Foam 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?
Foam
Personal knowledge management on top of VS Code
VS
Obsidian
Local-first knowledge base on a folder of Markdown files
| Feature | Foam | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| License | MIT | Proprietary |
| Language | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 256 MB |
| Deployment | source | binary |
| GitHub stars | ★ 17,328 | ★ 20,632 |
| First released | 2020 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Roam Research, Obsidian | Evernote, Notion, OneNote |
Why pick each one
Choose Foam if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 17.3k GitHub stars
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Foam or Obsidian better?
Neither is universally better. Obsidian has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Foam and Obsidian free and open-source?
Yes. Foam is licensed under MIT and Obsidian under Proprietary. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Foam and Obsidian with Docker?
Foam: check the project docs for container support. Obsidian: check the project docs for container support.