Opensidian vs Obsidian

Opensidian is an independent, clean-room app: it reimplements Obsidian's behaviour from the outside and contains none of Obsidian's code. It is not affiliated with or endorsed by Obsidian or Dynalist Inc. Both apps keep your notes as plain markdown files in a vault, a folder on your disk, so the question is less about your data and more about the app around it.

Differences

• Licence. Opensidian is open source under GPL-3.0-or-later. Obsidian is free for all purposes, including personal, commercial and non-profit use; its terms are on obsidian.md/license.
• Price. Opensidian costs nothing and is non-profit. Obsidian is free to use, with optional Catalyst and Commercial licenses and paid add-ons: on 2026-11-02 its pricing page listed Sync at $4 per user per month billed annually and Publish at $8 per site per month billed annually.
• Platforms. Opensidian release builds are Linux x86_64 only (AppImage, Flatpak, RPM, DEB); other platforms have no release builds yet. Obsidian's download page lists Windows, Mac, Linux, iOS and Android.
• Sync. Obsidian offers its own Sync service and also works with Dropbox, iCloud, OneDrive, Git and other services. Opensidian has no sync service of its own; the vault is a plain folder, so you sync it with a tool you choose.
• Plugins. Obsidian has thousands of community plugins and an open API. Opensidian runs Obsidian community plugins since 0.8.0; they are off by default and turned on per vault, and once on they run with your user's rights, as in Obsidian. Details are on the Security page.
• Themes. Most Obsidian community themes work in Opensidian unchanged.
• Technology. Opensidian is written in Rust on Tauri v2 and does not use Electron.
• Maturity. Opensidian is under heavy development.

When Obsidian is the better choice

If you need Windows, macOS, iOS or Android, use Obsidian: Opensidian has no release builds there. If you want a sync or publishing service run by the app's makers, Obsidian offers Sync and Publish; Opensidian offers neither. If you depend on a large plugin ecosystem working as its authors tested it, Obsidian is the app those plugins are written for.

When Opensidian fits

If you are on Linux and want a GPL-licensed app whose source you can read and build, Opensidian fits. Because it opens the same vault format, you can try it without giving anything up.

Moving from Obsidian to Opensidian

Open your existing vault as it is, from the app or with opensidian <folder>; there is no import or conversion. The .obsidian/ folder stays in place, most community themes keep working, and community plugins stay off until you turn them on for that vault. Your notes remain markdown files, so you can go back to Obsidian at any time.

More comparisons

All comparisons · Logseq · Tangent · OneNote · Google Docs · FAQ · Install Opensidian

Obsidian is a trademark of its owner; opensidian is not affiliated with it.