Obsidian

Obsidian is a local note-taking and knowledge-management app. Notes are plain-text Markdown files on your device and remain accessible offline. Community plugins can add third-party AI workflows; their model access, data handling and costs are separate from the base app.

✨ Key Features

• Linked notes — Connect ideas with internal links and inspect backlinks.
• Graph view — Explore relationships across a vault.
• Canvas — Arrange notes and other material for research and planning.
• Search and organization — Find notes and organize material with folders and tags.
• Core plugins — Enable supported tools such as daily notes, templates and file recovery.
• Community extensions — Add plugins and themes suited to your workflow; AI integrations depend on the selected third-party plugin/provider.
• Optional Sync — Synchronize devices with end-to-end encryption and version history.
• Optional Publish — Turn selected notes into a hosted site.

💳 Pricing

• Base app — Free for personal and commercial use; no account required for local notes.
• Sync — From US$4/user/month billed annually (US$48/year), or US$5 monthly.
• Publish — US$8/site/month billed annually (US$96/year), or US$10 monthly.
• Optional support — Catalyst US$25 once; Commercial support license US$50/user/year, not required for commercial use.
• AI costs — Plugin subscriptions, API usage or local-model infrastructure may cost extra; Sync/Publish do not include an AI-provider subscription.

⚖️ Alternatives Compared

🎯 Use Cases

• Link research notes and references.
• Maintain an offline journal or personal wiki.
• Plan ideas on a Canvas.
• Add a chosen AI plugin after reviewing its permissions and provider costs.