Cloud storage decision
Obsidian Sync
A small team or engineer can build a basic encrypted file-sync service for Markdown vaults, but reproducing Obsidian Sync’s polished UI, tight app integration, and collaboration experience requires substantially more work and ongoing product polish.
Visit website↗$5/mo
$60/yr
Per seat. Read off the official pricing page.
$100one-off80 h to build
$30/mo8 h/mo upkeep
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 8 seats.
Open-source builds that already do this
Every project below is open source and already does this job today. Fork one, self-host it, or take the parts you need - the build prompt further down assumes an empty file, and this is the shortcut past that. Licences differ; check the one on each card before you ship. All Obsidian Sync alternatives, with the arithmetic →
Code Obsidian Sync publishes itself
Not a way out of the subscription - these are the vendor’s own repositories. Worth a look for how they build, and for anything you would have to integrate with.
- obsidianmd/obsidian-releases★20,595 GitHub starsCommunity plugins list, theme list, and releases of Obsidian.↗
- obsidianmd/obsidian-clipper★4,957 GitHub starsMITHighlight and capture the web in your favorite browser. The official Web Clipper extension for Obsidian.↗
- obsidianmd/obsidian-sample-plugin★4,450 GitHub stars0BSDTemplate for Obsidian community plugins with build configuration and development best practices.↗
- obsidianmd/jsoncanvas★3,641 GitHub starsMITAn open file format for infinite canvas data.↗
What a replacement has to do
- Keep a Markdown vault in sync between devices with client-side encryption and per-file version history + basic sharing of vaults.
What it still won’t have
- Tight integration with Obsidian desktop/mobile app and plugin ecosystem
- Official selective-sync UI and per-file preference controls
- Obsidian-hosted version history UI and priority support
- Polish around shared vault invitations and collaboration workflow
What remains hard
- Product polish and ongoing maintenance
First-year cost
Keep paying
Paying is—cheaper in year one.
On cash alone, building overtakes the subscription at 8 seats.
Money you would actually spend
Time you would spend
—
What you would spend
What we assumed
The verdict above measures whether you could build it. This one is only about money.
Runnable build prompt
Build a minimal Obsidian-compatible sync service using Node.js (Electron clients can be omitted): 1) implement a cross-platform file watcher and CLI client in Node that uploads changed Markdown files to an S3-compatible backend; 2) implement client-side AES‑256 encryption of file contents and metadata before upload and decryption on download; 3) store each upload as an immutable blob and record version metadata in Postgres; 4) implement a small HTTP API (Express) to list vault files, versions, and to fetch blobs; 5) implement a simple email-invite based shared-vault ACL in the API; 6) provide conflict detection and a basic web UI to view/restore versions and resolve conflicts. Out of scope: mobile native apps, plugin integrations, rich selective-sync UI, and an Obsidian plugin — but design the API so an Obsidian plugin could be written later. Include error handling, input validation, and unit tests for core modules.
How we checked
How the score was reached
- Partly verdict base52
- An open-source build was found+5
- 4 cited sources+3
- Price verified on pricing page+3
- 3/3 assessment runs agreed+4
- Evidence score67
The base comes from the verdict. Everything under it is a check that either happened or did not, and each one is a fact frozen in this record rather than a judgement made at render time - so the same evidence always produces the same number.
How scoring works →Cited sources · 4
Every page the run actually retrieved.
- official productObsidian — product
- official pricingObsidian — pricing
- open sourcelaurent22/joplin
- open sourcehaiwen/seafile
Integrity checks
What held up, and what did not.
