Of everyone on this list, Obsidian is the closest philosophical relative to WIP Notes. Both keep your notes on your machine by default. Both reject the idea that a notes app needs a cloud account to be worth using. If you care about local-first as a principle, Obsidian already earned that trust — this isn't a page about convincing you otherwise.
Obsidian builds a second brain. WIP Notes is a workbench for one project at a time.
Obsidian's whole design is oriented around linked knowledge — hundreds or thousands of atomic notes, connected by backlinks, explored through a graph view, extended by a huge plugin ecosystem. It's built for people who want to think in networks. WIP Notes has none of that, on purpose. It's a focused workspace for the project you're actively doing right now — Note Pads instead of a vault, groups instead of a graph, zero plugins to configure.
| WIP Notes | Obsidian | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $27 one-time (5 Macs) | Free (personal use) |
| Optional paid add-ons | None | Sync ~$4/mo, Publish ~$8/mo — both optional, core app is fully free to use, including commercially |
| Storage | Local SQLite database | Local markdown files (a "vault") |
| Cloud / account | None — zero network requests | None for core app; optional paid Sync |
| Built for | Focused, single-project active work | Networked knowledge — linked notes, graph view |
| Organization | Note Pads, groups, color labels | Folders, tags, backlinks, graph view |
| Extensibility | None — fixed, curated feature set | Large community plugin ecosystem |
| Setup / learning curve | Zero — open it and start writing | Higher — plugins, vault structure, linking conventions |
| AI integration | Built-in first-party MCP server | Community AI plugins (third-party, varies) |
| Platform | macOS 14+ only | Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android |
Plenty of people use both. Obsidian as the long-term knowledge base, WIP Notes as the workbench for whatever's active right now. They're not fighting for the same job, and being local-first doesn't require you to pick just one.
The core Obsidian app is free — including for commercial and organizational use, at any company size, as of a 2025 policy change. Optional paid add-ons include Obsidian Sync (roughly $4/month) and Obsidian Publish (roughly $8/month). A voluntary commercial license (~$50 per user, per year) exists for companies that want to support development in exchange for priority support — it's not required to use Obsidian at work. Check obsidian.md for current pricing.
Yes. WIP Notes stores notes in a local SQLite database with zero network requests. Obsidian stores notes as local markdown files in a folder called a vault. Both keep your data off the cloud by default.
No — they're separate apps with separate architectures. WIP Notes has no plugin system by design; it ships with a fixed, curated feature set instead.
No. WIP Notes organizes notes into per-project Note Pads and groups rather than a linked graph of atomic notes. If networked knowledge-building across hundreds of interlinked notes is your workflow, Obsidian is built for that; WIP Notes is built for focused, single-project work.