its prices in US dollars, and every figure here comes from its own pages, verified on November 4, 2026. Sync Standard costs $4 per user a month billed annually or $5 billed monthly, and Sync Plus costs $8 or $10 on the same two terms. Publish costs $8 per site a month billed annually or $10 billed monthly, so annual billing is the cheaper way to pay for every add-on. The Catalyst license is a $25 one-time payment, and the Commercial license is $50 per user a year. Students, faculty and nonprofit employees get 40% off Sync and Publish, and Sync and Publish can be refunded within 7 days; Catalyst and Commercial licenses cannot.

Five yearly cost scenarios, our arithmetic on those list prices: one person on one device pays $0. One person syncing a phone and a laptop on Sync Standard pays $48 a year billed annually, or $60 on monthly billing. A researcher with a large attachment library on Sync Plus pays $96 a year billed annually, or $57.60 for a student with the education discount. Sync Plus plus one Publish site comes to $192 a year billed annually and $240 billed monthly. A five-person team on Sync Standard pays $240 a year, and $490 if the company also buys five optional Commercial licenses.

Two price facts are easy to miss. The 100 GB Sync Plus upgrade has no price on the current Sync page; Obsidian's March 2024 announcement set it at $16 a month billed annually. And the Commercial license stopped being mandatory on February 20, 2025: before that, people at companies with two or more employees had to buy one to use Obsidian for work, according to Obsidian's free-for-work post.

Methodology: Obsidian prices and limits come from Obsidian's pricing page, Sync page, Publish page and license overview, read November 4, 2026. Alternative prices come from Notion's pricing page, Anytype's pricing page and Apple's iCloud page, read the same day. Yearly totals and discounts are our arithmetic on those prices.

Obsidian suits individuals who write a lot, developers who already keep things in Git, and privacy-minded teams that cannot put notes in someone else's cloud. If one device is enough, or you are comfortable syncing a folder yourself, it costs nothing and loses none of its features. If you want official sync on a phone and a laptop, Sync Standard at the annual price is the step most solo users need, and Sync Plus only pays off once images and PDFs push you past Standard's storage cap. You can read the Obsidian profile on Toolradar for its listed alternatives and user reviews.

Skip Obsidian if your notes are a team workspace first. A five-person team gets shared pages and databases in one cloud workspace on Notion, which our Notion review prices tier by tier, and our Notion pricing breakdown covers the add-ons. Skip it too if you want zero setup on Apple hardware, where Apple Notes does the job for free. If price is the only filter, compare the free tiers in our free note-taking apps guide, and if you are leaving Evernote, our Evernote review shows what its caps cost. For AI transcription and summaries, which Obsidian leaves to plugins, see our AI note-taking apps ranking.