Comparison

Obsidian vs Transcribe Best

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

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.

Highlights
  • Local Markdown file storage
  • Customizable toolbar
  • Graph view for connections
  • Community plugins
  • Themes
  • iCloud sync
Features
Read full description

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

About

Transcribe Best

This app offers unlimited, high-quality audio transcription for a single fixed price, with no subscription required. It supports a vast array of languages and can process long or low-quality audio files, even offline. All processing occurs on the device, ensuring user privacy.

Highlights
  • Unlimited transcription
  • No subscription needed
  • Offline functionality
  • 99 supported languages
  • Supports 3+ hour files
  • Export in VTT and SRT
  • Privacy-focused on-device processing
Features
Read full description

Unlimited, high-quality, and privacy-first audio transcription. Transcribe as much audio as you want for a single fixed price, no subscription needed. Transcribe Best can process long audio files even when the audio quality is low. You can record audio in the app or import it from the "Files" app. Audio or video files can also be shared from other apps to transcribe them in this app. There are 99 different supported languages. Transcribe meetings, calls, voice memos, lectures, podcasts, or any other audio. All processing is done on the device so audio files and transcription texts never leave your device. Features: - Works offline, without internet - 99 supported languages - Works on 3+ hour files - Import videos to transcribe their audio - Record audio in the app - Record when the app is in the background - No subscription needed - Privacy friendly - Import audio and video from the Files app - Import audio and video from any app that supports sharing - Export as subtitles in VTT and SRT format - Automatically converts most audio and video formats like M4A, FLAC, MP3, MP4, WAV, ACC, MOV, WebM, AVI, FLV, and many more Supported languages: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Assamese, Azerbaijani, Bashkir, Basque, Belarusian, Bengali, Bosnian, Breton, Bulgarian, Cantonese, Catalan, Chinese, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Estonian, Faroese, Finnish, French, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian creole, Hausa, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Lingala, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Maori, Marathi, Mongolian, Myanmar, Nepali, Norwegian, Nynorsk, Occitan, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Sanskrit, Serbian, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tagalog, Tajik, Tamil, Tatar, Telugu, Thai, Tibetan, Turkish, Turkmen, Ukrainian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Yiddish, and Yoruba.

Screenshots

Obsidian4 screens
Transcribe Best4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is price: Obsidian at Free against Transcribe Best's $11.99. Obsidian also leads on ratings volume (2.8K vs 6) and chart position (#127 vs unranked). Transcribe Best's advantage is update cadence (every 5 days vs every 3 weeks) and review sentiment (75% vs 62%). On rating, ads, in-app purchases and device support 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Obsidian is free to download; Transcribe Best costs $11.99 up front. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

On the App Store both sit at effectively the same score — 4.5 for Obsidian against 4.5 for Transcribe Best. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Obsidian has 2.8K ratings behind it against 6, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews are what separate them: 62% of Obsidian's written reviews are positive against 75% of Transcribe Best's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

Obsidian ships an update every 3 weeks, Transcribe Best every 5 days. Both last shipped on October 24, 2026.

Scorecard7 real differences · 4 level
Obsidian versus Transcribe Best: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterObsidianTranscribe Best
PriceFree — better$11.99
Rating4.5 (2.8K ratings)4.5 (6 ratings) — better
Positive reviews61.9% of reviews75.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings2.8K — better6
Update frequencyEvery 3 weeksEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesNoNo
MonetizationFree — betterPaid
Best chart rank#127 — better—
DevicesiPhone, iPad, iPod — betteriPhone, iPod
Requires iOS15.613.4 — better
Further details — not scored
Size40 MB44 MB
Age rating4+4+
DeveloperDynalist Inc.JP Software

Customer experience

Obsidian

All ratings2,757 ratings
Positive85.6%
Neutral4.0%
Negative10.5%
Written reviews1,335 reviews
Positive61.9%
Neutral11.9%
Negative26.1%

Transcribe Best

All ratings6 ratings
Positive83.3%
Neutral16.7%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews8 reviews
Positive75.0%
Neutral25.0%
Negative0.0%

Bugs and requests

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

Transcribe Best

Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.

In-app purchases

None

Obsidian

No in-app purchases

None

Transcribe Best

No in-app purchases

Questions

Is Obsidian free?
Obsidian is free to download, with no in-app purchases.
Is Transcribe Best free?
Transcribe Best costs $11.99, with no in-app purchases.
Which has better reviews, Obsidian or Transcribe Best?
Transcribe Best is rated higher. Obsidian averages 4.5 out of 5 from 2.8K ratings, while Transcribe Best averages 4.5 from 6 ratings.
Do Obsidian or Transcribe Best have ads?
Neither Obsidian nor Transcribe Best shows ads.
Which is updated more often, Obsidian or Transcribe Best?
Obsidian ships an update every 3 weeks, and Transcribe Best every 5 days. Most recently, Obsidian was updated on October 24, 2026 and Transcribe Best on October 24, 2026.

Other comparisons