Notion vs Obsidian

At a glance

1. Notion sells a server with a meter; Obsidian sells a folder with a pipe

Obsidian sells a folder. Plain Markdown on your disk, no server, no meter, and the app itself is free without limits. Notion sells shared state. Permissions, databases and agents live on their servers, and everything around them carries a budget: page history, uploads, API calls, agent credits.

Obsidian: notes are files on your disk, and Obsidian states the app is free without limits, with no telemetry.

• Notion makes history a plan feature. Notion page history is 7 days on Free, 30 on Plus and 90 on Business.
• Obsidian has no permission model, no server-side agent and no built-in multi-user editing; collaboration requires Sync shared vaults or third-party tooling.

2. Friday recovery: does the version you need still exist?

On Friday afternoon, test recovery before choosing a plan: does the version from before the mistaken edit still exist?

The pattern this punishes is the slow mistake. Choose a window that covers how long a mistake could go unnoticed.

The rest of Free's ceiling sits in the same place:

• File uploads capped at 5 MB (Plus raises it to 5 GB).
• 10 external guests.
• A Free-plan workspace block limit that Notion announced for 2026-09-08.

Obsidian has no window to buy. A vault is plain files, so git log keeps every committed version for as long as you keep the repo.

3. Bases adds views, not permissions: who should not pick Obsidian

Bases is a core plugin, not a community add-on. It renders database views over frontmatter properties, and the data stays in your Markdown files.

• Table and Cards: 1.9
• List and Map: 1.10 (Map needs the Maps plugin)
• Kanban: 1.14

The .base file is YAML and holds only the view definition:

filters:
  and:
    - file.inFolder("Projects")
    - file.hasTag("active")
formulas:
  ratio: '(price / age).toFixed(2)'
views:
  - type: table
    order:
      - file.name
      - formula.ratio

Obsidian's own docs: "Delete a base and your notes are untouched." What Bases still does not give you:

• Permissions. Obsidian has no permission model.
• Server-side computed properties. Bases does not replace them.
• Multi-user edit. Shared vaults sync files; there is no built-in co-editing.

Do not pick Obsidian if you need granular database permissions or built-in multi-user editing.

4. Notion's agent is real, and so is its meter

Notion's built-in agent lives on Business at $20/member/month, next to AI Meeting Notes. Free and Plus get an AI trial only.

Custom Agents are separately metered; do not infer a Business prerequisite. Obsidian has no server-side agent.

Notion API budgets:

• 180 requests per 60-second window per connection, or 600/minute on Business/Enterprise; bursts allowed.
• A per-workspace budget shared by every connection; its Retry-After can exceed a minute. It scales by plan.
• Data-source queries capped near 3 requests/second per connection.

Obey Retry-After on HTTP 429 or 529 (service_overload); the JS SDK retries for you.

5. For ten people, $2,400 a year buys permissions or it buys nothing

Run the 10-person team through both price sheets:

• For 10 people needing Business permissions and Notion Agent, 10 × $20 × 12 = $2,400/year.
• For 10 people needing Plus's 30-day history, 10 × $10 × 12 = $1,200/year.
• For 10 people wanting Obsidian Sync, 10 × $4 × 12 = $480/year, billed annually.
• For 10 people choosing Sync plus optional commercial licences, (10 × $4 × 12) + (10 × $50) = $980/year.

Business includes:

• SAML SSO, granular database permissions, private teamspaces.
• 90-day page history and the Notion Agent.

Do not pay for Business solely to store private drafts if you do not need its agent, AI Meeting Notes, SSO, permissions or 90-day page history.

For 10 people, the app bill is $0 with git or iCloud instead of Sync and no optional licences; choosing licences adds 10 × $50 = $500/year.

6. Choose by permissions, then test recovery

Choose Notion Business when granular database permissions or private teamspaces are required; choose Obsidian for local Markdown notes only if you can forgo a permission model and built-in multi-user editing.

Check these today:

1. Open page history on your most important Notion page. Can you recover the version from before a mistaken edit within your plan's 7-, 30- or 90-day window?
2. Identify the Business permissions, private teamspaces, agent or recovery window you need.
3. List every integration calling the Notion API. Check connection, workspace and data-source query budgets before upgrading.
4. On Obsidian at work, explicitly accept or decline the optional commercial licence.

Cost arithmetic at volume

These are computed from the published unit prices, not measured. Each row prints its own formula, so you can replace our assumption with your traffic and redo it.

Decision matrix

Rows are the situation you are actually in. Pick the row before you read the pricing page again.

Code and configuration

// The API budget is the real constraint: 180 req/min per connection
// (600 on Business+), plus a shared per-workspace budget.
async function queryAll(dbId, cursor) {
  const res = await fetch(`https://api.notion.com/v1/databases/${dbId}/query`, {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.NOTION_TOKEN}`,
               'Notion-Version': '2022-06-28', 'content-type': 'application/json' },
    body: JSON.stringify({ start_cursor: cursor, page_size: 100 }),
  });
  // Here it breaks: bursts are allowed, sustained rate is not.
  if (res.status === 429 || res.status === 529) {
    const wait = Number(res.headers.get('Retry-After') || 60);
    await new Promise(r => setTimeout(r, wait * 1000));
  }
  return res.json();
}

# A .base file is a saved query. It holds the view, not the data:
# delete it and your notes are untouched.
filters:
  and:
    - file.inFolder("Projects")
    - file.hasTag("active")
formulas:
  ratio: '(price / age).toFixed(2)'
views:
  - type: table
    order:
      - file.name
      - formula.ratio
# Here it breaks: there is no permission layer. Anyone who has the vault
# sees every note, including the ones you would have restricted in Notion.

What you gain, what you give up

Migration path

Common questions

Sources & verification

Prices and limits were read from these pages on 2026-11-10. Vendor marketing claims are quoted as claims. Anything derived is arithmetic on the numbers below.

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