Obsidian for teams: the linked notes you know, with your whole team in them.
Obsidian keeps Markdown notes on your device, with a graph view and thousands of community plugins. Nodary keeps a team’s documents in one shared workspace, edited together in real time, with roles, reviews and AI agents. And Nodary imports an Obsidian vault with its [[links]].
In short
Choose Obsidian if
- Your notes are personal, and you want them as Markdown files on your own device.
- You want apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android, and to extend the app with community plugins and themes.
- You want end-to-end encryption for what you sync.
- You want the app free, and pay only for Sync or Publish if you need them.
Choose Nodary if
- Several people write in the same documents at the same time and need to see each other’s cursors.
- You need roles: owners, admins, editors, commenters and readers, and access to a single document.
- You want review requests answered with approve or request changes, signed with who and when.
- You want AI agents to read and write the shared workspace over MCP, with a version kept before every agent write, and agents’ versions never pushing out people’s.
Feature by feature
| What you compare | Nodary | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| Price of the paid plans | Pro: €15 per seat per month, or €12 billed yearly. Studio: €29, or €24 billed yearly. Plus tax where it applies.2 | The app is free, commercial use included; an optional commercial license is US$50 per user per year.1 |
| Sync between devices | Nothing to sync: documents live in the workspace and open the same on every device; when the connection drops, your changes stay on the device. | Obsidian Sync: US$4 per user per month billed yearly, US$5 billed monthly, with version history and shared vaults.1 |
| Publishing | Read-only share links to a document, a branch or a whole workspace, with an end date or none. No custom domain. | Obsidian Publish: US$8 per site per month billed yearly, US$10 billed monthly.1 |
| Where data is stored | AWS in the United States (us-east-1, Northern Virginia) for the app, the database and files. No EU hosting option.4 | Notes are Markdown files in a vault on your device.3 |
| Apps and offline use | A web app for desktop and phone browsers, installable from the browser. No offline mode and no native desktop or mobile app.6 | Apps for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android.5 |
| Seeing how documents connect | Every document of a project on one map you work on: file by dragging, link, assign, filter what is overdue, and see teammates’ pointers live. | Graph view, a core plugin: notes as points, internal links as lines.7 |
| Boards and canvases | Boards inside a document: notes, shapes, arrows, freehand, named frames, document cards and pictures, presented frame by frame. | Canvas, a core plugin, saved in the open JSON Canvas format.8 |
| Calculations | A spreadsheet inside any document: about 60 functions, references between the sheets of a document, and live charts drawn from it.10 | Bases, a core plugin: table, list, cards, kanban and map views of notes, with formulas over their properties.9 |
| Diagrams written as text | Mermaid diagrams (flowchart, sequence, class, state, entity, gantt, mind map, timeline), with errors explained in plain words. | Mermaid diagrams in a mermaid code block.11 |
| Editing together | Real-time co-editing: each person’s cursor and selection shows, and changes to different cells of a sheet combine. | Shared vaults sync files: no live cursors, and others’ edits appear once synced.12 |
| Roles and permissions | Owner, admin, editor, commenter or reader, enforced on the server; access to a single document; on Studio, projects kept to their members. | Every collaborator of a shared vault has the owner’s permissions except inviting; up to 20 people per shared vault, each with a Sync plan.12 |
| Version history | Each editing session of up to ten minutes and every agent write make a version; the 50 newest by people and the 50 newest by agents are kept per document, to compare and restore. | Version history with Sync.1 |
| Encryption | Encrypted in transit and at rest. Not end-to-end encrypted: Studio AI and the agents you connect can read your documents.13 | Sync encrypts end to end with AES-256.1 |
| Plugins | No plugin system: blocks, views and checks are built in, and agents extend the work over MCP. | Thousands of community plugins and themes.14 |
Inside Nodary
A team in the same documents
Teammates write in the same document at the same time, each cursor and selection visible, and changes to different cells of a sheet combine. Roles decide who edits, comments or reads, and the workspace’s activity shows who changed what.
- Owner, admin, editor, commenter and reader, enforced on the server
- Give one member access to a single document
- Mentions, replies, reviews and assignments in one bell
- On Studio, keep a project to the people added to it
What it does not do There are no guest seats: people outside the workspace read through share links.
A map you work on, not only look at
Every document of a project sits on one map, filed in folders you open like clusters. You drag a document to file it, draw a link that says why, assign it and filter the map to what is overdue, while your teammates’ pointers move on it live.
- Links read the right way from either end: blocks, depends on, inspired by, related
- Filter to what is yours, overdue, due this week or undated
- Change the owner, status or due date of many documents at once, with Undo
- Follow a teammate from the map into the passage they are reading
What it does not do The map shows documents and their links, not an RDF knowledge graph; graph views and canvases from other tools are not imported.
AI agents that work with your permissions
Studio AI works inside Nodary, and Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor, Claude Code or VS Code connect over MCP on every plan. An agent reads and writes documents block by block and sheets cell by cell, with the permissions of the person who connected it, and every write keeps the version before it.
- 98 MCP tools, with OAuth or an API key that can be limited to one project
- One connection can work in several workspaces you tick
- Agents’ versions never push out people’s
- Share links, members, roles, keys and billing stay human decisions
What it does not do Studio AI runs on Claude models through Amazon Bedrock in the United States, and its use is counted in Comets with a monthly allowance per plan.
A real spreadsheet inside the document
A sheet lives in the document it explains, with about 60 functions, references to the other sheets of that document, formats, choice lists and validation. Charts are drawn from it live, and teammates edit different cells at the same time.
- XLOOKUP, SUMIFS, INDEX and MATCH, PERCENTILE and more
- Colour past dates, near deadlines, missing values and numbers over a threshold
- Import a CSV or an Excel workbook with a preview of each column’s type
- Read a sheet from your build over HTTP with a read-only key
What it does not do A sheet cannot yet reference a sheet in another document.
Coming from Obsidian
Nodary imports a vault as it is on disk: the folders keep their structure and [[wiki links]] become real links between documents.
- Optional: map the vault first with the free document map tool, which shows its links and the ones that lead nowhere, with no account.
- In Nodary, open the project’s map, choose Import, then Import a folder, and choose the vault’s folder or a .zip of it.
- Check the preview: hidden folders such as .obsidian are skipped, and titles come from the front matter, then the first heading, then the file name.
- Import. [[Links]] become links between documents, embedded pictures come along, and links that lead nowhere are listed while their words stay.
Canvas files and plugin data are not imported, and the import is a one-time copy: Nodary does not sync back to your vault. One import brings up to 200 documents.
Questions
Can a team use Obsidian?
Yes, through shared vaults on Obsidian Sync: each collaborator needs a Sync plan, everyone has the owner’s permissions, and edits appear once synced, without live cursors (Obsidian’s help, checked on 23 October 2026). Nodary is built for the other case: real-time co-editing with roles.
Can I import my Obsidian vault into Nodary?
Yes. Choose the vault’s folder or a .zip in Import a folder. [[Wiki links]] become links between documents, pictures come along, and links that lead nowhere are listed.
Does Nodary work offline like Obsidian?
No. Nodary runs in the browser and needs a connection; when the connection drops, your changes stay on the device until you compare and apply them. Obsidian keeps your notes as files on your device.
Which one costs less?
Obsidian. The app is free; for a team of five sharing a vault, Sync billed monthly is US$25 a month (US$5 each), checked on 23 October 2026. Nodary Pro for five billed monthly is €75. Obsidian costs less per person.
Does Nodary have a graph view?
Nodary has a map of a project’s documents that you work on: you file, link, assign and filter there, and see teammates live. It is a shared map edited by a team, not a view drawn from files on one device.
Does Nodary have plugins?
No. Spreadsheets, diagrams, boards, moodboards, dialogue and string tables are built in, and AI agents extend the work over MCP. Nodary has nothing like Obsidian’s community plugins.
Bring your vault, and your team.
Import the vault, invite a teammate and write in the same document at the same time. Free for two members and ten documents.
Free for two members and ten documents. No card.
How this page is made
Every fact about Obsidian comes from Obsidian’s own pages, read on 23 October 2026 and listed below. Every fact about Nodary comes from the product and its public pages. We compare what a team relies on, including where Obsidian does more, and we never rate or rank. Prices and features change: check the source before you decide.
Sources · Checked on 23 October 2026
- Obsidian: Pricing (obsidian.md)
- nodary.ai/pricing
- Obsidian Help: How Obsidian stores data (obsidian.md)
- nodary.ai/privacy
- Obsidian: Download (obsidian.md)
- nodary.ai/game-design-document
- Obsidian Help: Graph view (obsidian.md)
- Obsidian Help: Canvas (obsidian.md)
- Obsidian Help: Bases (obsidian.md)
- nodary.ai/game-balancing
- Obsidian Help: Advanced formatting syntax (obsidian.md)
- Obsidian Help: Collaborate on a shared vault (obsidian.md)
- nodary.ai/security
- Obsidian Community (community.obsidian.md)
Obsidian is a trademark of its owner. Nodary is not affiliated with, sponsored or endorsed by Obsidian.
Spotted a fact that is out of date? Write to support@nodary.ai and we will correct the page.