SHSelfHostIndex

Docmost vs Obsidian

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted notes & knowledge base options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
DO Docmost Open-source collaborative wiki and documentation VS OB Obsidian Local-first knowledge base on a folder of Markdown files
FeatureDocmostObsidian
CategoryNotes & Knowledge BaseNotes & Knowledge Base
LicenseAGPL-3.0Proprietary
LanguageTypeScriptJavaScript
Setup difficultyMediumEasy
Min. RAM1,024 MB256 MB
Deploymentdockerbinary
GitHub stars★ 21,287★ 20,632
First released20242020
ReplacesConfluence, NotionEvernote, Notion, OneNote

Why pick each one

Choose Docmost if…

  • Clean modern interface
  • Good team collaboration
  • Active development
Docmost details

Choose Obsidian if…

  • Notes stay portable and local
  • Highly extensible
Obsidian details

Frequently asked questions

Is Docmost or Obsidian better?

Neither is universally better. Docmost has the larger community, while Obsidian is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Docmost and Obsidian free and open-source?

Yes. Docmost is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Obsidian under Proprietary. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run Docmost and Obsidian with Docker?

Docmost: yes. Obsidian: check the project docs for container support.

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