Obsidian
local-first markdown vault, free with no feature gates
Free
The app is free but not open source, so this is a company's decision rather than a licence guarantee. Obsidian Sync is billed monthly or annually with no lifetime option; plenty of people skip it and put the vault in iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git repo instead. The $50 per user per year commercial licence is explicitly optional — Obsidian's own licence page states the app is free for commercial use — so do not budget for it as a requirement.
Obsidian puts a markdown editor over a folder of files on your disk and adds the things a folder cannot do on its own: links between notes that work in both directions, a graph of those links, a canvas for arranging ideas spatially, and a plugin library deep enough that most people's setups look nothing alike. There is no account, no sign-up and no feature held back. The free version is the whole app.
The reason it belongs on a site about not renting software is the vault. Your notes are .md files in directories you picked, readable in any text editor, and they stay there when you stop using Obsidian. That makes the switching cost close to zero, which is not true of any hosted tool it replaces.
Two things to be clear about. The app is free but not open source, so this is a gift from a company rather than a guarantee, and the $50-a-year commercial licence is optional support — Obsidian's own licence page says the app is free for commercial use. Sync is where the money actually is: $4 a month billed annually, with no lifetime option. iCloud Drive, Dropbox or a git repo do the same job for nothing, and the mobile apps are free either way.
If you want something that organises itself, this will feel like homework. Obsidian rewards people who enjoy building their own system.
What it looks like
What it does
- Vault is plain markdown files in folders you choose
- Backlinks, graph view, Canvas boards and outline folding
- Thousands of community plugins and themes
- Free iOS and Android apps
- No account or sign-up to use it
Cancel instead
Also bought outright in writing
The facts
- Price
- Free
- Licence
- Free
- What you get
- No licence to buy.
- Details
- Free for personal, commercial and non-profit use, with no sign-up. The paid parts are optional services: Sync at $4 per user per month billed annually, or $5 monthly; Publish at $8 per site per month billed annually, or $10 monthly. A $50 per user per year commercial licence exists but is voluntary support, and a one-time $25 Catalyst licence buys early access builds.
- Free trial
- No
- On Setapp
- No
- Minimum macOS
- not stated
- Developer
- Obsidian
- Price checked
- 2026-09-22
Check it yourself - Price band
- Free