Obsidian vs Trilium Notes

Thinking of swapping Obsidian for the open-source Trilium Notes? Here’s the honest trade-off.

37k TypeScript AGPL-3.0 2 days ago

What you give up vs Obsidian

  • Single-user oriented; no real-time multi-user collaboration.
  • UI is dense and has a steep learning curve.
  • No relational database/board views like Notion.
  • Original Trilium is archived; users must migrate to the community TriliumNext fork.

What you gain

  • • Full data ownership — self-host Trilium Notes on your own infrastructure.
  • • No per-seat SaaS bill (Obsidian: paid sync and a closed-source core).
  • • Open-source code you can audit and extend (AGPL-3.0).