Milanote vs Obsidian
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Milanote
Organize your creative projects with this visual workspace. Combine notes, images, videos, and sketches to capture inspiration and see the big picture. Collaborate with your team or keep ideas private, with content synced instantly across all devices.
- Combine notes, images, videos, and sketches
- Organize projects visually
- Collaborate with teams
- Save content from any app
- Instant syncing across devices
- Sketching with Apple Pencil
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Milanote is the tool for organizing your creative projects. Capture ideas & notes on mobile, then organize them visually on Milanote for desktop. SAVE INSPIRATION & IDEAS Easily combine notes, images, videos, sketches, and more. Capture anything that fuels your creativity. ORGANIZE PROJECTS VISUALLY Bring your ideas, tasks, and references together in one place—so you can see the big picture and the details. COLLABORATE WITH YOUR TEAM Milanote boards can be a private place to think, or a shared workspace for collaboration—you control who sees what. SAVE CONTENT FROM ANY APP Clip websites, images, and videos from your browser, photos app, or anywhere else—right into Milanote with a tap. INSTANT SYNCING ACROSS ALL DEVICES Anything you save to Milanote is instantly synced to all your devices. The Milanote iPhone & iPad apps also let you… - Create, view and edit all of your boards - Upload photos, video & files - Sketch with Apple pencil - Get notifications for comments and content updates Privacy policy: https://milanote.com/legal/privacy-policy Terms of use: https://milanote.com/legal/terms-of-service
Obsidian
Organize your thoughts and ideas with a powerful knowledge base that utilizes local Markdown files. This app acts as your personal second brain, accessible on your mobile device for seamless note-taking and idea connection.
- Local Markdown file storage
- Customizable toolbar
- Graph view for connections
- Community plugins
- Themes
- iCloud sync
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Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. It is a second brain, for you, forever. Now available on the go for iOS! Features include: - Customizable toolbar - Pull down quick actions - Graph view - Community plugins - Themes - Sidebar pinning for tablet - iCloud vaults
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is in-app purchases: Obsidian at none against Milanote's 2. Obsidian also leads on chart position (#133 vs unranked). Milanote's advantage is update cadence (every 5 days vs every 3 weeks) and rating (4.7 vs 4.5). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. Milanote sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $12.49 per month. Obsidian asks for nothing beyond the download.
Milanote holds the better App Store score, 4.7 against 4.5. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 3.8K and 2.7K respectively. Written reviews complicate that: 59% of Milanote's written reviews are positive against 62% of Obsidian's, so the app with the better star average is not the one people write more warmly about.
Milanote ships an update every 5 days, Obsidian every 3 weeks. The most recent releases landed on September 22, 2026 and September 24, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Milanote | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.7 (3.8K ratings) — better | 4.5 (2.7K ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 59.4% of reviews | 62.1% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 3.8K — better | 2.7K |
| Update frequency | Every 5 days — better | Every 3 weeks |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Best chart rank | — | #133 — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 16.0 | 15.6 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 100 MB | 38 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Milanote | Dynalist Inc. |
Customer experience
Milanote
Obsidian
User reviews
Milanote
From 3.8K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Excellent for planning and organizing
- 👍 Intuitive and easy to use
- 🎨 Great for creatives and visual thinkers
- 💻 Seamless sync between desktop and mobile
- 📚 Helpful for students and academics
Room to improve
- 🔒 Limited free version with only 100 items
- 💰 Expensive subscription model
- 📱 Mobile app lacks functionality of desktop version
- 🖼️ Issues with uploading and managing images
- 🐛 Occasional crashes and bugs
Obsidian
From 2.7K App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Powerful features
- 👍 Customizable and flexible
- 🔒 Secure and private
- 💡 Innovative note-taking approach
- 🚀 Smooth mobile experience
Room to improve
- 🐛 Sync issues and unreliable iCloud integration
- 🔋 Slow startup and performance issues on mobile
- 👎 Steep learning curve for new users
- 👎 Limited sorting and organization options
- 👎 Lack of WYSIWYG editing on mobile
Bugs and requests
Milanote
Reported bugs
3 issues- Crashes when trying to open certain boards
- Issues with deleting or rearranging notes
- Image uploads not working consistently
Requested features
5 requests- Add iPad app with full desktop functionality
- Improve mobile app experience and parity with desktop
- Increase free version storage limit
- Implement offline mode and better file management
- Add more customization options for boards and notes
Obsidian
Reported bugs
3 issues- Sync issues leading to data loss
- Freezing and crashing on mobile devices
- Editing bugs and text input issues
Requested features
5 requests- Improved sorting and organization options
- WYSIWYG editing on mobile
- Better integration with other cloud storage services
- More intuitive onboarding process for new users
- Native mobile widgets and share sheet integration
In-app purchases
Milanote
- Professional Monthly$12.491 Month
- Professional Annual$119.991 Year
Obsidian
No in-app purchases
