Jotura
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Obsidian alternatives.

You have years of notes in an Obsidian vault and you are wondering what else is out there. Here are six apps people move to or try first, each with what it is, who it suits and the limitation you will run into. Jotura is ours, and it sits in the list on the same terms as the rest.

How this list is ordered.

By the one thing that decides how easy it is to leave: where the app keeps the live copy of your notes. The first three keep your notes as files in a folder, so switching costs a change of app. The last three keep them in their own database or encrypted store, so switching means an export first. Within each group the apps are alphabetical, so nothing is ranked. Every claim here has a full comparison page behind it.

Apps that keep your notes as files.

Your folder is the live copy. Any other program can read it, and leaving costs nothing but a change of app.

Jotura

What it isA free notes app for the desktop and Android whose vault is an ordinary folder of .md files. It opens an existing Obsidian vault as it stands, with no import step, and saving a file you did not edit returns a byte-identical file. You get wikilinks with a [[ picker that matches aliases, nested tags with a Tags pane, daily notes with a calendar, a Tasks pane across the vault, a real table editor, keyword search over 10,000 notes in about 8 milliseconds, and search by meaning on the desktop that runs on-device or through OpenAI under your own key.

Who it suitsSomeone who wants Obsidian's plain-file foundation plus things Obsidian leaves to plugins or to nobody: searchable copies of dropped-in PDFs and Word files, and an Android book reader for EPUB, PDF and CBZ that saves your highlights as a Markdown note per book. Jotura Sync adds end-to-end encrypted sharing of a folder or a single note with editor and viewer roles, and three years of version history with attribution.

The honest limitationThere is no iOS app, so on a phone it runs on Android only, and it has no plugins, graph view, canvas or publish-to-web. It is closed source, which means you are trusting our description of how it works because you cannot read the code. Sync is £4 a month or £40 a year with no free trial, and with Obsidian Sync at $4 to $8 a month billed annually the two cost about the same. Jotura is our app, and these are the limits we would want to read before downloading it.

Logseq

What it isAn open source outliner under the AGPL where every line is a block with its own identity, so you can reference or embed any block anywhere in the graph. It has the graph view, plugins and community themes, spaced-repetition flashcards, whiteboards in Logseq OG, a query language based on Datalog, and Zotero integration.

Who it suitsPeople who think in bullets and block references, and anyone who wants Obsidian's graph and plugin culture in an app whose source is public. Its journals and linked references are core to how it works, and its TODO and LATER system collects tasks well.

The honest limitationThe 2.0 beta, released on 13 July 2026, moves the canonical store into a local SQLite database, so Markdown becomes an export rather than the live source. The file-based app continues as Logseq OG, maintained with fixes but no new features. Logseq OG also rewrites files in its own outline dialect, adding property lines such as id:: to blocks, which shows up in every diff. Logseq Sync is $5 a month.

Typora

What it isA one-time-purchase WYSIWYG Markdown editor at $14.99 for up to three devices. It edits the .md file you opened and gets out of the way. It renders LaTeX math blocks, exports PDF and HTML out of the box and Word, ePub and LaTeX once you install Pandoc, has a real table editor, and takes themes as plain CSS files you drop in a folder.

Who it suitsSomeone who writes one document at a time and wants a clean writing surface with years of polish, paid for once, with nothing to sign up for and no server holding their words. People who have grown tired of monthly bills will find Typora asks for money exactly once.

The honest limitationTypora has no sync service, so you bring iCloud Drive, Dropbox, OneDrive or Syncthing. Those file syncers know nothing about Markdown, and when two machines edit one note at once you get a conflict file to sort out by hand. There is no mobile app on any platform. Links are standard Markdown only, without wikilinks, a vault-wide search index or a tasks view, and the folder in its sidebar helps you find files while the app itself treats each one on its own. It is closed source.

Apps that keep your notes in their own store.

A database or an encrypted store owns the live copy. That buys fast queries, note revisions and encryption on your own disk, and it means running an export before you move on.

Joplin

What it isAn open source notes app under the AGPL-3.0 that keeps your notes in a local SQLite database and writes Markdown out when you export. It separates the app from the sync target, so it syncs free through Dropbox, OneDrive, Nextcloud or WebDAV, through Joplin Cloud from 2.99 euros a month with a 14-day trial, or through Joplin Server on your own hardware. It has plugins, a web clipper, and can publish a note to a public link on Joplin Cloud.

Who it suitsAnyone whose first requirement is open source, an iPhone app, and sync that costs nothing because it rides storage they already pay for. The database model wins when you want one app to manage everything: fast queries, note revisions, and one sync engine that behaves the same on every target.

The honest limitationYour notes are rows in a database until you export them, so other tools and scripts cannot work on the live notes. Export needs the MD - Markdown + Front Matter option to keep tags and dates, because the plain Markdown export drops both. Internal note links and revision history belong to the database and stay behind.

Notesnook

What it isAn open source encrypted notes app under the GPLv3, covering the sync server as well as the apps. It encrypts your notes on your device and keeps them in its own encrypted store whether or not you pay, using XChaCha20-Poly1305 with Argon2id, and includes end-to-end encrypted sync across unlimited devices on the free plan. Clients cover Mac, Windows, Linux, Android, iOS and the web, and self-hosting the sync server is published but still marked alpha.

Who it suitsSomeone who wants their notes unreadable to anyone who picks up the laptop, without configuring full-disk encryption, plus free encrypted sync, source they can audit, and an iPhone client.

The honest limitationThe free-plan ceilings are modest but real: 50MB of attachment storage a month, a 10MB file size cap, 50 notebooks, 50 tags, and 100 stored note versions. Paid plans lift them, and Pro listed at £6.32 a month, or £63.29 a year, in October 2026. Because the local store is encrypted, no other editor or script can open the notes directly. There is no multi-user shared editing either: it publishes single notes as links instead.

Standard Notes

What it isAn open source encrypted notes app with clients for Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android and the browser. A note is a record in an encrypted database, which is what lets the app encrypt everything before it touches the network on every plan. End-to-end encrypted sync and unlimited notes are included on the free plan, and the sync server can be self-hosted.

Who it suitsSomeone whose first requirement is privacy on every device, including an iPhone and a borrowed laptop's browser, at no cost, with code and a server they can inspect and run themselves.

The honest limitationThe free plan is plaintext notes. Markdown and rich text arrive with the Super editor on the Productivity plan at $90 a year, which also keeps a year of note history. Encrypted file storage needs the Professional plan at $120 a year. Notes live in the app's store rather than as files, so you export when you want them elsewhere.

The four questions that usually decide it.

Storage model, licensing, whether your phone is an iPhone, and what sync costs.

AppNotes on diskOpen sourceiPhoneEncrypted sync
Joturaplain .md files£4 a month or £40 a year, no free trial
LogseqMarkdown in Logseq OG, SQLite from 2.0AGPLLogseq Sync, $5 a month
Typoraplain .md filesno mobile app at allnone built in, bring your own file syncer
JoplinSQLite database, Markdown on exportAGPLfree via your own storage, or Joplin Cloud from 2.99 euros a month
Notesnookencrypted local storeGPLv3free, encrypted, unlimited devices
Standard Notesthe app's encrypted storefree, encrypted, on the free plan

Pricing, platforms, and licensing as published by each app, October 2026.

Where Obsidian still wins.

If any of these is your workflow, the right move is to stay where you are.

  • Plugins and themes. Thousands of community plugins, Excalidraw, Dataview and Templater among them. Extensibility is Obsidian's moat, and Logseq comes closest in this list.
  • Graph view and canvas. Obsidian ships both. Logseq has a graph view and whiteboards in Logseq OG. The other four have neither.
  • Community. Obsidian has years of guides, videos and shared vault setups behind it, and every app on this page has a smaller following.
  • Publishing. Obsidian Publish turns notes into a public website, at $8 a month billed annually or $10 monthly. Joplin Cloud publishes a single note to a link and Logseq publishes a graph. Jotura, Typora, Notesnook and Standard Notes have no equivalent.
  • iOS. Obsidian runs on iPhone and iPad. So do Logseq, Joplin, Notesnook and Standard Notes. Jotura and Typora do not.

Obsidian pricing as published by Obsidian, October 2026.

Common questions.

Which Obsidian alternative opens my existing vault without an import?
Jotura reads the folder as it stands, because an Obsidian vault and a Jotura vault are the same thing: a directory of .md files. Typora opens the individual .md files in it. Logseq OG loads them too, since they are Markdown, but reads them as an outline, so property lines and drawers show up as plain text and a document arrives as a wall of list items. Joplin, Notesnook and Standard Notes all need an import, because their live store is a database rather than your folder.
Which ones are free?
Every app here is free to install except Typora, which is $14.99 once for up to three devices. Encrypted sync is where they separate. Notesnook and Standard Notes include end-to-end encrypted sync on their free plans, within limits. Joplin syncs free through storage you already have, such as Dropbox or Nextcloud. Logseq Sync is $5 a month and Jotura Sync is £4 a month or £40 a year with no free trial.
Which ones have an iPhone app?
Logseq, Joplin, Notesnook and Standard Notes all do. Jotura is Android only on mobile, with no iOS app today. Typora has no mobile app on any platform. If an iPhone is non-negotiable, that cuts the list to four.
Which ones are open source?
Logseq under the AGPL, Joplin under the AGPL-3.0, Notesnook under the GPLv3 including its sync server, and Standard Notes for both client and server. Jotura and Typora are closed source. For an encrypted notes app in particular, that is a fair line to draw, and it rules Jotura out for some readers.
Does any of them replace Obsidian's plugins and graph view?
Only partly. Logseq has a plugin ecosystem, community themes, and a graph view, so it is the closest thing here to Obsidian's extensibility. Joplin has plugins of its own but no graph view. Jotura has neither. If your workflow depends on specific Obsidian plugins like Dataview, Templater, or Excalidraw, the honest answer is to stay on Obsidian.
Will I be able to leave again later?
That depends on the storage model, which is why this page is grouped by it. Jotura, Typora and Logseq OG leave your notes as files in a folder, so moving on costs a change of app. Joplin, Notesnook, Standard Notes and Logseq 2.0 hold the live copy in a database, so leaving means running an export first. All four export Markdown, so nothing is trapped, but the export is a step you have to remember.

Whichever way you go, try it on a copy of the vault you already have rather than on your only copy.

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Head to head with Obsidian: Jotura vs Obsidian. Switching over:Coming from Obsidian.