Compare / Obsidian vs Capacities

Obsidian vs Capacities

Obsidian is a free, local-first Markdown knowledge base with a plugin ecosystem thousands strong; Capacities is an object-based notes studio where every note is a typed thing — a person, a book, a meeting. Here’s how they compare on pricing, platforms, linking, search, capture and collaboration — and how to decide between them.

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

Pricing and features as of mid-2026 — check each product’s site for current details.

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 you actually want is one searchable place for notes, bookmarks, newsletters and RSS — with tags, @mentions and [[wiki links]] that organize themselves as you write, semantic search that finds ideas even when the words don’t match, and an MCP server so Claude and other AI assistants can work with your notes directly — take a look at Dexi. It’s free for up to 1,000 notes, with no app to install.

• Dexi vs Obsidian
• Dexi vs Capacities

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