Anytype vs Obsidian: pricing, features and which to choose

Anytype is made by the Any Association, a Swiss-registered organization with its team based largely in Berlin, and it launched publicly in 2023 after a long beta. It positions itself as a privacy-first alternative to Notion: instead of storing your workspace on a company server, Anytype keeps data on your devices, encrypts it with keys only you hold, and syncs changes peer to peer on local networks or through its own sync network called any-sync. The source code is available on GitHub under the Any Source Available License, which permits personal and non-commercial use and self-hosting. Apps run on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, and work fully offline.

Everything in Anytype is an object, such as a page, task, person or book, and each object has a type with its own properties, called relations. Users can define custom types, then build sets and collections that show objects as tables, Kanban boards, galleries, lists, calendars or a graph view of links. The block editor handles text, checklists, tables, images, files, code and embeds. Spaces can be private or shared with Owner, Editor and Viewer roles, and chats inside spaces let teams message and share objects. Templates from the community gallery cover journals, CRMs and project trackers, and pages can be published to the web.

Anytype's appeal is ownership: offline speed, end-to-end encryption, no lock-in to a company server, and a flexible object model. Its drawbacks are a learning curve around types and relations, a small free sync allowance, fewer integrations than Notion and no native AI. Notion is the main hosted alternative, with Notion AI and a large template library. Obsidian is local-first with Markdown files and plugins, including AI plugins. Capacities offers a similar object model with built-in AI, and AppFlowy and Logseq are open-source options. Choose Anytype if privacy and offline access matter most and you are happy to connect AI through MCP.

Obsidian is a desktop and mobile note-taking app made by Dynalist Inc., a small independent company founded by Shida Li and Erica Xu, and first released in 2020. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. Notes live in a vault, which is a folder of plain Markdown files on your device, so they open in any text editor and outlast the app. Obsidian takes no venture capital and calls itself 100 percent user-supported. In February 2025 it made the commercial license optional, and the company says people at more than 10,000 organizations, including Amazon and Google, use it for work. Version 1.15 shipped in October 2026.

Writing happens in a Markdown editor with live preview. Typing double brackets links one note to another, and every note shows its backlinks, so ideas connect without a fixed folder hierarchy. The graph view draws those links as a network. Canvas gives an infinite board for arranging notes, images and web pages, and Bases, a core plugin added in 2025, turns notes with properties into sortable tables, cards or maps that work like a lightweight database. Daily notes, templates and tags cover journaling and task capture. The 1.15 mobile release added voice Quick Capture with live transcription on iOS 26, and PDF export on mobile.

Obsidian's flexibility is also its main drawback. A new vault is a blank editor, and building a useful system takes time and plugin choices. Real-time collaboration is limited compared with Notion, Microsoft Loop or Google Docs, and community plugins vary in quality and security. Notion suits teams that want shared databases and built-in AI. Logseq, which is open source, offers an outliner model with similar local files. Anytype offers local-first, encrypted notes with object-based structure. Pick Obsidian if you want notes that remain usable files in 20 years and are willing to add AI yourself; pick Notion for team wikis.