Notion and Obsidian are two of the most talked-about note apps, but they are built on very different ideas. This guide is for anyone stuck between them. We compared what each app is for, what it costs and where it runs, using each vendor's official pages. Prices were checked on 2026-11-01.
At a glance
Notion
Obsidian
Best for
Teams and all-in-one workspaces
Private, local notes you fully own
Price
Free; Plus $10/member/month; Business $20/member/month; Enterprise custom
Notion is a workspace for knowledge, documents, projects and tasks in one place. It mixes pages with databases, so a single workspace can hold meeting notes, a project tracker and a team wiki side by side. Collaboration, publishing and AI features for finding information and automating work are built in. The free plan covers personal use, and paid plans are priced per member, which shows who Notion is really aimed at: groups working together. There is a web app plus apps for phones and desktops, but no Linux app.
Pick it if you want one shared place for docs, tasks and databases, especially with other people.
Free for personal use; Sync and Publish are paid add-ons
Obsidian is a note-taking and knowledge-management app built around a local vault of plain-text Markdown files. Your notes are ordinary files on your own device, so you can open them in other apps and keep them as long as you like. You link notes to each other, browse them in a graph view, and extend the app with plugins and themes. The core app is free. You only pay if you want Obsidian's own Sync service or Publish, which puts notes on the web. It runs on every major desktop, including Linux, and on phones.
Pick it if you care about privacy, offline use and owning your notes as files, and you enjoy shaping your own setup.
Choose Notion if you work with a team or want databases, projects and docs in one tidy workspace. Choose Obsidian if you mostly take notes for yourself and want them stored locally in plain Markdown. If you work alone, Obsidian is usually the simpler fit; if you share with others, Notion is.
Private, local notes you fully own