Obsidian vs Jinyus
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
Obsidian
Organize your thoughts and knowledge with a powerful, local-first note-taking app. Build your personal knowledge base using plain text Markdown files, accessible across devices. Customize your experience with themes and plugins for a truly personal workflow.
- Local Markdown file storage
- Customizable toolbar
- Graph view for connections
- Community plugins
- Themes
- Sidebar pinning
- iCloud vaults
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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
Jinyus
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Jinyus puts a news article between you and the apps you open without thinking. Choose which apps to lock. When you reach for one, Jinyus asks for a few minutes first: read today's story, then answer questions about what you actually read. Get them right and your apps open. Get one wrong and it stays put until you go back and look. REAL NEWS, CHOSEN BY YOU Stories come from The Guardian, filtered to the topics you pick — world news, politics, business, science, culture and more. Change them whenever you like. QUESTIONS YOU CAN'T SKIM PAST A mix of multiple choice and typed answers, drawn from the details of the article in front of you. Wrong answers don't advance, so skimming doesn't work. UNLOCK ON YOUR TERMS Five minutes, an hour, the rest of the day, or until a time you set. When it runs out, your apps lock again. KEEP WHAT'S WORTH KEEPING Save stories into folders you name yourself. Link one to a class subject or concept with a note, and find it again when you need it. MADE TO DISAPPEAR INTO Five typographic themes and four typefaces, mix and match. Set article text to whatever size you actually read comfortably. PRIVATE BY DEFAULT No accounts. No servers. No tracking, no ads, no analytics. Everything you save stays on your iPhone, and deleting the app deletes all of it. Jinyus uses Apple's Screen Time system, which means it never learns which apps you chose — iOS only hands over anonymous tokens. Requires Screen Time permission to block apps.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is chart position: Obsidian at #117 against Jinyus's unranked. Obsidian also leads on device support (3 vs 1) and iOS requirement (15.6 vs 26.5). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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. Neither carries in-app purchases, so what you see is what you pay.
Obsidian ships an update every 3 weeks, Jinyus every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on November 14, 2026 and November 2, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | Obsidian | Jinyus |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.5 (2.8K ratings) — better | — |
| Positive reviews | 62.0% of reviews | — |
| Number of ratings | 2.8K — better | — |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | No | No |
| Monetization | Free | — |
| Best chart rank | #117 — better | — |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better | iPhone |
| Requires iOS | 15.6 — better | 26.5 |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 39 MB | 5 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 17+ |
| Developer | Dynalist Inc. | Tyler Cho |
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
Jinyus
Not enough reviews yet to summarise bugs or requests.
In-app purchases
Obsidian
No in-app purchases
Jinyus
No in-app purchases









