Milanote vs Obsidian Comparison 2026
Both cover project management. Here is what separates them on price, billing, what you can take with you, and coverage.
A board for the vague part of a project
Notes that stay as plain files on your own disk
At a glance
- Obsidian starts cheaper, at $4.
- Both have a genuinely free tier.
Side by side
Milanote | Obsidian | |
|---|---|---|
| Starting price (they differ) | From $9.99 | From $4 |
| Pricing model | Free plan, paid tiers | Free plan, paid tiers |
| Free tier | Yes | Yes |
| Billing | Monthly or annual | Not stated |
| Free trial | Not stated | Not stated |
| API | Not stated | Not stated |
| Data export | Not stated | Everything, in an open format |
| Their cut | None | None |
| Runs on (they differ) | Web, macOS, Windows, iOS, Android |
Shaded rows are where the two answers disagree and both listings have answered. A row where one side has not stated a fact is left plain, because silence is not a difference.
Milanote
A board for the vague part of a project
Milanote is a freeform board for notes, images, links and files, which is what planning looks like before it is a task list. Moodboards, story outlines and channel plans all sit better here than in a document. The free account has no time limit and stops at a hundred items, which is a real project rather than a demo. Anybody who wants deadlines, assignees and a burndown should buy a project tool instead, because this deliberately has none of that.
Our note
The hundred-item limit counts everything on every board, so it arrives faster than it reads and usually mid-project, which is the worst moment to be asked for a card. If you plan visually at all, budget for the paid tier from the start rather than treating the free one as a trial.
Obsidian
Notes that stay as plain files on your own disk
Obsidian keeps a vault of Markdown files on the local disk and builds links, backlinks and a graph over them. For a creator that means the idea list, the script drafts and the research notes outlive the app: no export, no account, nothing to be locked out of. The app itself is free without a sign-up. Sync and Publish are paid add-ons rather than the product, and a commercial licence is asked for only when notes are used for work at a company.
Ratings are the average of reviews readers left. The facts are stated by each tool’s own listing and are not verified by CloutStack. How we make money.