an honest comparison
Obsidian and Tansy agree on the big thing: your notes should be files on your own device, not rows in someone's database. Obsidian does it with plain Markdown, a huge plugin community and a free personal licence. Tansy does it with rich files: handwritten notebooks, planners, canvases, scripts, sheet music and flashcards, linked the same way.
Obsidian facts checked October 2026 on their own site; plans and prices change, so check before you buy. Tansy launches August 12, 2027.
| What | Tansy | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $29.99 once ($19.99 for the first 30 days after launch). 14-day free trial. | Free for personal use. Optional Sync $4 per month billed yearly ($5 monthly). Commercial licence $50 per user per year. |
| Platforms | iPad, iPhone, Mac, Windows and Android. One Apple purchase covers iPad, iPhone and Mac; Windows and Android are bought in their own stores. | Mac, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android. |
| Sync | Your own folder: iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox or Google Drive. No account. Edits from two devices merge. | Your own folder (iCloud, Dropbox, git and others) or the paid Obsidian Sync. |
| Your files | Regular files in your folder, in Tansy's formats, with export to PDF, Word, ePub, Markdown and more. | Plain Markdown files in your folder. Open anywhere. |
| Handwriting and drawing | Built in: notebooks, planners and layered canvases with pressure and tilt. | Not built in; community plugins add drawing canvases. |
| Links | Tags, [[links]] between any files, and backlinks. Search includes handwriting. | [[Links]], backlinks, graph view, tags and powerful search. |
| Extending it | No plugins. Templates, stickers and spaces from the Stationery Shop. | Thousands of community plugins and themes. |
| Import from the other | Imports Obsidian exports and Markdown. | Imports Markdown exported from Tansy. |
Point Tansy at an export of your Obsidian vault. Markdown notes become Tansy documents and notes, and [[links]] keep working.
Nothing is locked away afterwards either: every Tansy file stays a file in your own folder, and exports to common formats whether or not you buy. How your files work →
Notes and documents export to Markdown, but Tansy's own files are richer than plain text, because they hold handwriting, layers, music and more. They're still ordinary files in your folder.
Tansy has [[links]], backlinks and tags across every kind of file. It doesn't have a graph view.
No. Tansy is one app that works out of the box; the Stationery Shop adds templates, stickers and ready-made spaces.
Try Tansy before anyone else and help shape it before it launches on August 12, 2027. The beta is small, so we'll email you if you get a spot. Everyone on the list hears when Tansy launches.