Obsidian vs Tinderbox
Both are bought outright, both sit in writing, and both are bought by people leaving Notion, Roam Research. Here is what actually differs — including what each price does not buy.
The short answer
- Obsidian is free; Tinderbox costs $289.
- Obsidian has the cleaner licence: free, against own it, pay for major upgrades for Tinderbox.
Side by side
 ObsidianFreeFree |  Tinderbox$289Paid upgrades | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | local-first markdown vault, free with no feature gates | expensive, perpetual, and unmatched for notes that have to do work |
| Price | Free | $289 |
| Licence | Free | Own it, pay for major upgrades |
| What you get | No licence to buy. | One payment, and the developer charges for major versions on a stated cadence. |
| The catch | Multi-device sync is $48 a year unless you wire up iCloud or git yourself | A year of upgrades is included, then a new version costs $98 or $83 a year to stay current |
| Macs per licence | not established | not established |
| Account required | optional | no |
| Works offline | yes | yes |
| Apple Silicon | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | No | Yes |
| On Setapp | No | No |
| Minimum macOS | not established | not established |
| App Store rating | not established | not established |
| Last updated | not established | not established |
| Price checked | 2026-09-22 | 2026-09-22 |
Apple’s public API reports a rating for only a small minority of Mac apps, and returns zero for most of the rest even when the store page plainly shows reviews. A blank here means we could not read a number, never that an app is unrated or disliked.
In their own right
Obsidian
A markdown editor over a folder of plain files on your own disk, with backlinks, a graph view, Canvas and a very large plugin ecosystem. Free for any use, personal or commercial, with no account required.
Tinderbox
A note environment where notes carry attributes and agents collect and re-sort them by rule, viewable as map, outline, timeline or chart. Built continuously since 2002 and sold outright.