There are two types of AI note-takers. One transcribes, summarizes, and records online meetings, while the other helps with personal note-taking. Try not to mix these, as they are completely different categories of AI tools and work in different cases.

If this is your first time meeting these tools, it is normal that you are still unsure of them. You will get all the answers below.

In this guide, I ranked and reviewed the eight best AI note-taking apps for online meetings and personal notes to help you select the one that suits your needs.

Let’s get started.

Best for meetings

tl;dv

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• Records, transcribes, and summarizes video calls in more than 30 languages
• Offers a place where you can organize your meeting notes and recordings.
• The free plan includes unlimited recordings and transcripts

Go to site

Best personal note-taker

Notion

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• An all-in workspace for notes, projects, knowledge bases, and documents
• Its feature-rich free plan includes multiple tools you can use in many workflows.
• It easily replaces ChatGPT, Grammarly, and productivity apps

Go to site

Best for team notes

Taskade

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• Several templates, from a digital bullet journal to weekly goals
• Real-time collaboration on notes and tasks
• The strong task and project management features also make it an ideal tool for small teams

Go to site

What is an AI note-taker?

An AI note-taking app refers to a tool that uses artificial intelligence to perform specific tasks  In essence, there are two primary use cases for employing AI note-taking apps. The first relates to using AI note-taking apps for meeting notes and creating summaries, while the second pertains to enhancing personal note-taking experiences.

AI note-taker for online meetings (AI meeting assistant)

AI note-taking apps are seamlessly integrated with your meeting and video conferencing platforms so that they can join and transcribe conversations during meetings. This category of AI note-taking apps is often referred to as AI meeting assistants or AI meeting managers.

These note-taking tools leverage natural language processing and other speaker identification and recognition technologies to understand what was discussed during a virtual meeting. Essentially, they give a speaker ID for each meeting participant so you can track who said what in the meeting notes.

In general, AI note-takers can help you with the following tasks:

• It provides you with real-time transcription during a call.
• Once the meeting is over, it will send you meeting recaps that include the call’s crucial points.
• You can easily upload audio files, video, or webinar recordings and convert them into text.
• An AI note-taker has coaching tools that analyze online meetings and provide insights about speakers, topics, talk rate, sentiment, and punctuality.
• Some AI note-takers have collaboration features, so you can assign tasks, share files, or edit the same meeting note simultaneously.
• The past meetings are easily searchable and editable.
• You can integrate the AI note-taking apps with numerous other third-party apps. 

AI-note taker for personal note-taking

The other type of AI note-takers are those you use for manual note-taking. You can deploy AI note-taking apps for many purposes, including summarizing notes, brainstorming ideas, creating drafts, and much more.

These AI tools have diverse features to boost productivity, and you can implement them in many workflows. In a nutshell, they help you stay organized and productive.

How to choose the best AI note-taking app?

Ultimately, whether you choose to leverage AI note-taking apps for meeting-related tasks or personal note-taking purposes depends on your specific needs and which aspects of note-taking you aim to enhance and delegate to AI technology.

Choosing the best AI note-taking app for meetings

If you are looking for AI note-taking tools for meetings, you should consider some essential aspects:

• Meeting platform: Most AI note-taking apps are compatible with popular video conferencing tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Google Meet. However, if you use other video conferencing tools, you should pay extra attention when choosing an AI note-taking app.
• Language: All AI note-taking apps support English. If you use other languages, you need to check the languages supported.
• Feature: AI note-taking tools have many valuable features and integration options with CRM or other tools. Consider what additional features you might take advantage of.
• Purpose: Various AI meeting assistants are designed for a specific purpose. While some excel at enhancing internal meetings, others are better suited for sales meetings.
• Pricing: Many AI note-taking tools have a free plan, and you can use the basic features for free. The main difference between the free and paid plans is the features, available transcription minutes, and audio or transcript storage capacity.

Choosing the best AI tool to take better notes

Finding the best AI tool for personal note-taking is relatively easy compared to AI meeting assistants. You just need to focus on the features or maybe integrations, not consider factors like meeting platforms or languages.

If you want to select the best AI note-taking app for personal note-taking, you should check these points:

• AI assistant: You can use most AI note-taking apps to create, edit, or summarize notes. While some help you create a mind map, using others will allow you to generate to-do lists, lengthy documents, or a knowledge base.
• Spelling and grammar checker: Some AI tools can correct spelling and grammar errors, so you do not need additional tools like Grammarly.
• Enhanced searching functions: Some AI note-taking apps feature enhanced searching. By leveraging natural language processing, these apps can locate relevant notes based on the context of your query.
• Collaboration features: Some AI note-taking apps have incorporated enhanced collaboration functionalities. For example, Mem allows multiple users to simultaneously work on the same notes.
• Integrations: Take a look at the integrations and how easily you can implement them into your daily workflows.

Best AI note-taking apps for meetings

Let’s dive into the best AI note-taking apps for meetings.

tl;dv

Best free option for automatic meeting notes

Tl dv, or “too long; didn’t view,” is a free AI note-taker that automatically records and transcribes Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Zoom meetings in over 30 languages. It is one of the most popular AI note-takers, with a user base of more than half a million users, and provides many valuable features.

Tl dv records transcribes and summarizes Microsoft Teams, Zoom or Google Meet meetings. What makes tl dv special is its simplicity and feature-rich free plan.

Unlike most other AI assistants, tl dv only starts recording the meeting once you click the button. So, you can choose which meetings you want to record, and tl dv will not automatically join these meetings.

Tl dv is tailored for those seeking a simple, free, straightforward note-taking solution.

Key Features:

• It records, transcribes, and summarizes audio and video meetings in more than 30 languages.
• Tl dv can create clips or reels so you can share these moments with others.
• AI-generated takeaways automatically summarize the parts you pinpoint during a meeting.
• Tl dv allows you to play the meeting recording at 1.5 or 2x speed.
• You can organize your meeting notes using folders and easily find the recording or AI summary that you are looking for.
• Tl dv can create clips, and you can share these moments with others.

User Experience:

Tl dv provides highly accurate transcripts regardless of which language you use. The meeting summaries have a clear overview so you can easily find the key points.

With many features in the free plan, Tl dv is an excellent choice for people seeking a cost-effective, simple solution.

Pricing:

• Free plan: Available
• Pro plan: $18/month per user
• Business plan: $29/month per user
• Enterprise plan: Contact sales

Pros and cons of tl;dv:

Pros

• Solid basic functions.
• Generous free plan, which includes unlimited recordings and transcripts.
• Able to transcribe meetings in more than 30 languages with high accuracy.
• Allow you to accelerate the playback speed of your meeting recordings.
• Straightforward solution for note taking.

Cons

• Still has some minor bugs.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of tl;dv

You get a 30% discount for the first six months using the link below.

Laxis

Best AI note-taking app for sales teams

Laxis is an AI-powered meeting assistant that not only records and transcribes meetings but also provides deep insights and actionable summaries. It works on Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams. Laxis is designed to help professionals follow up fast and unlock insights effortlessly from customer conversations, making it perfect for revenue teams and business professionals who value productivity and precision.

Laxis empowers you to quickly share meeting takeaways with your team and streamline your workflows. It’s trusted by over 35,000 professionals from 3,000 organizations, making it a leading choice for teams looking to leverage AI in their everyday meetings.

Key Features:

• Automatically transcribes meetings and audio recordings in real time.
• Structured summaries highlight key points, decisions, and follow-up actions, which can be edited or shared with the team.
• Provides AI-powered insights into customer conversations, helping teams improve their performance and engagement.
• Capture and share important moments from meetings with ease.
• Organize and search past meetings for easy access to critical discussions.
• Laxis connects with tools like Salesforce, making it easier to manage customer interactions and data.

User Experience:

Laxis offers an intuitive, user-friendly interface that’s constantly updated to meet the needs of professionals. With its focus on delivering actionable insights, Laxis makes it easier for teams to stay on top of their meetings and customer interactions.

Pricing:

• Free plan
• Pro: $13.33/month per user
• Business: $24.99/month per user
• Enterprise: Custom pricing

Pros and cons of Laxis:

Pros:

• Excellent meeting insights and summaries.
• Highly intuitive platform with powerful integration options.
• Supports multiple languages.
• Responsive customer support.

Cons:

• Advanced features like analysis may require higher-tier plans.

Fireflies AI

Best AI meeting assistant for teams

Fireflies AI is a powerful note-taking tool ideal for teams. It is the most versatile app on the market, as it can take notes during online meetings at Zoom, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Blue Jeans, Skype, Dialpad, Webex, Lifesize, and GoToMeeting. Moreover, it supports over 100 languages.

The wide range of integrations, accurate meeting notes, and versatility make Fireflies AI an outstanding option in the AI note-taker market.

Key Features:

• Transcribe and record conversations from both audio and video meetings or files.
• It provides insights about speakers, topics, and sentiments.
• AI-powered search capabilities allow you to search through your meeting notes easily.
• You can leave comments and pins at different parts of calls.
• It can be integrated with multiple tools, making it a versatile and useful addition to your workflow.
• Fireflies AI supports live transcription in 100+ different languages. 
• It has an AI chat feature that helps you quickly find specific details in the meeting notes.

User Experience:

Fireflies AI stands out as a user-friendly note-taking tool with a strong emphasis on team collaboration. It is ideal for remote and agile teams.

Pricing:

• Free plan
• Pro: $10/month per user
• Business: $19/month per user
• Enterprise: $39/month per user

Pros and cons of Fireflies AI:

Pros

• Enhanced collaboration features.
• It is a budget-friendly option for teams. 
• Highly accurate transcription tool.
• Wide range of language support.
• Extensive integrations with many meeting platforms, project management tools, CRM systems, and more.
• Advanced search capabilities.
• It is a great option for sales, marketing and customer success teams.
• The conversation intelligence feature offers access to meeting insights, which can be crucial for coaching and improving meeting performance.

Cons

• If you have back-to-back meetings in different languages, you need to manually switch to the next call’s language before joining.
• Fireflies may encounter difficulties in accurately transcribing accents on occasion.
• Even with the Pro plan, Fireflies provides limited storage capacity.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of Fireflies AI

MeetGeek

An excellent AI note-taker for teams and individuals as well

MeetGeek is an AI meeting assistant that simplifies the process of recording, transcribing, summarizing, and delivering key points from each meeting. After an online meeting, MeetGeek makes it easy for you to share detailed meeting notes and transcription with your team.

Its well-structured automated summaries and meeting insights features set MeetGeek apart from other AI meeting assistants. Thanks to its AI summaries, you can quickly find the topics discussed in your meeting in seconds without reviewing the entire meeting transcripts. The meeting insights feature analyzes your meetings based on several indicators: talk rate, sentiment, punctuality, and participant involvement.

You can integrate MeetGeek with CRM systems, project management tools, and Google Drive, which helps you focus on video calls rather than endless admin work.

Key Features:

• MeetGeek offers the best AI summaries, which effectively collect main points and action items.
• You can upload audio files, video, or webinar recordings and convert them into text.
• The past meetings are easily searchable and editable.
• You can create and share highlights of the AI meeting notes.
• MeetGeek analyzes operational meeting data based on multiple factors so you can improve your performance over time.
• You can connect MeetGeek to HubSpot, Pipedrive, and Salesforce.
• Simply cc your colleagues on the meeting invite, and they will automatically receive a meeting summary.

User Experience:

MeetGeek has an easy-to-use platform with a user-friendly user interface, so you can effortlessly navigate and utilize its functionalities. Plus, they are constantly enhancing and updating the platform, ensuring it stays at the top of its game.

If you are looking for a comprehensive and effective tool, MeetGeek is one of the top choices.

Pricing:

• Free plan
• Pro: $9.99/month per user
• Business: $17/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Pros and cons of MeetGeek:

Pros:

• Well-structured AI summaries and real-time transcriptions.
• MeetGeek supports multiple languages in addition to English.
• Provides insights and takeaways from meetings.
• If you choose the business plan, you can try MeetGeek for free for 14 days.
• Responsive customer support.
• You can connect multiple popular tools to MeetGeek.
• You can quickly share meeting notes with others.

Cons:

• It offers only one year of transcript storage if you choose the Pro plan.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of MeetGeek

Best AI tools for personal note-taking

Now, let’s explore the best AI note-taking apps designed for personal note-taking and editing.

Notion AI

Best AI Tool For Personal Note Taking And Editing

Notion AI is more than just another AI note-taking tool. Given the extensive range of AI capabilities, you can use Notion for many workflows, including note-taking, generating text, summaries, documents, to-do lists, fixing your spelling, and much more.

In a nutshell, Notion is a versatile AI tool that seamlessly integrates into all your workflows, significantly boosting your overall productivity. It stands out as the top choice if you aim to elevate your note-taking and supercharge your efficiency.

Key Features:

• The AI assistant feature can improve your writing, make it shorter or longer, and summarize the notes.
• You can create as many pages as you want with your team members.
• Notion detects errors in your writing and corrects misspelled words and incorrect grammar.
• You can organize your tasks, projects, and thoughts in one place.
• Free templates for creating to-do lists, meeting summaries, investor updates, recruiting trackers, etc.
• You can translate the written content into another language.
• Allows integration with Slack, GitHub, and more.

User Experience:

Notion AI is an easy-to-use AI tool with a user-friendly interface. You will quickly locate all the features you need without any hassle.

Pricing:

• Free plan: Available
• Plus: $10/month per user
• Business: $20/month per user
• Enterprise: Contact for pricing

Pros and cons of Notion AI:

Pros:

• Easy-to-understand buttons and intuitive menus.
• Notion replaces multiple applications such as ChatGPT and Grammary.
• It provides templates for various teams, including IT, product development, and recruitment.
• It is a centralized workspace where you can organize documents, meeting notes, tasks, and projects.
• Notion’s AI assistant feature can enhance your meeting notes, summaries, and text documents, elevating their quality and improving your writing.

Cons:

• If you use a free plan workspace with several members, you can add a limited number of blocks if you do not want to upgrade.

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of Notion

Taskade

Taskade is an excellent tool for managing notes, mindmaps, and tasks in a single place. Using Taskade, you can effectively create and review your and your team’s weekly tasks. You can assign tasks to others, give due dates, upload files, or just give your feedback.

Notion has many templates, but Taskade took it to the next level. There is a template for everything, whether it is related to work or personal life. Utilizing these templates can save time and effort, so you can focus on planning and execution instead of creating an organizational chart or to-do list.

Taskade is particularly well-suited for remote or small teams prioritizing daily collaboration and managing numerous ongoing projects.

Key Features:

• Taskade has numerous templates for every possible scenario.
• You can instantly generate summaries, task lists, mind maps, review lists, and custom workflows.
• It has an AI chatbot to generate task list notes, summarize text, or write content.
• You can assign tasks and due dates to team members.
• Taskade has artificial intelligence-powered email writing functions to express yourself clearly and professionally and help you keep yourself organized.

User Experience:

The user interface is very clean and simple, so you can easily find what you need. With just a few clicks, you can create tasks, set deadlines, and assign them to team members.

Pricing:

• Free plan: Available
• Starter plan: $6 per month/user
• Pro plan: $16 per month/user
• Business plan: $40 per month/user
• Enterprise plan: Custom pricing

Pros and cons of Taskade:

Pros:

Cons:

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of Taskade

Reflect

Reflect is a note-taking tool designed to help you prepare better notes. You can create article outlines and list key points, and Reflect gives you a hand in writing notes by fixing your grammar and spelling.

Reflect captures voice conversations through a technology called Whisper. You can record through the Reflect app, and this feature provides highly accurate AI notes. Ultimately, Reflect is a simple, reliable, and secure AI-based tool for writing notes and finding one place for all your notes.

Key Features:

• Reflect summarizes articles, improves writing, writes notes, emails, tweets, or suggests article titles.
• You can integrate your calendars with Reflect to keep track of meetings.
• Reflect has end-to-end encryption technology, so you can only access your notes.
• Easy searching functions based on project, date, and people involved.
• It is integrated with mobile or desktop, and the AI notes are synced in real-time.
• You can save your own prompts.

User Experience:

Reflect is a fast, easy-to-use platform with useful AI features. Its features allow you to write down thoughts at any time and keep them organized.

Pricing:

• Paid plan: $10/month per user

Pros and cons of Reflect:

Pros:

• The search works well, and you can quickly locate all your notes.
• It is a fast, reliable, and simple tool you can use online and offline.
• Thanks to the end-to-end encryption, your notes are safe.
• Continuous AI feature improvement by the developer team.

Cons:

• No free plan is available.

Mem

Mem is a fantastic tool for streamlining your note-taking process and increasing your productivity. Its simplicity and AI features make it one of the best AI note-taking tools.

One of its outstanding AI features is the enhanced search functions, making finding key points or relevant information easy. Mem also has an AI-powered personal assistant feature that you can use for questions, topic discussion, or content generation based on your own notes.

Key Features:

• Mem allows you to use tags to categorize and find your notes in one place.
• When setting up Mem, you can integrate your notes from other note-taking apps like Notion.
• It has robust search functions, so you can easily find key points from past notes.
• Its AI assistant feature enables you to ask questions or create content using your notes.
• Mem offers team collaboration features to make teamwork easier.

User Experience:

Mem has a straightforward and user-friendly interface, yet I and other users have encountered minor glitches.

Pricing:

• Free plan: Available
• Paid version: $8.33 per month 
• Mem Teams: Contact for pricing

Pros and cons of Mem:

Pros:

• You can integrate your notes from other tools.
• Simple user interface.
• Searching works fine most of the time.

Cons:

• It still has bugs.
• There is plenty of room for improvement in terms of the overall mobile experience.

Wrap-up

While it is a good thing that there are many AI note-takers, it makes it challenging to find the one that suits you the best. I hope this guide gave you some context about which AI note-taking app fits your situation and helps you boost your and your team’s productivity.

Why you can trust our reviews

At thebusinessdive.com, our team tests, reviews, and compares hundreds of productivity apps every year — from project management tools to note-taking apps. We dive deep into real-world use cases to help you find the right tools that actually improve your workflow, not just add noise.

Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.

Discover how we stay transparent, read our review methodology, and let us know about any tools we missed.

Disclosure: I only recommend products I would use myself, and all opinions expressed here are our own. This post may contain affiliate links that, at no additional cost to you, I may earn a small commission. Read the full privacy policy here.

Aron Kantor

Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!

thebusinessdive.com

The post 8 Best AI Note-Taking Apps to Boost Your Productivity (2026) appeared first on .

n this Obsidian review, I will guide you through the key features, pricing, user interface, my thoughts, and the pros and cons of this note-taking app.

Let’s dive in!

Verdict

Here’s the quick verdict if you don’t want to read the full review:

Tested with our review & scoring methodology Real-world testing Unbiased evaluation

How We Test Note-Taking Apps

To keep our reviews & final score for each note-taking app fair and transparent, we evaluate every tool using the same testing framework based on real-world usage, feature depth, and overall value.

Our scoring breakdown after testing 10+ note-taking apps:

Want a detailed breakdown of how we test each category?

Learn exactly how we test tools → Review methodology

Short on time? Here’s a quick overview of Obsidian

What is Obsidian?

Obsidian is a powerful note-taking application that has grown fast over the last few years. It has a local first approach, meaning your files are stored locally, and only you can access your notes.

Besides using Obsidian on your PC (Mac, Windows, and Linux), you can access your notes from mobile devices, including IOS and Android. However, you need to have a paid plan to sync notes on multiple devices. But I will talk about this later.

When it comes to taking notes, Obsidian uses markdown language. So, when you create paragraphs, Obsidian uses a blank line to separate blocks of text. This way, all your blocks will be separated by a blank line and treated as a distinct paragraph.

Nevertheless, using markdown files has additional advantages. Essentially, markdown files are widely supported, and you can transfer these files to other note-taking apps if you want to switch from Obsidian in the future. This way, you can own your data and notes, no matter which note-taking app you use.

Also, one thing to consider is the regular updates. Obsidian’s team continuously develops this note-taking app, so it will just get better in the future. This is one of the reasons why many people have moved from Evernote to Obisidan in recent years.

What I learned using Obsidian for my notes over time

Obsidian is one of the most powerful note-taking apps on the market. Thanks to the plugins, it offers a comprehensive feature set compared to many note-taking apps.

As a notes app, I think it is definitely among the best. It helps you organize and visualize your notes in a way that other apps cannot. Also, you can access all the features with the free version, which is great.

While it has a learning curve, compared to Anytype, you can learn the functions of this note-taking app significantly faster, and it offers similar advanced features.

On the other hand, Obsidian is ideal for personal use only, as it lacks collaboration features. That said, compared to Notion, Obsidian is limited to note-taking and was not designed for teams.

Moreover, the front end of Obsidian needs some development. The UI of the Obsidian app seems old-fashioned in my opinion.

Why Obsidian didn’t score higher (and where it loses points)

Obsidian reached 4.1 thanks to its advanced note-taking & knowledge management capabilities. It also delivered impressive performance, and its free plan is impressive.

Since we take team features into account when establishing our final score for note-taking apps, we could not make an exception for Obisidan. That said, it received low scores for team features and task and workflow management.

When to choose Obsidian

When you should skip Obsidian

Obsidian’s key features

In this part of the Obsidian review, I will show you the key features of this note-taking app!

Obsidian Vault

The Obsidian Vault is a folder that contains your notes, attachments, and data. When creating a vault, you can choose end-to-end encryption that offers the strongest security. However, if you choose end-to-end encryption for your vault, safely store your encryption password, as you cannot enter your vault without it.

You can create more vaults and customize them with different themes. If you go to appearances, there are over 160 themes created by the community that you can install and use right away.

It is great that Obsidian offers these customization options so you can personalize your vaults.

Note-taking app

As mentioned before, Obsidian uses markdown language when writing your notes. To create paragraphs, just insert a blank line to separate your paragraphs. If you press Enter, it will create a new line in your note, and it will be treated as a continuation of the same paragraph in the rendered output.

Also, you can change the size of your fonts under the Appearance option in settings even if you use Obsidian on mobile devices.

You can create tags, which help you organize and find your notes more easily. Just enter a hash symbol (#), and you can choose from your tags.

When taking notes, Obsidian allows you to use attachments, such as images, audio files, or PDFs. You can access these files using your files system. Moreover, you can embed web pages as well. To embed a web page, you have to use the iframe.

Ultimately, you can create notes easily with Obsidian, and the way they work makes them ideal for creating your personal knowledge management center or second brain.

Bidirectional links

The internal links are one of the best features I discovered during my Obsidian review. Unlike tools like Evernote or Xtiles, which focus more on organizing notes into notebooks or boards, Obsidian is built around connecting ideas. Using this feature, you can link notes to each other and create a more connected system inside your vault.

To link notes, just type “[[” in Obsidian and then choose the file to which you want to create a link. Another way to add a link is to select the Command palette and then choose the option of “add an internal link.”

So, it is quite simple to connect your notes. And the real power of the internal links comes with the graph view.

Graph view

The graph view is perfect for visualizing the relations between your data. Using the graph view makes it easy to create your personal knowledge base, as you can see how your ideas are connected to each other.

You can easily zoom in and out using the scroll wheel on your mouse. What is especially valuable are the filter options. Obsidian’s graph view allows you to filter your notes based on search terms.

Overall, it works like a knowledge graph view, and you can see how your notes are connected.

Canvas view

One of the features I recommend you to try is the canvas view. It offers an excellent tool for visual note-taking.

This function lets you choose from visual aspects, such as size and position, to make sense of your notes. With the canvas, you can connect notes with lines and group multiple notes together to better understand their relationship.

Plugins

With the plugins, you can customize your vault and access many advanced features. There are two types of plugins.

The Obsidian core plugins switch on and off features you do and do not like. For instance, you can switch off the graph view if you do not use it.

When it comes to the community plugins, you can choose from more than 2,000 plugins. The community plugins allow you to access more features like creating Excel-like tables or even a language translator.

To access the community plugins, open settings, select the turn on community plugins, and install the ones you like.

Now, let’s see Obsidian’s integrations!

Obsidian’s integrations

Using the plugins, you can integrate Obsidian with other third-party apps like Todoist, Trello, or Toggl Track. The number of integrations is quite limited, but at least some popular tools are among them.

You can see the full list of integrations here.

Obsidian’s pricing

One of the best things I found during my Obsidian review is the pricing. If you use Obsidian for personal use, it is 100% free.

The free version for personal use includes all the features, themes, plugins, APIs, and community support. The free version is quite generous, as there are no limitations on which features you can use.

However, if you want Obsidian for commercial use, you need to buy the commercial use license, which is $50 per year. Commercial purposes mean using Obsidian for revenue-generating or work-related activities within a for‑profit organization with two or more employees. However, before deciding to purchase Obsidian, you have 14 days of free trial.

To upgrade your Obsidian experience and security, you can buy add-ons. You need to purchase the add-on services separately for commercial and free users.

The Obsidian Sync add-on allows you to synchronize your notes across multiple devices and offers end-to-end encryption, version history options, and priority email support. It is $4 per user per month.

The Obsidian Publish add-on is $8 per month per site. With this add-on, you can publish notes to the web, and it offers graph view and priority email support.

Finally, you can access the beta versions of Obsidian and VIP badges for a one-time payment of over $25. With this, you can support Obsidian and get early access to the beta versions.

Obsidian’s user interface

Let’s say that Obsidian’s user interface is not pretty. It is similar to Apple Notes’ user interface, but somehow, I feel like Obsidian’s UI is a little bit clunky. If you do not like its user interface, try the dark theme, as it seems better.

You can also choose different themes from the community plugins. Many users recommended the Minimal theme, so you can give it a try.

Obsidian’s pros and cons

Let’s see the pros and cons I discovered during my Obsidian review!

Obsidian’s pros

First, Obsidian is a safe note-taking app that allows you to store sensitive data thanks to its high-security standards. This is particularly true if you purchase the Obsidian sync add-on, so you can protect your data with end-to-end encryption.

Furthermore, Obsidian’s free version is excellent. It includes all the features you need to manage and organize your notes effectively.

In addition, there are regular updates, so I expect more features and plugins in the future.

Moreover, I enjoyed using the graph view and bidirectional links to visualize the relations between my notes.

Finally, utilizing markdown files is practical if you want to switch to other note-taking apps eventually.

Obsidian’s cons

When it comes to the cons of Obsidian, it is easy to see that it is quite a complex app with a huge learning curve. So, it will take time to learn how to use Obsidian.

Another problem for me is the lack of collaboration features. Basically, you can use this note-taking app only for personal knowledge management. Therefore, I do not see it as a best fit note-taking app for teams.

Lastly, while it is safer to store your data locally, some people just want to use a web version. However, you can not make such a decision in the case of Obsidian, as you are forced to download it to your devices.

Editor’s pick for the best Obsidian alternative

If you use MacOS and iOS, you definitely need to check out Elephas. It is an AI-powered assistant that helps you to create a smart knowledge base. Elephas supports 20+ file formats, from DocX, PDFs, Images, URLs, Audio files, and Web pages to YouTube videos. 

This way, you can store everything, including projects, clients, etc., and organize them into safe spaces. Thanks to its AI features, you can interact smoothly and effectively with this data, and it works like a personal ChatGPT that works from the uploaded files. 

With Elephas, you can ask questions about the uploaded files and gain insights from your data. Whenever it provides you with an answer, it uses references from your own data, so you can ensure it is 100% relevant to you.

Ultimately, Elephas helps you turn this fragmented information into actionable steps and offers a great knowledge management solution for MacOS and iOS users. 

Other Obsidian alternatives

Here are some of the best alternatives to Obsidian:

Compare Obsidian vs alternatives

Evernote VS Obsidian

Evernote vs Obsidian

Obsidian VS Anytype

Obsidian vs Anytype

Obsidian VS Xtiles

Obsidian vs Xtiles

Obsidian VS Coda

Obsidian vs Coda

Final thoughts: Obsidian review

Overall, it is safe to say that after my Obsidian review, this app is worth a try. It has a fantastic free plan, so you can just give it a try.

For personal use, it is a great note-taking app with a comprehensive feature set. While it is a complex app with a long learning curve, it offers many possibilities to organize and visualize your notes. And most importantly, you can do it safely.

Nonetheless, if you are looking for a note-taking app for your team, Obsidian is not an ideal choice due to the lack of collaboration features. Therefore, I do not recommend Obsidian for project management.

Related articles:

• Notion Vs Obsidian: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
• Obsidian vs Anytype: Side-by-Side Comparison (2026)
• Evernote vs Obsidian: A REAL Comparison With No Fluff (2026)
• Best 6 OneNote Alternatives In 2026 | 100+ Personally Tested Tools

Why you can trust our reviews

At thebusinessdive.com, our team tests, reviews, and compares hundreds of productivity apps every year — from project management tools to note-taking apps. We dive deep into real-world use cases to help you find the right tools that actually improve your workflow, not just add noise.

Our mission? No fluff, no shortcuts—just honest, hands-on insights from productivity pros.

Discover how we stay transparent, read our review methodology, and let us know about any tools we missed.

Frequently asked questions

Is Obsidian actually useful?

Obsidian is a valuable note-taking app that helps you organize your notes and create a personal knowledge base. It offers a platform where you can safely store and organize your data.

Is Obsidian paid worth it?

I think both Obsidian Sync and Publish are worth it. The Obsidian sync is especially a useful add-on, as it allows you to access your vault on multiple devices and uses end-to-end encryption.

What are the negatives of Obsidian?

First, Obsidian is a little bit clunky, so do not expect a visually appealing experience. Secondly, Obsidian lacks collaboration features, so it is only ideal for personal use. Lastly, there is no web version for Obsidian.

Aron Kantor

Hey there! I am Aron, the founder of Thebusinessdive. I have been testing productivity apps for almost three years now. I reach 25.000 -50.000 people monthly with the mission to help you find the perfect productivity apps. Subscribe to my YouTube channel, newsletter, and social media to hear more about the best productivity tools. Let’s dive in!

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