Notion vs Obsidian for a team: what each one gives you, and when neither fits

Notion is a hosted workspace of shared pages and databases. Obsidian is a free local app whose notes are Markdown files on your disk. For a team, Notion brings shared pages, page access levels and admin controls out of the box; Obsidian brings file ownership, but sharing means paid Sync, with no live cursors and no per-person permissions.

The table below puts the two side by side on the same seven criteria. Every claim about Notion and Obsidian comes from their own documentation, linked in the cells, and was read on November 2, 2026. Prices and plans change, so check the vendor before you decide. We make a third kind of tool, Folio, and say where it fits near the end; the comparison itself is not about it.

How do Notion and Obsidian compare for a team?

When is Notion the better choice for a team?

• People need to be in the same page at once. Notion is a shared workspace by design, with teamspaces and per-page access levels. Obsidian's sharing is built for a handful of people merging changes on sync.
• You need admin controls. SAML single sign-on, SCIM provisioning and an audit log exist in Notion's higher plans. Obsidian has none of them.
• You work in structured data. Databases with views are Notion's core. In Obsidian the closest is Bases, a core plugin that shows your notes' properties as tables, lists and cards.
• You want the vendor to run it. There is no server for you to keep up.

When is Obsidian the better choice?

• The notes are yours first, the team's second. A folder of Markdown files outlives any app, and the app is free.
• You work offline or on a plane. The vault is local and needs no account.
• A few people can share one vault. Sync allows up to 20 collaborators; if everyone is fine with owner-level permissions and merge-on-sync, it is simple.
• You rely on plugins. The community plugin ecosystem is large, with the trade-off that a plugin inherits Obsidian's access to your files and the internet.

What are the alternatives when you want something between them?

Teams that like Obsidian's files but need more than a shared vault, or like Notion's workspace but cannot send data to a hosted service, tend to look at a third group. Our lists compare them with licenses and prices, dated: open-source and self-hosted Notion alternatives and self-hosted wiki software. If you keep an Obsidian vault and need to share it, the guide to sharing an Obsidian vault with a team compares Obsidian Sync, Git, LiveSync and Folio.

When neither fits: a shared Markdown wiki

If you want Notion's shared editing and access control but Obsidian's plain Markdown files, a wiki whose pages are Markdown files in your own Git repository covers that middle. Folio is one, and it is ours. This is what it does, from its documentation:

• Self-hosted, MIT license. You run it with Docker, next to PostgreSQL and Redis. The pages are Markdown files in a Git repository, and a browser edit becomes a commit after about 90 seconds of quiet.
• Live editing in the browser. Documents, tables and whiteboards are edited together, and you see who else is on the page.
• Roles and page rights. Roles per space (admin, editor, viewer), groups, and rights on a single page that child pages inherit. Sign-in through OpenID Connect or SAML 2.0, SCIM provisioning and an audit log are in the one free edition.
• An Obsidian vault opens without changes. Folio reads wikilinks, embeds, callouts and properties and shows Canvas and Bases files. See Folio vs. Obsidian for the details and limits.
• Agents. A built-in assistant and an MCP server with 49 tools, limited to the rights of the person whose token it is.

What Folio does not do

• It has no hosted version and no native mobile apps; it is a responsive web app you host yourself.
• It has no one-click Notion importer, and its tables are Markdown-backed, not Notion's relational databases. See Folio vs. Notion.
• It reads Obsidian's syntax but does not write it, and it runs no Dataview and no community plugins.
• It has no end-to-end encryption: the server holds the content. Documents and whiteboards you opened stay editable offline, but tables, forms and uploads need a connection.

If the notes are personal, stay on Obsidian. If you want a managed workspace and the price and data location are acceptable, stay on Notion. Folio is for the case where a team needs rights, a browser and files it owns.

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