Open Source Obsidian Alternatives
The best open source alternative to Obsidian is Joplin, which is both free and Open Source. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to Obsidian and many of them is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Obsidian are Standard Notes (Freemium, Open Source), Zettlr (Free, Open Source), CherryTree (Free, Open Source) and Zim (Free, Open Source).
- An open source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation capabilities. View 549 alternatives to Joplin
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Android
- iPhone
- Android Tablet
- iPad
- Google Chrome
- Termux
- Firefox
Joplin vs Obsidian
andgregorik Joplin has a fracture of the features of Obsidian which is no wonder since Obsidian aims to become a powerful desktop knowledge base, unlike Joplin. For one thing, Joplin focuses on mobile<->desktop syncing and not on effective internal linking. They're similar at first glance only.sCojQE5 Joplin is taking shots at Evernote, not Obsidian. - Standard Notes is a simple and private notes app. It allows you to write and sync your notes across all your devices, including your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and web browser. View 415 alternatives to Standard Notes
- Freemium • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Online
- Android
- iPhone
- Chrome OS
- Android Tablet
- iPad
- Self-Hosted
- Zettlr is a supercharged markdown editor that combines many writing editor features and collect them in one application. View 92 alternatives to Zettlr
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
Zettlr vs Obsidian
Sometimesa Offers back-linking just like Obsidian does but it is Open-Source. Obsidian is proprietary software.Good alternative to Obsidian but backlinks are not as magic as in Obsidian. If you rename a file it will not modify links. You cannot link to a specific header. You need to use some ID which is a bit troublesome at first. Also you don't have a graph showing you all the links. But as this is Opensource, this is the best alternative to Obsidian which is closed source. - A hierarchical note taking application, featuring rich text and syntax highlighting, storing data in a single xml or sqlite file. View 470 alternatives to CherryTree
- Free • Open Source
- Windows
- Linux
- PortableApps.com
- A desktop personal wiki with inline preview as-you-type and lots of plugins. View 265 alternatives to Zim
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
Zim vs Obsidian
andgregorik Zim was a pioneer that's now considered an oldtimer, while Obsidian takes much of its features and brings it into 2020+. Obsidian is more "wiki" than Zim, but it uses a different terminology. I've completely migrated from Zim (and CherryTree) to Obsidian. - Plain text notepad with markdown support and todo list manager for Linux, Mac OS X and Windows, that works together with the notes application of ownCloud. View 142 alternatives to QOwnNotes
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Qt
QOwnNotes vs Obsidian
riveravaldez Pretty similar concept, both deal with plain .md files, both render in real time, both have automatically-generated TOCs, etc., but QOwnNotes is Free Software, no EULA non-sense, you have a tool without restrictions. - FeaturesNotes can be arranged into arbitrarily deep hierarchy (tree)Notes can have more than 1 parents - see cloning View 329 alternatives to Trilium Notes
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Self-Hosted
- Google Chrome
- Cloudron
- Firefox
- Dendron is an open-source, local-first, markdown-based, note-taking tool built on top of VSCode. It supports all the usual features you would expect like tagging, backlinks, a graph view, split panes, and so forth. View 181 alternatives to Dendron
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Self-Hosted
- Visual Studio Code
Dendron vs Obsidian
kpathakota Still local notes, but way more full-featured since it uses VS Code as the editor and embraces heirarchies so your notes don't get so unwieldly. - wikidPad is a Wiki-like notebook for storing your thoughts, ideas, todo lists, contacts, or anything else you can think of to write down. View 234 alternatives to wikidPad
Discontinued
Last update was in November 2018, and various links are dead on their website.
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- BSD
- A Vim-inspired note-taking application that knows programmers and Markdown better. View 58 alternatives to Vnote
- Free • Open Source
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux