Obsidian vs Notion for your second brain

Obsidian vs Notion for your second brain

Where your notes live — and who owns them — is the whole decision.

Obsidian
👍 Free for personal use; plain Markdown files on YOUR disk — no lock-in, ever
👍 Local-first speed and a deep plugin ecosystem; backlinks/graph for connected thinking
👎 Sync costs $4/mo (or DIY); collaboration is weak — it's built for one brain

Notion
👍 Real-time collaboration, databases, sharing — a team wiki out of the box
👍 Free personal tier; gorgeous, structured pages
👎 Cloud-locked (no offline-first), and it gets sluggish; your data lives on their servers

Verdict: Obsidian for fast, private, single-user knowledge you'll keep for a decade; Notion when a team needs to share and structure.

Best for: solo note-takers who fear lock-in → Obsidian. Collaborative team wikis → Notion.

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