Joplin 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?
Compare Joplin with
choose an app… AppFlowy AFFiNE Memos Mark Text Plane SiYuan Logseq Paperless-ngx Outline Trilium Notes TriliumNext Notes Khoj Wiki.js Karakeep ArchiveBox Focalboard Notable Docmost Super Productivity Wekan Linkwarden BookStack Foam Omnivore OpenProject Notesnook Habitica Self-Hosted Zettlr VNote Wallabag Planka Self-hosted LiveSync Shiori Leantime Linkding Blinko git-bug Kanboard Laverna TiddlyWiki Anytype Reor nb Notes Floccus Dillinger Kaneo Buku Athens Research org-roam Taskwarrior Markor Sync Livebook QOwnNotes SilverBullet TagSpaces Papra DokuWiki Mindforger Web CherryTree Shaarli Pinry Archivy Flatnotes Dnote Trilium Notes Next NoteDiscovery MindForger WizNote BatNoter Zim Notea AppFlowy Cloud Jotty Atomic Server Knowledge RocketNotes QuillPad Beavers Notes Outline Desktop Writing Many Notes Notabase Notesnook Sync Server mdSilo Note Mark Turtl RedNotebook Tangent Notes DailyTxT TeamMapper Standard Notes OutWiker WiseMapping Tiddloid MyTetra WikidPad Mindwendel LibreKB Digimindmap memEx QST
Compare Obsidian with
choose an app… AppFlowy AFFiNE Memos Mark Text SiYuan Logseq Paperless-ngx Outline Trilium Notes TriliumNext Notes Khoj Wiki.js Focalboard Notable Docmost BookStack Foam Docs by Suite Numerique Notesnook Gollum Zettlr Quartz VNote MarkText Workspace Self-hosted LiveSync Leantime Blinko Laverna TiddlyWiki Anytype Reor nb Notes Markor Sync QOwnNotes TagSpaces Papra Mindforger Web CherryTree Archivy Flatnotes Dnote Trilium Notes Next MindForger WizNote Zim QuillPad Beavers Notes Notesnook Sync Server OutWiker Tiddloid MyTetra WikidPad
Feature Joplin Obsidian Category Notes & Knowledge Base Notes & Knowledge Base License AGPL-3.0 Proprietary Language TypeScript JavaScript Setup difficulty Easy Easy Min. RAM 256 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, bare-metal binary GitHub stars ★ 55,856 ★ 20,632 First released 2017 2020 Replaces Evernote, OneNote Evernote, Notion, OneNote
Why pick each one
Choose Joplin if… Strong privacy with E2EE Flexible sync options Active development Joplin details Choose Obsidian if… Notes stay portable and local Highly extensible Obsidian details
Frequently asked questions Is Joplin or Obsidian better? Neither is universally better. Joplin has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Joplin and Obsidian free and open-source? Yes. Joplin is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Obsidian under Proprietary. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Joplin and Obsidian with Docker? Joplin: yes. Obsidian: check the project docs for container support.