Obsidian alternatives, ranked by what they let you keep

The best Obsidian alternative is the one that fixes the reason you are leaving without taking away the reason you came, which for most people is plain markdown files in a folder they own. For a team that needs live co-editing, permissions and AI on those files, that is Baalda; for free and open source, Logseq or Joplin; for a Mac, Reflect Open; for an all-in-one cloud workspace, Notion.

Most people who search for an Obsidian alternative do not dislike Obsidian. They hit one specific wall: a Sync bill that grows with every person, a teammate who cannot see their cursor, a vault where everyone can delete everything, a closed codebase, or a plugin list they no longer trust. Each wall has a different best answer, and the ranked lists that currently top this search mostly score features in the abstract instead of asking which wall you hit. Two of the top results put their own product first, and both still describe Logseq as keeping local files, which stopped being true of its newest version this year.

So this list starts from the reason, and ranks each alternative by what it lets you keep. Baalda, the app this site is for, is the answer to one of those reasons, and it is ranked first because it is the only option here that fixes the team walls while keeping the vault a folder of .md files. For the other reasons it is not the answer, and the sections below say so.

Why do people leave Obsidian?

Five reasons come up again and again, and each one is checkable against Obsidian's own pages. As of 12 October 2026:

• Sync is paid, per person. Sync Standard is $4 per user per month billed annually ($5 monthly) for 1 synced vault, 1 GB and one month of version history. Sync Plus is $8 billed annually ($10 monthly) for 10 vaults and 10 GB. On a shared vault, Obsidian's help page says "All collaborators must have an active Sync subscription to access a shared vault", so a team pays once per head.
• There is no live co-editing. The same page: "Obsidian does not yet support collaborative live editing on the same file" and "You will not see the other user's cursor." Changes arrive after a sync, and two people in one note produce a merge, not a shared session.
• There are no permissions. "All collaborators receive the same permissions as the vault owner", with one exception: only the owner can invite. There is no viewer role and no folder scope, and a shared vault tops out at 20 collaborators.
• It is closed source. Obsidian's own release repository says it plainly: "Obsidian is not open source software and this repo DOES NOT contain the source code of Obsidian."
• The plugins are powerful and unsandboxed. The community plugin directory lists 8,764 entries today. Obsidian's plugin security page says plugins "inherit Obsidian's access levels", can access files on your computer and the internet, and that Obsidian "cannot reliably restrict plugins to specific permissions or access levels."

Three older reasons no longer hold, and a fair list should say so. Databases: Bases is now "a core plugin that lets you create database-like views of your notes." Licensing: Obsidian is "free without limits", and its $50 per user per year Commercial license is optional for work use. Mobile: there are official apps for iOS and Android. If one of those three was your reason, check again before you migrate.

How do the eight Obsidian alternatives compare?

The ranking rewards keeping what most people came to Obsidian for. Apps that keep your notes as plain .md files on your own disk come first, then local-first apps with a storage format of their own, then the cloud. Within each group, the order is a judgment of how well the app serves someone arriving from Obsidian specifically, which is why Anytype, with its Obsidian importer, sits above AFFiNE. All prices are the vendors' own list prices as of 12 October 2026.

For reference, Obsidian itself: markdown files yes, closed source, no live editing, no permissions, free app with Sync from $4 per user per month billed annually.

1. Baalda: keep the vault folder, add the team

Baalda is the pick when the reason you are leaving is other people. Every note is a plain .md file on each member's own disk, the same format Obsidian uses, so moving a vault is a copy rather than an import. What changes is what sits behind the folder. The file on disk stays the source of truth, and a Yjs CRDT keeps every open copy of a note in sync, so two people typing in one paragraph see each other's cursors and their edits merge as operations instead of producing a conflict file. That is exactly the line Obsidian's help page says it does not cross yet. The longer version is in multiplayer Obsidian.

The permissions answer the third wall. Access resolves server-side to one of three values, edit, view or none, per folder or file and per person, so a contractor can get view on one client folder and nothing else. An AI assistant goes through the same check. A local agent such as Claude Code can edit the .md files directly, and a cloud agent connects to the MCP endpoint with a token that carries one person's permissions:

claude mcp add --transport http baalda https://api.baalda.com/api/mcp \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer mcp_…"

From there it can read_note, search_notes, create_note and edit_note, and its writes arrive through the same sync as a person typing. The whole app is Apache-2.0 and the backend is self-hostable. Pricing as of 12 October 2026: free to run locally or self-host, the managed backend is free for 2 people and 1 synced vault, and Team is $10 per seat a month or $110 per seat a year, with a minimum of 3 seats.

Better than Obsidian at: several people in one note at once, folder and file permissions, open source, and an AI that writes the same files your team edits. Worse than Obsidian at: there is no mobile app yet (macOS, Windows and Linux only, with iOS planned), nothing like Obsidian's plugin directory, no equivalent of Bases, and no published-site product to match Publish. Choose it if: more than one person works in the vault. Skip it if: you work alone and Obsidian already does what you need. For one person the differences are small, the managed Team plan costs more per seat than Sync, and Obsidian's ecosystem is far larger. The full head-to-head is on Baalda vs Obsidian.

2. Logseq: free and open, if you pick the right version

Logseq is on nearly every list for this search, and for a solo user who wants free and open source it deserves its place: AGPL-3.0, local, with block references and an outliner at its centre. What most lists miss is that there are now two Logseqs. In April 2026 the project split. Logseq OG keeps notes as markdown files, and Logseq's announcement says it "will continue to be maintained" with security and Electron upgrades "but no new features." The new Logseq (2.0.2, released 7 October 2026) stores a graph in db.sqlite, and its README states that "The DB version is in beta status while the new mobile app and RTC is in alpha", adding that "data loss is possible."

Better than Obsidian at: open source, free, and outlining. The 2.0 line is working on live collaboration through RTC. Worse than Obsidian at: the file-based version gets no new features, and the version that is moving no longer keeps your notes as files. Logseq as a team knowledge base goes through what that split means in detail. Choose it if: you are one person, want an outliner, and are happy on OG. Skip it if: you are choosing for a team this quarter.

3. Reflect Open: a markdown folder on a Mac, MIT licensed

Reflect Open, released on 14 July 2026, is the closest thing on this list to Obsidian's own model with the source code attached. Notes are plain markdown in a folder you choose (daily notes in daily/, the rest in notes/), the code is MIT, and sync is iCloud Drive or a Git remote, so there is no sync bill at all. AI is optional and runs on your own OpenAI, Anthropic, Google or OpenRouter key. As of 12 October 2026 its site says "Free on Mac. Paid subscription on iPhone and iPad", and Windows and Android are not available yet.

Better than Obsidian at: open source with the same file model, and no paid sync. Worse than Obsidian at: platforms (no Windows, Linux or Android), and collaboration, which its launch post does not mention. Choose it if: you are on a Mac and want Obsidian's files with open code. Skip it if: anyone else needs to write in the notes.

4. Joplin: free sync through storage you already pay for

Joplin answers the Sync bill most directly. The apps are AGPL-3.0, run on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, iOS and a terminal, and sync with end-to-end encryption through Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud or WebDAV as well as its own Joplin Cloud. Joplin Cloud, if you want it, starts at €2.99 a month for Basic as of 12 October 2026. The catch for an Obsidian user is storage. Joplin offers a markdown editor, but its own profile spec describes database.sqlite as "The central SQLite database file where all notes, notebooks, tags, and metadata are stored", so your notes are not a folder of .md files you can open in another editor.

Sharing exists and is narrower than it looks. Notebook sharing runs on Joplin Cloud and only from the desktop app, both people need end-to-end encryption on, and choosing "Can view" versus "Can view and edit" needs the Teams plan. The self-hosted Joplin Server is under a personal use licence, not the AGPL.

Better than Obsidian at: free encrypted sync over your own storage, and open source apps. Worse than Obsidian at: notes as files on disk, which is the thing Obsidian is built around. Choose it if: you want to stop paying for sync and you mostly write alone. Skip it if: the folder of markdown files was the point.

5. Anytype: live sharing with encryption, at the cost of files

Anytype fixes the live-editing wall without handing your notes to a server that can read them. Data is local-first and end-to-end encrypted, shared spaces update "in real-time" when members are online, and its docs say Anytype's servers "never hold the keys to read your content." It also has an Obsidian importer that turns [[links]] into linked objects, #tags into a Tag property and frontmatter into properties, after you strip plugin syntax such as Dataview. As of 12 October 2026 the free plan includes 100 MB of remote storage and 10 shared channels, with Plus at $4 a month on yearly billing.

Two things to weigh. Notes become objects in Anytype's own store, not .md files, and markdown is an export format. And the docs are direct about scope: "You cannot set permissions on a per-Object basis. All Space Members can view everything inside a Space." The code is under the Any Source Available License, not an open source licence.

Better than Obsidian at: live collaboration with end-to-end encryption, and native mobile. Worse than Obsidian at: plain files, and permissions finer than a whole space. Choose it if: privacy and live sharing matter more than plain files. Skip it if: your other tools, scripts or agents need to read the notes as files.

6. AFFiNE: documents and whiteboards, self-hostable

AFFiNE combines documents, databases and an infinite canvas, and describes itself as "local-first" with "real-time sync and collaborations." The editor is MIT, the backend is source-available, and you can self-host it with Docker. As of 12 October 2026 the cloud plans run from free, to Pro at $6.75 a month on annual billing, to Team at $10 per seat a month.

Better than Obsidian at: live collaboration, and documents and whiteboards in one editor. Worse than Obsidian at: plain files. Documents live in AFFiNE's own CRDT-based data engine rather than as .md files in a folder. Choose it if: your thinking is half documents and half canvas, and you want to host it. Skip it if: you want .md files on disk.

7. SiYuan: block references, open source, built for one

SiYuan is AGPL-3.0, local-first and strong on block-level references, SQL query embeds and PDF annotation, with mobile apps and a Docker build. Its own FAQ is clear on two limits. Documents are .sy files whose "data format is JSON", not markdown, and "Data synchronization through third-party synchronization disks is not supported, otherwise data may be corrupted." Syncing is a paid feature: as of 12 October 2026 a $64 one-time PRO purchase lets you sync through your own S3 or WebDAV storage, and a subscription includes 8 GB of SiYuan's own cloud.

Better than Obsidian at: open source, and block-level structure out of the box. Worse than Obsidian at: plain files, and it also charges for sync. Choose it if: you think in blocks and want open source. Skip it if: you are leaving Obsidian to stop paying for sync, or need a team.

8. Notion: the team workspace, rented

Notion is the usual team pick on the lists that rank for this search, because it fixes all three team walls at once: real-time editing, page-level sharing with "Full access", "Can edit", "Can comment" and "Can view", and subpages that "take on the permissions of its parent page." It has databases, offline mode on desktop and mobile, and a hosted MCP server that lets AI assistants "read from and write to your Notion pages." As of 12 October 2026 Plus is $10 per seat a month and Business $20, both on yearly billing.

The trade is the whole reason you chose Obsidian. Content lives in Notion's cloud, markdown is an export rather than the storage, there is no self-hosting, and Notion's own help page warns that "MCP tools act with your full Notion permissions."

Better than Obsidian at: collaboration, permissions and databases, all polished. Worse than Obsidian at: ownership. Nothing lives on your disk as a file you control. Choose it if: your team wants an all-in-one workspace and renting the storage is acceptable. Skip it if: owning the files is non-negotiable.

What should you switch to for each reason?

• "Sync costs too much": Joplin over your own Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud or WebDAV, or Reflect Open over iCloud Drive or Git. Baalda only if you self-host the backend, which is free with no limits. Note that SiYuan charges for sync too.
• "Obsidian is closed source": Reflect Open if you are on a Mac, Logseq OG otherwise. Both keep markdown files. Baalda if a team is involved.
• "My team needs to edit together": Baalda if the notes must stay .md files on disk, Notion if a cloud workspace is fine, Anytype if encryption comes first.
• "Everyone can see and delete everything": Baalda for file and folder permissions, Notion for page permissions. Anytype only separates by space.
• "I don't trust my plugin list": this one is fixable without leaving. Obsidian's restricted mode turns every community plugin off, and the core plugins, including Bases, cover a lot.

Should you just stay on Obsidian?

If you work alone, your vault syncs where you need it, and none of the five walls is yours, the best Obsidian alternative is Obsidian. It has 8,764 community plugins, official mobile apps, Bases for database views, Publish for a public site, and an optional licence for work. Every app on this list beats it at something and loses to it at something else, and for a single person on a working setup the switching cost is the biggest number on the page.

Leave when the wall is structural, meaning something no plugin can change: a second person in the same note, a permission on a folder, a codebase you can read, or a sync bill that multiplies by headcount. For the broader category beyond Obsidian, including Tana, Capacities and Heptabase, see the best second brain apps in 2026.

How was this list checked?

Every price, licence and quote above comes from the vendor's own pricing page, help documentation, release notes or repository, opened on 12 October 2026. Where a feature is beta or alpha, it says so, because moving a team's notes onto alpha sync should be a deliberate choice. Baalda is our product. It is ranked first because the ranking rewards keeping your notes as files while fixing a reason to leave, and it is the only entry that does both for a team. On every other axis something else on this page is better, and the sections above name which.