Rill and Obsidian
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What Obsidian is
Obsidian is a notes app that stores your notes privately on your device, in open file formats. It is shaped with plugins and themes, and it has optional paid services for syncing and publishing.
Who it is for
People who want their notes as files they own, in a setup they shape themselves. Obsidian’s own pages describe personal notes, journaling, knowledge bases and project management.
Obsidian pricing as of October 28, 2026
- The app: free, with no sign-up required. Obsidian’s page says “Free without limits.”
- Sync: $4 per user a month billed annually, or $5 billed monthly. Lists end-to-end encryption, version history and shared vaults.
- Publish: $8 per site a month billed annually, or $10 billed monthly.
- Optional licences: Catalyst, $25 one time (early access to beta versions); Commercial, $50 per user a year. Obsidian says a commercial licence is encouraged, not required.
For comparison, Rill has two plans on the web: Rill Essentials, $2.99 a month, and Rill, $15 a month. What each includes.
Prices change. Read them on Obsidian’s own page: Obsidian: pricing and FAQ.
Being fair
Where Obsidian is stronger
- Your notes live on your device and work offline. Obsidian says no one else can read them, “not even us”.
- Open file formats, so notes are plain files you keep. Obsidian says its apps do not collect telemetry.
- The app is free, and Obsidian Sync is end-to-end encrypted (AES-256, as Obsidian describes it).
- Thousands of plugins and themes to shape it to the way you work.
Where Rill differs
- Asking. In Rill you can ask in plain words and get one answer with numbered sources. The Obsidian pages we read list notes, links, plugins, Sync and Publish; they do not list a built-in assistant, phone line or meeting recorder.
- What it keeps. Photos of receipts, PDFs, Word files and forwarded email are kept and read, not only notes you type.
- Where your notes live. Rill keeps your notes on its servers. Vault notes are encrypted on your device first, with your passphrase. If you want everything to stay on your own device, Obsidian is built for that.
- Moving between them. Rill can bring in an Obsidian vault, and downloads everything as JSON, Markdown and links to your files.
Choose Obsidian if: You want your notes as plain files on your own device, and you are happy to shape the setup yourself.
Rill’s features are the ones on the features page; a line marked Rill plan is part of the Rill plan, not Rill Essentials.
Sources
Last checked
Everything above about Obsidian was read on these pages on the date shown. They may have changed since.
- Obsidian: home — read
- Obsidian: pricing and FAQ — read
Product names are used in plain text only to say which product is meant; they belong to their owners. Rill is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any product named here. What is said about another product comes from that product’s own public pages, linked and dated on the page. Products change: if something here is out of date or wrong, tell us and we will check it.