Obsidian vs Capacities: which notes app fits you in 2026?
Capacities vs Obsidian is a choice between two ideas of what a note even is. In Obsidian, a note is a Markdown file in a folder you own, shaped however you like, extended by two thousand plugins. In Capacities, a note is an object — a person, a book, a meeting — with properties and views that come from its type, in a polished cloud app that syncs everywhere by itself. One is a workshop, the other a studio. Here’s how the trade-offs actually land in 2026.
The short answer: Obsidian if you want ownership and endless flexibility; Capacities if you want structure and polish without assembly. A useful tiebreak: Capacities syncs across your devices for free, which is exactly the thing Obsidian makes you pay or tinker for — while Obsidian’s files-on-disk model is exactly the exit hatch Capacities can’t offer.
- Choose Obsidian if you want notes as local files, offline-first reliability, a plugin for every workflow, and zero subscription — and you’re happy shaping your own system rather than adopting one.
- Choose Capacities if you think in typed things — people, books, meetings — and want a beautiful app that files them automatically, syncs free across devices, and needs no configuration to feel complete.
What is Obsidian?
Obsidian stores your notes as plain Markdown files in a folder on your own device — a “vault” you can read with any text editor, back up however you like, and keep forever. On top of those files it layers backlinks, a graph view, a Canvas whiteboard, and Bases (native database views over your notes, added in 2025). The app is completely free, including for commercial use since early 2025.
Its defining feature is the community: roughly two thousand plugins extend it with everything from spaced repetition to Kanban boards to AI integrations. Official add-ons are paid — Sync ($4/month, end-to-end encrypted) keeps vaults identical across devices, and Publish ($8/month) turns notes into a public site. There’s no web app; Obsidian runs as desktop and mobile apps against your local files.
What is Capacities?
Capacities organizes your knowledge by what things are. Instead of files in folders, you create objects — people, books, meetings, projects, quotes — each with its own properties and views, connected through backlinks and daily notes. Browsing by object type (every book you’ve noted, every person you’ve met) falls out of the design for free, and a calendar-centric daily view ties it to your day.
It’s a polished, cloud-based app on web, desktop and mobile, with a generous free core plan; Pro (about $10/month billed annually) adds the AI assistant, calendar sync and advanced queries. In July 2026 it shipped a developer API with OAuth, opening it up to integrations. One deliberate omission to know about: there is no collaboration, and the team has said it isn’t planned — Capacities is intentionally a personal tool.
Obsidian vs Capacities at a glance
| Obsidian | Capacities | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | App free; Sync $4/mo; Publish $8/mo (annual billing) | Pro ~$9.99/mo annual ($11.99 monthly); Believer ~$12.49/mo |
| Free plan | Yes — the entire app, including commercial use | Yes — generous core plan |
| Platforms | Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android — no web app | Web, macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android |
| Storage model | Local-first — plain Markdown files on your device | Cloud (offline support, not local-first) |
| Editing model | Markdown documents with backlinks, Canvas and Bases | Object-based pages with properties, blocks and daily notes |
| Backlinks & wiki links | Yes — [[wiki links]] with backlinks panel | Yes — backlinks between objects |
| Graph view | Yes — 2D graph view | Yes — per-object connection views |
| Search | Full-text; semantic search via community plugins | Full-text; AI search on Pro |
| Web capture | Official web clipper extension | Weblink reader and mobile share |
| Email-in capture | No | No |
| RSS / feeds | Via community plugins | No |
| Team collaboration | Limited — shared Sync vaults, no real-time co-editing | No — explicitly not planned |
| Publishing & sharing | Obsidian Publish ($8/mo) for public note sites | Read-only share links for pages |
| AI assistant access | No official AI; community plugins and MCP servers | Built-in AI assistant (Pro); developer API (OAuth) since 2026 |
| Offline access | Yes — fully offline | Partial |
| Open source | No — proprietary app, open file format | No |
| End-to-end encryption | Yes — Sync is end-to-end encrypted | No |
| Data export | Files are already portable Markdown | Markdown export |
Pricing and features as of mid-2026 — check each product’s site for current details.
New to this category? Start here: choosing a second brain app — every tool on this page, with a pick for each kind of thinker.
Objects vs files — what the structure buys you
Capacities’ object model is its whole thesis: every note has a type, every type has properties and views, and browsing by type — every book you’ve noted, every person you’ve met — falls out for free. Daily notes and a calendar view tie it to your day. The structure is genuinely useful and genuinely opinionated: quick messy capture can feel like ceremony when everything wants to be a typed thing.
Obsidian starts from zero structure and lets you add exactly as much as you want — folders, tags, properties, and since 2025 native Bases views that turn properties into filterable tables, covering much of what object types provide. The difference is defaults: Capacities’ structure is the product working as designed; Obsidian’s is a system you build and maintain. Some people find the first constraining and the second liberating; at least as many find the reverse.
Sync, mobile and everyday polish
This is Capacities’ quiet advantage: sync across web, desktop and mobile is included on the free plan, offline-capable (notes download to each device and merge on reconnect), and zero-configuration. The apps are consistently rated among the most polished in the category, mobile included.
Obsidian’s mobile apps are mature and its desktop experience is excellent — but multi-device life is a decision: official end-to-end-encrypted Sync at $4/month billed annually, or free DIY via iCloud, Syncthing or git with the well-documented fiddliness that entails. If “it just syncs” is high on your list and you don’t want to pay for it, Capacities wins this section outright.
Privacy and ownership — a real asymmetry
Obsidian’s story is simple: plain Markdown files on your disk, no account required, readable by any app forever. Nothing to trust but your own backups.
Capacities is cloud-first, and notably candid about it: the team publishes an explanation of why it is not end-to-end encrypted (encryption in transit and at rest, but the server can read your data). Your notes live in the app, not in user-accessible files, and the exit is a Markdown export in which typed structure flattens. It’s a fine arrangement for most notes — and the wrong one if journals or client material make E2E a hard requirement. For an object-based tool that is E2E-encrypted and local-first, see our Capacities vs Anytype comparison.
Extensibility and AI
Obsidian’s ~2,000 community plugins remain the strongest argument for it: whatever the workflow, someone has built it. AI arrives on your terms — community plugins, filesystem MCP servers over your vault, and an official CLI (February 2026) built with coding agents in mind. There is deliberately no built-in AI.
Capacities has no plugin system, and that’s a design choice — the product is the system. It has been steadily opening up instead: a native AI assistant on Pro, a full REST API with OAuth (API 2.0, 2026), and an official hosted MCP server, developed alongside the API, that connects AI assistants to a chosen space. Tinkerers will still hit walls; the intended experience is that you shouldn’t need to tinker.
Where Obsidian shines
- True data ownership: plain Markdown files on your disk, readable by any app, with no account required and no lock-in.
- The largest plugin ecosystem in the category — if you want a workflow, someone has probably built it.
- Free for personal and commercial use; you only pay for optional Sync or Publish.
- Bases and Canvas add database views and visual thinking without leaving your local vault.
- End-to-end encrypted sync (as a paid add-on) for the privacy-conscious.
Worth knowing: There’s no web app, and multi-device use effectively requires paid Sync or DIY setups. Collaboration is weak — shared vaults exist but there’s no real-time co-editing. Out of the box it’s fairly bare; the power comes from configuring plugins yourself, which is a hobby in its own right. Capturing web content, newsletters or feeds means assembling extensions and plugins rather than anything built in.
Where Capacities shines
- Object types with properties give structure without the rigidity of databases or the chaos of free-form notes.
- One of the most polished, beautiful interfaces in the category, consistent across web, desktop and mobile.
- A genuinely useful free plan, with Pro at a mid-pack price.
- Daily notes plus calendar integration make it a natural journal-of-record.
Worth knowing: No collaboration — explicitly not supported and not planned; sharing is read-only page links. Cloud-first and proprietary, with no local-first storage or end-to-end encryption. Power features like queries sit behind Pro, and the object model can feel like ceremony for quick, messy capture.
Which should you choose?
Choose Obsidian if:
- You want your notes as local files you fully control, independent of any company’s servers.
- You enjoy tinkering and want to assemble a personalized system from plugins.
- You work offline often or in environments where cloud tools are off-limits.
- You want a free tool with no note limits.
Choose Capacities if:
- You think in entities — people, books, meetings — and want your tool to as well.
- Interface polish and aesthetics genuinely affect whether you’ll keep using a tool.
- You’re strictly solo and don’t need sharing or teamwork.
A third option: Dexi
If what draws you to Capacities is notes that organize themselves — but you’d rather structure came from writing than from choosing object types — Dexi takes the lighter path: #tags, @mentions and [[wiki links]] typed inline become the organization, and everything you capture from the web, newsletters or RSS files itself into the same searchable graph. Semantic search finds notes by meaning, and an MCP server lets Claude work with them directly. Web-based like Capacities, free for up to 1,000 notes, and $5/month after.
Frequently asked questions
Is Capacities free?
The core app is genuinely free: unlimited objects and notes, custom object types, sync across devices, offline support and export. The practical ceiling is media — 5 GB total, then 100 MB/month of new uploads. Pro (about $10/month billed annually) adds the AI assistant, tasks, calendar integration, smart queries, unlimited media and API access.
Why isn’t Capacities end-to-end encrypted?
The team documents this openly: Capacities encrypts data in transit and at rest but chose not to implement E2E encryption, trading it for features like full-text search, web access and sync simplicity. If E2E is a hard requirement, look at Obsidian (local files, optionally E2E-encrypted Sync) or Anytype (E2E by default).
Does Capacities work offline?
Yes, within its cloud model: after login, your notes download to each device, edits are stored locally when offline, and everything syncs on reconnect. It isn’t local-first in the Obsidian sense — your data lives in the app and its cloud, not in files you can open elsewhere.
Can Capacities import an Obsidian vault?
Yes — the desktop app bulk-imports Markdown and maps files onto object types. The official docs are refreshingly honest that it isn’t a lossless migration: plugin syntax (Dataview, Templater) isn’t converted, you’ll decide types for imported content, and some links need rebuilding. Going the other way, Capacities exports Markdown but typed properties flatten.
Which is cheaper, Obsidian or Capacities?
For most solo users, Capacities free covers more out of the box (sync included); Obsidian is free but official sync is $4/month billed annually unless you DIY. Paid-for-paid: Capacities Pro is ~$9.99/month billed annually vs Obsidian’s à-la-carte Sync ($4) and Publish ($8). Prices as of August 2026.
Does Capacities have an API or MCP support?
Yes — a full REST developer API with OAuth (API 2.0, 2026, with a TypeScript SDK) and an official hosted MCP server that connects AI assistants like Claude to a selected space. Obsidian’s equivalent is indirect but broad: filesystem MCP servers over the vault, community plugins, and an official CLI aimed at agents.
Collect, connect and search everything you read — free, no credit card required.
Try Dexi free