Obsidian vs Notion vs Apple Notes

Obsidian is a local Markdown vault, Notion is a hosted block-tree workspace, and Apple Notes is a default app sealed inside Apple's iCloud.¹²³ The structural differences in pricing, privacy, and portability matter more than any feature list, because they decide whether your notes are still yours in five years.

This post compares the three honestly, from primary sources, with prices and policies pulled from each vendor's own pages on 16 May 2026. Obsidian launched on 30 March 2020 from Shida Li and Erica Xu. Steph Ango took over as chief executive on 6 February 2023, and the application is free for "personal, commercial, and non-profit use" with Sync sold as a separate $4-per-month add-on billed annually.¹⁴⁵ Notion Labs was founded in San Francisco in 2013 by Ivan Zhao and five co-founders. The current product launched in August 2016, crossed 100 million users by 2026, and now sells Plus, Business, and Enterprise tiers from $10 per member per month.²⁶⁷ These are three different bets on what a note is. The post is here to help you pick.

How is MNMNOTE different from Obsidian?

MNMNOTE is a browser tab that opens in well under a second and stores notes locally in your own browser. Obsidian is a desktop and mobile application that stores notes as plain .md files in a local folder it calls a vault.¹ Both write Markdown. Both treat the file as the database. The architectural difference is install versus URL.

Obsidian's stated tagline is "Sharpen your thinking" with the subtitle "The free and flexible app for your private thoughts," and its manifesto rests on five words — Yours, Durable, Private, Malleable, Independent — that the company has pinned to its about page.⁴⁸ The "Durable" plank reads, verbatim: "We believe that your data should be future-proof and easily accessible, no matter where you are."⁸ MNMNOTE inherits that ethic and applies it to a smaller surface area. There is no installer, no plugin marketplace, no graph view, no Daily Notes plugin, no Templater. There is a browser tab and Markdown. The trade is fewer surfaces in exchange for zero friction at the first note: no download, no account, no waiting for a vault to index.⁹

Obsidian is the right tool for the user who has decided notes are a serious lifelong practice and wants the deepest customization surface in the category. MNMNOTE is the right tool for the user who has not yet decided, or who has decided that less surface is the point. The two apps are close cousins on the same Markdown lineage Steph Ango described in July 2023: "In the fullness of time, the files you create are more important than the tools you use to create them. Apps are ephemeral, but your files have a chance to last."¹⁰

How is MNMNOTE different from Notion?

MNMNOTE is a Markdown editor with no servers, no account, no databases, and no AI. Notion is a hosted block-tree workspace where, in the company's own words, "Everything in Notion is a block — from a line of type (or paragraph) to an image or embed."¹¹ Different substrate, different bet. Files versus blocks.

Notion's blocks live inside the company's database service. The current homepage promotes "100M+ users worldwide," "62% of Fortune 100" companies, and "1.4M+ community members," and positions the product as "The AI workspace that works for you," with Custom Agents, Enterprise Search, and AI Meeting Notes prominent above the fold.⁷ Plus is $10 per member per month, Business is $20, Enterprise is custom, and the Free plan caps file uploads at five megabytes, page history at seven days, and external guests at ten.² Notion's documentation is honest about what leaves on export:

• "Any non-database Notion page can be exported as a Markdown file."¹²
• Full-page databases export "as a CSV file, with Markdown files for each subpage."¹²
• Callout blocks "will be exported as HTML, as there is no Markdown equivalent."¹²

The export button works. The exported document is not the same document you wrote.

MNMNOTE makes a narrower promise. Markdown in, Markdown out, no database tables, no calendars, no agents. Notion is the right tool for a team that wants to run a wiki, a project tracker, and a CRM on one block-based substrate. MNMNOTE is the right tool for one writer who wants the file to be the document.

How is MNMNOTE different from Apple Notes?

Apple Notes is a default Apple application that syncs through iCloud and stores its database in a single SQLite file on disk. MNMNOTE is a browser application that stores its data locally in your browser and runs on any modern browser, including the Apple ones.³¹³ Apple Notes works only inside Apple's hardware-and-iCloud envelope. MNMNOTE works in a tab.

Apple's own support documentation lists what Notes can do for export. The Mac guide states you can export individual notes as PDF or as Markdown — "You can export your notes as Markdown files to integrate your notes into writing, content, and other workflows that support Markdown" — and supports import "in TXT, RTF, RTFD, HTML, or Evernote XML Export (ENEX) format."¹⁴ The instructions describe a single-note workflow: "Click the note you want to export, then choose File > Export as > PDF."¹⁴ There is no documented bulk export. Apple's English-language Wikipedia entry has flagged this for years, noting that "the software does not provide a mechanism to export the text of all notes to a text file, a Rich Text File, or other commonly used data file formats as a bulk data transfer."¹³ Power users fall back to AppleScript or Shortcuts to assemble a complete archive.

Apple Notes is the right tool for a household already inside the Apple ecosystem who wants a free, encrypted, deeply integrated capture surface. Advanced Data Protection, available since iOS 16.2 in December 2022, expands end-to-end encryption to 25 iCloud categories including Notes.¹⁵ MNMNOTE is the right tool for a writer on any browser, any platform, who wants the notes to leave with them when they leave.

How does the pricing compare?

Obsidian's app is free. Notion charges from $10 per member per month for paid tiers. Apple Notes is free but requires Apple hardware plus an iCloud storage tier above the included 5 gigabytes once a serious note vault grows photos and PDFs.⁴²¹⁶ MNMNOTE runs in the browser and keeps notes locally on your own device, with no account to create. Four very different commercial postures.

The pricing facts, pulled verbatim from each vendor on 16 May 2026:

• Obsidian app: "Free without limits. No sign-up required. No strings attached." The license page calls it "free for all purposes, including personal, commercial, and non-profit use."⁴⁵
• Obsidian Sync: $4 per user per month billed annually, $5 billed monthly. End-to-end encrypted with AES-256.⁴¹⁷
• Obsidian Publish: $8 per site per month billed annually, $10 monthly.⁴
• Obsidian Commercial License: $50 per user per year — explicitly optional, sold to "show your organization's support for independent software development."⁴⁵
• Notion Plus: $10 per member per month, paid annually, with a "Save up to 20% with yearly" line on the pricing page.²
• Notion Business: $20 per member per month.²
• Notion AI: Bundled into Business and Enterprise; trial responses on Free and Plus; Custom Agents are "Free to try, then $10 per 1,000 monthly Notion credits."²¹⁸
• Apple Notes app: Free; requires an Apple device.
• iCloud+ above the free 5 GB: $0.99/month for 50 GB, $2.99 for 200 GB, $9.99 for 2 TB, $29.99 for 6 TB, $59.99 for 12 TB.¹⁶
• MNMNOTE: Browser-based and local-first — notes are stored on your own device, with no account required.⁹

A small team standardizing on Notion at $10 per member per month is committing to roughly $1,200 per year for a ten-person workspace before Notion AI or Enterprise add-ons. The same team on Obsidian Sync pays roughly $480 per year for the same headcount, and the underlying app is free.⁴² Apple Notes is free, but the price of admission is the hardware, and the export ceiling means the cost of leaving is not measured in dollars.

How does privacy compare?

Obsidian keeps notes in a folder on disk with optional end-to-end encrypted Sync. Notion stores notes on its servers under standard cloud encryption with the company holding the keys. Apple Notes stores notes in iCloud, end-to-end encrypted only when a user turns on Advanced Data Protection.⁴¹⁷¹⁵ MNMNOTE keeps notes on your own device, in your browser, and never transmits them.⁹

The Obsidian Sync documentation defines its end-to-end encryption with rare clarity: "End-to-end encryption means that the data is encrypted from the moment it leaves your device, and can only be decrypted using your encryption key."¹⁷ The data is encrypted with AES-256 in Galois/Counter Mode using Scrypt key derivation.¹⁷ The company states explicitly: "no one — not even the Obsidian team — can access your notes."¹⁷ The trade-off is also stated on the same page: lose the password and "your data remains encrypted and unusable forever."¹⁷

Notion's standard cloud-storage architecture is a different shape. Notion holds the keys, which is what allows server-side AI features to work. The same arrangement also means a server-side breach or a court order touches everything inside.

Apple Notes' default mode encrypts data in transit and at rest, but Apple holds the keys. With Advanced Data Protection enabled, Notes joins the list of 25 iCloud data categories where, in Apple's official wording, "your trusted devices retain sole access to the encryption keys for the majority of your iCloud data."¹⁵ The opt-in is meaningful, but it is opt-in. MNMNOTE skips the question by skipping the network: there is no server to compromise because there is no server. Notes live on your own device, in your browser, and the only backup is the one you choose to export.⁹ Each model is internally consistent. They are not the same model.

How does portability compare?

Obsidian writes plain .md files into a folder you control. Notion exports to Markdown with documented losses. Apple Notes exports per-note to PDF or Markdown with no bulk option in the official documentation.^4121413 MNMNOTE exports the same Markdown the editor wrote — the canonical copy is the file.⁹ Portability is the dimension that compounds over time.

Obsidian's vault is the cleanest case. The vault is a folder of .md files on a disk you own. Open the folder in Finder, in Explorer, in vim, in another Markdown editor, and the content is already legible. Steph Ango framed the underlying physics in the same essay quoted above: "If you want your writing to still be readable on a computer from the 2060s or 2160s, it's important that your notes can be read on a computer from the 1960s."¹⁰

Notion's portability story is more honest than the marketing — the Help Center clearly states what Markdown export does and does not handle. But the hosted block tree was designed to be read by Notion. Database structure flattens. Sub-pages export as separate files. Callouts become HTML.¹² None of this is hidden. It is just real.

Apple Notes occupies a third position. The export menu does work. The per-note Markdown and PDF buttons exist. The import path accepts ENEX from Evernote.¹⁴ The bulk story is the gap. With no documented "export everything" command, leaving Apple Notes for another tool currently means scripting AppleScript, scripting Shortcuts, or accepting one note at a time.¹³ MNMNOTE does not solve every problem in the category, but it solves this one by construction: Markdown in, Markdown out, the file is the document, and the export is the source of truth — there is no other layer.

Side-by-side comparison

The dimensions below are the ones that survive longest after the demo. Each cell is a fact pulled from primary sources cited in the footnotes; no marketing language was promoted. Read down a column to understand a product. Read across a row to understand a trade-off.

The table is not the verdict. The verdict depends on which row matters most to you for the next ten years.

Who should use MNMNOTE?

MNMNOTE is for the writer who wants Markdown without the install, lives in a browser already, and treats privacy and portability as load-bearing rather than aspirational. It is the smallest note app that keeps the file as the document. If you have wished a note app would just open and let you write, this is that app.

Concretely, MNMNOTE fits five reader profiles. The journalist who works across a desktop and a borrowed library laptop and does not want to install a vault on either. The student who needs Markdown for class notes and Pandoc-friendly export for the dissertation, but not a graph view today. The privacy-curious knowledge worker who has read Steph Ango's "File over app" essay and wants a tab they can open without logging into anything.¹⁰ The writer on Linux for whom Apple Notes is unavailable and Obsidian's plugin sprawl feels like overhead. The reader who saw this blog post in MNMNOTE itself and noticed it reads like a magazine page rather than a wiki.

These are not the only audiences. They are the ones MNMNOTE was built for first. Anyone who wants a beautifully typeset blank page — notes that never leave the device unless explicitly exported — will find this product a useful neighbor to Obsidian, not a replacement.

Who should NOT use MNMNOTE?

MNMNOTE is the wrong tool for several legitimate workloads, and it is more useful to be honest about that than to win the comparison post on every row. There are five readers for whom Obsidian, Notion, or Apple Notes is the better answer this year. Pick the tool that matches the workload.

If you want a relational database, Kanban board, calendar, and CRM in the same workspace, the right answer is Notion — the block model was designed for that, and the team-collaboration polish is genuinely deep.¹¹⁷ If you want a 1,000-plugin ecosystem, a graph view, a Dataview query language, and a community of 110,000 people on Discord trading vault setups, the right answer is Obsidian.¹ If you want a free, deeply integrated capture surface with Apple Pencil scribbles, Live Photos, and locked notes that sync silently across an iPhone, an iPad, and a Mac, the right answer is Apple Notes.³¹⁴¹⁵ If you need real-time multiplayer cursors on a single document for a meeting that starts in five minutes, the right answer is Notion or Google Docs, not MNMNOTE. If you need a desktop app that works fully offline with custom keybindings the day you install it, the right answer is Obsidian.

MNMNOTE in v1 is browser-only, has no first-party sync, no plugin marketplace, no calendar, no database tables, no real-time collaboration, no AI. The product is small on purpose. Choose another tool for the workloads above without apology, and come back when the workload is single-author, Markdown-shaped, and meant to outlast the tool.

Frequently asked questions

Is MNMNOTE a Notion alternative?

MNMNOTE is a Markdown alternative to Notion's block model rather than a feature-for-feature replacement. Notion ships databases, calendars, AI agents, and team collaboration on a hosted block tree.⁷¹¹ MNMNOTE ships a single-author Markdown editor that runs in a browser tab and stores notes locally on your own device.⁹ Different jobs. Pick by workload, not by aesthetic.

Is MNMNOTE an Obsidian alternative?

MNMNOTE shares Obsidian's Markdown-first lineage and "file over app" ethic, but takes the opposite trade on surface area.¹⁰ Obsidian is a customizable desktop and mobile application with thousands of plugins.¹ MNMNOTE is a browser tab with no install and no plugins, where notes stay local on your own device. Choose Obsidian for depth; choose MNMNOTE for first-note friction so low it disappears.

How does Obsidian make money if the app is free?

Obsidian's app is "free for all purposes, including personal, commercial, and non-profit use" and the company is "100% supported by our users, not investors."⁵⁸ Revenue comes from Obsidian Sync at $4 per user per month billed annually, Publish at $8 per site per month, and an explicitly optional Commercial License at $50 per user per year.⁴⁵

Does Notion have end-to-end encryption?

Notion does not offer end-to-end encryption today. Notion stores notes on its servers under standard cloud encryption and holds the decryption keys, which is also what allows server-side AI features to operate. Compare with Obsidian Sync's documented "no one — not even the Obsidian team — can access your notes" or Apple Notes with Advanced Data Protection enabled.¹⁷¹⁵

Can I export my Apple Notes in bulk?

Apple's documentation does not provide a bulk-export command. Per-note export to PDF or Markdown works on macOS: "Click the note you want to export, then choose File > Export as > PDF."¹⁴ But Wikipedia notes that "the software does not provide a mechanism to export the text of all notes" in bulk.¹³ AppleScript or Shortcuts is the workaround.

What does Notion's Markdown export actually lose?

Notion's Help Center is straightforward about the limits:

• "Any non-database Notion page can be exported as a Markdown file."¹²
• Databases "export as a CSV file, with Markdown files for each subpage."¹²
• Callout blocks "will be exported as HTML, as there is no Markdown equivalent."¹²

The export works, but the exported file is not a one-to-one copy of the source document.

What do I need to start using MNMNOTE?

Nothing but a browser. There is no account to create and no card to enter, and your notes never leave your browser — they are stored locally on your own device.⁹ The experience is a local Markdown editor plus end-to-end encrypted sharing of any note you choose to send. It is the product, not a trial.

Why use a browser-only note app at all?

A browser-only app trades the depth of a desktop application for zero install friction. You open a tab, you write, the note lives locally in your browser, and the same URL works on every browser. For single-author Markdown notes — what MNMNOTE was built for — the trade is favorable. For graph views and 1,000-plugin ecosystems, Obsidian is the better answer.¹

The honest summary is that Obsidian, Notion, and Apple Notes are three serious products built by serious teams for three different jobs, and each is the right answer for the audience it was designed for. MNMNOTE lives in your browser tab if you want a smaller surface that keeps the file as the document — open mnmnote.com and the first note is one keystroke away.

References

All URLs verified live as of 16 May 2026. Tier classifications follow §7 of /kb/blog/blog-writing-guide.md.

Tier 2 — Mainstream press / encyclopedia

Tier 4 — Personal site / editorial voice

Tier 6 — Official docs / vendor primary sources

Internal project facts

Additional sources consulted (not inline)

• Steph Ango bio at https://stephango.com/40-questions ("I am currently CEO of the company") — confirmation of role.
• "Obsidian Sync — Sync features," https://obsidian.md/sync — AES-256 encryption, version history (1 month Standard / 12 months Plus), supported file types, sync log.
• "Markdown," Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Markdown — released 9 March 2004 by John Gruber with Aaron Swartz; CommonMark published 25 October 2014.
• "Obsidian changelog," https://obsidian.md/changelog — most recent stable release 1.12.7 on 23 March 2026; CLI, image editing, attachment management, mobile Share extension highlights.
• "Notion intro to databases," https://www.notion.com/help/intro-to-databases — "Databases in Notion are collections of pages" definition.
• Notion September 2025 ARR figure ($500M) per Wikipedia citation chain.
• Obsidian community Discord at https://discord.com/invite/obsidianmd — gateway page; member counts cited via Wikipedia entry summary.
• "Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files," Hacker News, 27 May 2020 — https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598. 1,087 points, 477 comments. Community-engagement precedent for note-app launches.