Our take
Pick Joplin if writers who will stay on the OSS app at $0 while they open a first notebook, then Joplin Cloud Basic at 2.99€/month (2.40€ yearly / 28.69€/year) when they need hosted sync — not Pro 5.99€ unless they need share-a-notebook / Email to Note. Pick Obsidian if individual writers who will stay on the $0 app while they open a first Bases table, then Sync at $4/user/month yearly ($5 monthly) when they want
local note editor desk
Best for
Joplin A notebook page you start at a public $
Obsidian A vault table you start at a public $
Free plan
Joplin $0 · desktop / mobile. Sync to your own WebDAV / Dropbox / filesystem, or buy Cloud
Obsidian $0 · no sign-up. No strings attached
Lowest paid
Joplin Not published by the vendor
Obsidian Sync $4/user/mo yearly
Next step up
Joplin
Obsidian Publish $8/mo yearly
Watch out
Joplin Cloud tiles are euro
Obsidian The $0 tile is the local app
Last checked
Joplin 2026-10-23 · joplinapp.org
Obsidian 2026-10-23 · obsidian.md/pricing
writers who will stay on the OSS app at $0 while they open a first notebook, then Joplin Cloud Basic at 2.99€/month (2.40€ yearly / 28.69€/year) when they need hosted sync — not Pro 5.99€ unless they need share-a-notebook / Email to Note.
Read the Joplin pageindividual writers who will stay on the $0 app while they open a first Bases table, then Sync at $4/user/month yearly ($5 monthly) when they want encrypted vaults on other devices.
Read the Obsidian page