Joplin vs Obsidian (and a local-first, open-source third option)

Joplin vs Obsidian: notebooks in an app, or files in a folder

The biggest difference between Joplin and Obsidian is where your notes live and how you get at them.

• Joplin is a free, open-source note-taking and to-do app. Notes are written in Markdown and organized into notebooks inside the app, which is "offline first": all your data stays on your phone or computer (Joplin Help). It's licensed AGPL-3.0-or-later (license).
• Obsidian "stores your notes locally as plain text Markdown files" in a folder it calls a vault (Obsidian). Any text editor can open them. Obsidian is free for any use, but the app itself is not open source.

In practice, Joplin feels like a classic notebook app with Markdown inside: notebooks, tags, to-dos, a web clipper. Obsidian feels like an editor on top of a folder, where links between notes, plugins and themes shape how you work.

Joplin vs Obsidian at a glance

Joplin vs Obsidian pricing in 2026

Obsidian is "free without limits", with no sign-up (pricing). You pay only for add-ons. Sync Standard is $4 a month billed yearly or $5 monthly, for 1 synced vault, 1 GB of storage, files up to 5 MB and 1 month of version history. Sync Plus is $8 a month yearly or $10 monthly, for 10 vaults, 10 GB, files up to 200 MB and 12 months of history (Obsidian Sync). Publish, for putting notes on the web, is $8 per site a month billed yearly. A $50 per user per year Commercial license is optional.

Joplin is free, and Joplin Cloud is its paid sync and sharing service (plans):

• Basic: 2.99 EUR monthly, or 2.40 EUR a month paid yearly (28.69 EUR a year). 2 GB, notes or attachments up to 10 MB.
• Pro: 5.99 EUR monthly, or 4.79 EUR a month yearly. 30 GB, items up to 200 MB, plus sharing your own notebooks and Email to Note.
• Pro 100 GB: 9.99 EUR monthly, or 7.99 EUR a month yearly.
• Teams: 7.99 EUR per user monthly, or 6.69 EUR yearly, minimum 2 users, 50 GB.

Every Joplin Cloud plan has a 14-day free trial. The bigger point: with Joplin you can skip the paid service entirely and sync through storage you already pay for, with end-to-end encryption still available. With Obsidian, free sync means setting up a folder sync yourself.

Joplin vs Obsidian: sync options and what they cost

Joplin was designed so sync doesn't depend on any one company. It syncs with Joplin Cloud, Nextcloud, S3, WebDAV, Dropbox, OneDrive or a folder on your filesystem, in the background whenever the app is running (Joplin sync). You pick a target in the settings and connect each device to it.

Obsidian recommends its own Obsidian Sync as the most straightforward option. Because a vault is a folder of files, its help page also lists iCloud, OneDrive, Google Drive, Syncthing and Git as methods people use, and warns that iCloud Drive on Windows "may lead to file duplication or corruption" (Obsidian Help).

So both can sync for free with a service you already have. The difference is support: Joplin builds those targets into the app, while for Obsidian the free routes are yours to set up and fix.

End-to-end encryption in Joplin and Obsidian

Joplin supports end-to-end encryption in all its apps, whichever sync target you use (Joplin E2EE). You turn it on yourself, on one device first, with a master password that "cannot be recovered", then on each other device after it syncs. Joplin warns that the first encrypted sync can take a long time with many notes.

Obsidian Sync is end-to-end encrypted with AES-256 (Obsidian Sync). If you sync a vault yourself through iCloud, OneDrive or Google Drive, what gets uploaded is the vault's plain Markdown files, protected only as well as that service protects them.

If you want encrypted sync without paying, Joplin is the one that offers it.

Plugins and customization: Obsidian has the bigger library

Obsidian's community directory listed 9,366 plugins and 929 themes when I checked (Obsidian plugins). Many Obsidian workflows, from task boards to queries over your notes, come from plugins.

Joplin has plugins and themes on desktop and mobile, a plugin repository inside the app, and an API for your own scripts (Joplin plugins). On iPhone and iPad, Apple's rules mean only plugins recommended by the Joplin team can be installed.

Both have AI options now. Joplin includes an optional AI chat on desktop, which can use Joplin Cloud AI, a local model through an OpenAI-compatible server such as Ollama, or Anthropic, and an MCP server for apps like Claude Desktop; both are off by default (AI chat, MCP server). In Obsidian, AI comes from community plugins.

Joplin vs Obsidian on phones and other platforms

Both run on Windows, macOS, Linux, iPhone and Android. Joplin adds a terminal app, and with Joplin Cloud, a web app you can open in any browser. Joplin's AI features are desktop only.

On phones, the sync choice matters most. Joplin's sync targets and end-to-end encryption are built into every Joplin app. Obsidian's help recommends Obsidian Sync on every platform and iCloud only between Apple devices, and lists OneDrive and Google Drive with limited functionality on phones, so with a Windows PC and an iPhone, Obsidian Sync is the simplest route.

Joplin or Obsidian: which should you choose?

A few honest rules of thumb:

• You want your notes as files any editor can open: Obsidian.
• You want free sync with end-to-end encryption: Joplin, through Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud or WebDAV.
• Open source matters to you: Joplin. Obsidian is free but closed source.
• You want plugins for everything: Obsidian's library is far bigger.
• You like notebooks, to-dos and a web clipper in one app: Joplin.
• You link notes heavily and like to shape your own system: Obsidian.

Moving notes between Joplin and Obsidian

From Obsidian to Joplin: Joplin imports single Markdown files or a whole directory, and keeps the folder structure as notebooks and sub-notebooks (Joplin import and export). Obsidian-specific syntax, such as plugin code, comes across as text.

From Joplin to Obsidian: Joplin's export formats include Markdown and Markdown with front matter, alongside its own JEX format, HTML and PDF. Export to Markdown, then open the folder as a vault. The Importer plugin in Obsidian's plugin directory also converts notes from apps such as Evernote, OneNote, Notion and Apple Notes into Markdown files.

Either way, try it on a copy first and check your attachments and links.

A third option: Koru, a local-first, open-source workspace

Koru is my app, so here is the honest version. Koru is a free, open-source (MPL-2.0), local-first workspace for notes and documents, for Windows, macOS and Linux, with mobile coming soon. Your notes live in a local database on your device, it works fully offline, and it needs no account.

Sync is where Koru differs from both. Your devices sync directly with each other, peer to peer and end-to-end encrypted, for free, with no sync service to choose or set up. Both devices need to be online at the same time. If you want sync without that, Koru Cloud is optional at $9.99 a month for 100 GB, and self-hosted sync is coming soon. Details on the peer-to-peer sync page.

• Versus Joplin: both are open source. Joplin has phone apps, plugins and a web clipper today, and its end-to-end encryption works with any sync target. Koru's end-to-end encryption covers sync between your own devices. There's no Joplin importer: export from Joplin as Markdown and use Koru's Markdown import. More in Koru as a Joplin alternative.
• Versus Obsidian: Koru is open source and its device sync is free. But Koru doesn't work on a vault folder in place; it keeps your workspace in its own local database and exports Markdown or TextBundle whenever you want out. If files and plugins are what you love, stay with Obsidian. More in Koru as an Obsidian alternative.

Koru also imports from Evernote, Notion, OneNote and TextBundle. If neither Joplin nor Obsidian quite fits, you can download Koru and try it alongside your current app.

Frequently asked questions