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Obsidian is a local-first knowledge workspace for notes, research, writing, personal knowledge management, project tracking, documentation, journaling, and linked thinking. A vault is an ordinary folder on the user's device, and most written content is stored as plain-text Markdown. This gives users direct access to their files, makes backups and migration more practical, and reduces dependence on one hosted database. Obsidian can create internal links between notes, show backlinks, visualise connections in Graph view, organise structured metadata through Properties, and arrange notes, files, links, images, and cards on Canvas. Bases is a core plugin that creates database-like table, list, card, and map views over local Markdown files and their properties. Filters, sorting, grouping, formulas, and calculated properties can turn one vault into a reading database, content calendar, CRM-like system, project tracker, or research catalogue without moving the underlying notes into a proprietary cloud database. The official Web Clipper captures pages and highlights into a vault through custom templates. Its optional Interpreter can send selected page context and prompts to a user-chosen language model, including local models through Ollama, but this AI processing is not an included Obsidian model service. Users supply the provider, API key, model, terms, privacy exposure, and usage cost. Most other AI features associated with Obsidian also come from community plugins rather than the core app. Community plugins can add semantic search, chat, writing assistance, task systems, calendars, publishing workflows, Git backups, reference management, and model connections, but they execute third-party code with meaningful access to the vault and potentially the network. Obsidian's Restricted Mode disables community plugins, and every plugin, model provider, API key, permission, update, and data flow should be assessed before sensitive vaults are exposed. The official app is free for personal, commercial, nonprofit, education, and government use. No account is required to download or use the core desktop and mobile apps, and the Commercial licence became optional in February 2025. Paid services are add-ons rather than feature gates for the core editor. Sync Standard costs $4 per user per month when billed annually or $5 monthly, with one synced vault, 1 GB storage, a 5 MB maximum file size, and one month of version history. Sync Plus costs $8 annually or $10 monthly, with ten synced vaults, 10 GB storage, a 200 MB maximum file size, and twelve months of version history. Publish costs $8 per site per month annually or $10 monthly and hosts up to 4 GB with custom domains, themes, search, backlinks, graphs, password protection, and optional analytics. Catalyst is a $25 one-time supporter licence with beta access and community benefits. Commercial is an optional $50 per-user annual supporter licence, not a requirement for work use. Obsidian stores normal vault data locally and says the core apps collect no telemetry. Obsidian Sync uses AES-256 end-to-end encryption, including file names, and has been independently audited. Local-first does not automatically mean risk-free: device security, local backups, cloud-folder settings, embedded websites, plugins, themes, external model providers, file permissions, and shared vault membership can all change the privacy boundary. Sync is not a substitute for an independent backup, collaborative editing is file-based rather than a Google Docs-style simultaneous cursor experience, and Markdown portability does not guarantee that plugin-specific behaviour, Canvas files, Bases views, themes, or custom automation will work identically in another application. Obsidian 1.12 added an official command line interface for scripting, automation, Bases queries, file operations, search, tasks, properties, Sync, Publish, plugins, and developer workflows, but it normally controls a running Obsidian app. Obsidian is best for people and teams that value file ownership, offline access, linked knowledge, extensive customisation, and a workspace that can evolve with them. It is less suitable for buyers that want a zero-setup hosted collaboration suite, turnkey enterprise administration, built-in audited AI with one predictable price, or identical editing behaviour across every plugin and device. The real cost is often configuration, plugin review, maintenance, workflow design, backups, and governance rather than the core app subscription.

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