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Pellet vs Obsidian, from the maker of Pellet

By Antone Heyward, maker of Pellet · 28 July 2026

If you’re searching for an Obsidian alternative, you should know up front that I built Pellet, and that Pellet grew out of an Obsidian plugin. I used Obsidian for years and I’m not going to pretend it’s bad. It isn’t. This is a comparison from someone who wanted something specific and built it, and who thinks the honest answer for a lot of people is “keep using Obsidian”.

What they have in common

Both store your notes as plain markdown files in a folder on your own computer. Both use [[wikilinks]], show backlinks, support nested tags and frontmatter, and can open the same vault. Pellet reads an Obsidian vault as it is: nothing is converted or moved, and frontmatter keys Pellet doesn’t know are left exactly as written, including ones Obsidian plugins put there. Canvases are the same open JSON Canvas format in both. You can run both on one folder, as long as you don’t edit the same file in both at the same moment. See Moving to Pellet from Obsidian.

So this isn’t a choice between owning your files and not. It’s a choice about what sits on top of them.

Where Obsidian is better

Plugins. This is the big one. Obsidian has a plugin system and a large community around it, and if there’s a niche thing you want done to markdown, someone has probably built it. Pellet has no plugin system. Much of what people install plugins for is built in, but if your workflow depends on a specific community plugin, Pellet can’t run it.

Themes and CSS. Obsidian’s appearance is customisable down to the stylesheet. Pellet has appearance settings and accent choices, not a theming ecosystem.

Maturity and breadth of the editor. Obsidian has had years of polish on the pure writing experience and a very large user base finding edge cases. Pellet is younger.

Sync and publishing as services. Obsidian offers paid sync and publish services that work without you running anything. Pellet’s sync is one you host yourself; there’s no Pellet service. For some people that’s a feature; for many it’s a chore they’d rather pay to avoid.

Where Pellet is better

Tasks are built in, as notes. In Pellet a task is a markdown file with fields at the top, and the app has a Table for triage, Kanban boards, a Calendar and a Timeline that all read the same files. Filters save as pills. There’s a Tasks panel docked beside whatever you’re doing that shows today’s events, overdue items and today’s tasks. Getting the equivalent in Obsidian means assembling several plugins and keeping them agreeing with each other. See Choosing a view.

Your real calendars, in the same place. Pellet connects to Apple Calendar, Google Calendar and ICS feeds, shows those events beside your tasks, and can create events. See Calendar sync.

More than text, in open formats. Canvases, Excalidraw whiteboards, handwriting pages, PDF reading with highlights that become notes, voice recordings with transcription. Each is a file in an open format in the same folder. See Where your notes actually live.

A local AI connection with a fence. Pellet can expose your vault to an AI agent over MCP, on your machine only, with a read-only switch, a folder allowlist and per-operation controls. See Letting an AI agent use your vault.

No plugins to maintain. The flip side of the plugin ecosystem. What’s in Pellet is maintained as one product; nothing breaks because a community plugin stopped being updated.

Pricing, plainly

Obsidian is free for personal use, with paid add-on services. Pellet is a $20 lifetime license per desktop device with a 14-day trial, and the iOS and Android apps are free. See Pricing. Your files are yours either way, and neither app can hold them hostage.

Who should pick which

Stay with Obsidian if your workflow leans on plugins, you want deep visual customisation, or you’d rather pay for sync than host it.

Try Pellet if you want tasks, calendar and notes to be one thing in one folder, you want the canvas, PDF and handwriting side without assembling it, or you want an AI agent on your notes with the doors you can lock.

Do both if you can’t decide. The files don’t care. Some people keep Obsidian for its plugin ecosystem and use Pellet for the task and calendar side of the same vault.

The part I’d say to anyone

Whatever you pick, keep the folder. The reason Obsidian earned its following is that it treated your files as yours, and that’s the standard everything else should be held to. Pellet holds itself to it too: download it, point it at your Obsidian vault, and if it isn’t for you, close it. Nothing will have changed.

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