Obsidian owns the files. This one answers the questions.

At a glance

Where Obsidian is the better choice

• You actually own the notes. Files on disk, in a format that outlives every company involved. This is the single strongest claim any notes app can make and Obsidian is the one making it.
• Nothing can be taken away. No subscription lapse, no plan change, no service shutting down and giving you ninety days to export.
• Linking as a way of thinking. Backlinks and the graph view are a real method, not a gimmick, and NoteMCP has nothing like them.
• Plugins. Whatever you need it to do, someone has probably built it.
• It is free for personal use, with sync as the paid add-on.

Where NoteMCP is the better choice

• An assistant can actually reach your notes. MCP plugins exist for Obsidian and they work — on a desktop, while that desktop is running, for a client on the same machine. NoteMCP's endpoint is a URL, so Claude on your phone and an agent running in the cloud both reach the same notes.
• Capture on a phone is a first-class thing. Share a link into it, save a screenshot, record a voice note. Obsidian on mobile is a text editor with a vault attached.
• Voice notes are transcribed automatically and become searchable text.
• Search matches meaning, and matches across languages. Obsidian's search is text matching over files; finding a note whose words you have forgotten is a plugin problem.
• Sync is included rather than sold.

The real difference

This is the honest trade, and it is not close to free in either direction: Obsidian gives you custody; NoteMCP gives you reach.

A file on your disk cannot be read by an assistant that is not on your disk. That is not a gap in Obsidian's product, it is the direct consequence of the thing Obsidian is good at. Every workaround — a sync service, a local MCP bridge, a plugin exposing a port — is an attempt to get reach back without giving up custody, and each one adds a moving part you now maintain.

NoteMCP takes the other side of the trade and then tries to make it cost as little as possible: notes stay plain Markdown, export is on every plan including the free one, and the whole server is open source, so the worst case is that you run it yourself rather than that you lose anything.

If you are deciding

• Choose Obsidian if custody is the point — if the reason you take notes at all is that they will still be readable in twenty years, on hardware you own.
• Choose NoteMCP if the notes are only useful when something can answer questions about them, and that something is not always sitting at your desk.
• Run both if you like: keep the vault as the archive, use NoteMCP as the inbox that your assistant reads. They both speak Markdown, so text moves between them without a converter.

Questions

Can Obsidian work with Claude or ChatGPT over MCP?

Through community plugins, yes, with two conditions: the plugin runs on a desktop, and that desktop has to be awake and running Obsidian for the connection to work. It is a real solution for a developer at a desk. It is not one for an assistant on your phone or an agent running somewhere else, which is what a hosted endpoint like https://notemcp.com/mcp gives you.

Is NoteMCP local-first like Obsidian?

No, and it would be dishonest to imply it. NoteMCP is hosted. What it offers instead: notes stored as plain Markdown, export on every plan, and a public codebase you can self-host. That is a weaker guarantee than files on your own disk, and you should weigh it as one.

Do I lose my notes if I stop paying?

No. You drop to the free plan and keep everything you have written — readable, searchable and exportable. Photos and voice recordings are kept for 90 days after that, with two emails before anything goes.

Does NoteMCP have backlinks and a graph?

No. It has nested tags and threads — a note can be continued rather than rewritten — and search that matches on meaning. If a graph of linked notes is your working method, Obsidian is the tool built for it.

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