Obsidian vs Pagira
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
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
Pagira
This app displays standalone HTML sites, individual HTML pages, PDFs, and EPUB books and comics offline. It renders HTML content like a browser, supporting CSS, JavaScript, and WebAssembly. Users can highlight, take notes, and search across files and even scanned PDFs.
- Full HTML rendering with CSS, JavaScript, and WebAssembly
- Built-in PDF reader with continuous scrolling and scaling
- EPUB and comic support (CBZ, CBR, etc.) with various reading modes
- Highlighting, notes, and bookmarks
- Offline access to all content
- Search across folders and scanned PDFs
- iCloud sync for reading progress and notes
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Pagira displays your standalone HTML sites, individual HTML pages and your PDFs directly on your iPhone and iPad, even without a connection, and also reads your EPUB books and comics. Where most readers settle for a rough rendering, Pagira opens a real, complete web folder (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, images, subfolders) and renders it like a browser, locally. WHO IS IT FOR? Pagira is for anyone who needs to read standalone HTML sites, individual HTML pages, PDFs, books or comics directly on their device, especially offline. Typical uses: - Students whose courses are exported as HTML (medicine, law and other fields), or delivered as e-learning modules. - Technical documentation shipped as a website: electronics, mechanics, engineering manuals, datasheets and reference guides. - Developers and writers previewing static sites and generated documentation (Doxygen, Sphinx, MkDocs, Docusaurus, Storybook, Javadoc). - Reports and exports such as Jupyter notebooks, R Markdown or test reports saved as HTML. - Web pages and articles you want to keep and read later, offline. If your content is an HTML folder, a single page, a PDF, a book or a comic, Pagira is built to open it cleanly. FEATURES - Full HTML rendering: CSS, JavaScript, images and subfolders genuinely work. fetch/XHR, ES modules and even WebAssembly are supported, because the content is served through a real local web origin, not a simple file preview. A site in a .zip is uncompressed and opened in one go. - Built-in PDF reader: continuous scrolling and automatic scaling, go to page, contents and thumbnails, for your local or iCloud PDFs. - EPUB books (light, sepia and dark themes) and comics in CBZ, CBR, CB7 and CBT: two-page spreads on iPad, manga, vertical scrolling, and Panel by Panel reading, made for iPhone. Word, Markdown, RTF and text too. - Highlights, notes and bookmarks in your books and PDFs. - Search a whole folder, even scanned PDFs (text recognized on the device), and by file name. Ask: ask a question, Pagira opens the page that answers it. Nothing made up. - 100% offline: once the content is on your device, everything opens without a connection. Perfect on a plane, while travelling or in areas with no network. - Local files and iCloud Drive: open from the Files app, your local storage or iCloud Drive, and also via "Open in Pagira" from other apps. - iCloud on demand: iCloud files are streamed as you go (without downloading everything), or downloaded in one tap for a permanent offline copy. Automatic resume after an interruption. - Home: Currently Reading, Favorites, Recent and Offline, with their covers. - iCloud sync: page, highlights, notes and favorites follow you between iPhone and iPad. - History: find every page you have viewed, including navigation within a site, grouped by day, and reopen it exactly where you left off. - Auto-reopen: pick up your last reading as soon as you launch the app (can be turned off). - Web archives: open a saved .webarchive file, rendered offline as is. - Universal: built for iPhone and iPad, in both orientations. - Multilingual: available in French, English, German, Spanish, Italian, Dutch, Polish and Portuguese. PRIVACY Pagira collects nothing, tracks no one and requires no account. Your files stay on your device and in your iCloud: nothing is sent to a server. No ads, no tracking. TRIAL AND PURCHASE Try Pagira for free with all its features (up to 20 document openings, opening a folder doesn't count). After that, a single purchase, with no subscription, unlocks the app for good: Pagira Pro, or Pagira Pro Supporter, shared with your whole family.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is review sentiment: Obsidian at 62% against Pagira's 0%. Obsidian also leads on in-app purchases (none vs 5) and rating (4.5 vs 4.0). Pagira's advantage is update cadence (weekly vs every 3 weeks). On price, ads, monetization model 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
Both are free to download. Pagira sells 5 one-off in-app purchases. Obsidian asks for nothing beyond the download.
Obsidian holds the better App Store score, 4.5 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: Obsidian has 2.8K ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 62% of Obsidian's written reviews are positive against 0% of Pagira's.
Obsidian ships an update every 3 weeks, Pagira weekly. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Obsidian | Pagira |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (2.8K ratings) — better | 4.0 (2 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 61.9% of reviews — better | 0.0% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 2.8K — better | 2 |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Weekly — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No — better | Yes |
| Monetization | Free | Free |
| Best chart rank | #130 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone, iPad |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 17.0 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 40 MB | 14 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Dynalist Inc. | Jimmy DE BRUYNE |
Customer experience
Obsidian
Pagira
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
Pagira
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Obsidian
No in-app purchases
Pagira
- Buy Me a Coffee$2.99
- Buy Me a Dessert$4.99
- Buy Me a Meal$8.99
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- Pagira Pro$11.99
- Pagira Pro Supporter$22.99









