An Obsidian alternative your AI can actually read.
Keep the markdown and the wiki-links. Drop the local vault, the sync subscription, and the plugin stack. Your second brain lives online, where Claude, Cursor, ChatGPT, and Codex reach it through one MCP endpoint.
- Import your existing markdown
- Nothing to install
- Free forever, no card
Works with the AI tools you already use
Why people go looking
Obsidian is a great notes app. Your vault is still one folder on one machine.
To read those notes on your phone, you add Sync at $4/user per month, billed annually. To put one page on the web, you add Publish at $8/site per month, billed annually. To let an AI tool read any of it, you install a community plugin and keep the machine holding the vault awake and running.
Each piece is reasonable on its own. Together they are a stack you maintain instead of notes you keep, and the AI part only works from the one desk where the vault lives.
Verde starts from the other end: hosted first, so being reachable from every device and every AI tool is not something you have to assemble.
Side by side
What actually changes when you switch.
Every line below is checkable. Where Obsidian is the better answer, we say so.
| Capability | Verde | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| Where your notes live | A hosted workspace at a URL, open from any browser | Files in a folder on your device |
| Note format | Markdown, with frontmatter and tags preserved on import | Markdown |
| Links between notes | [[Wiki-links]] resolved by title, with backlinks on every document | [[Wiki-links]] |
| Reading your notes on another device | Included. It is a website, so any device with a browser is already in. | Obsidian Sync, $4/user per month, billed annually |
| AI tools reading your notes | Built in. One MCP endpoint for Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, and ChatGPT. | Community plugins, running on the machine that holds the vault |
| Sharing with other people | Included. Roles per member, and 5 free read-only seats on the free plan. | A shared vault through Obsidian Sync, a paid add-on |
| Per-note permissions | Public, company, and private, enforced server-side on every query | Everything in a vault is shared alike |
| Publishing a page to the web | Included free on every plan. Up to 10 live pages on Free, unlimited on paid. | Obsidian Publish, $8/site per month, billed annually |
| Setup | Sign up, paste one endpoint into your AI client | Install the app, add plugins, configure sync |
| Works with no internet connection | No. It is a hosted service, so it needs a connection. | Yes, completely. The files are already on your disk. |
| Plugin ecosystem | None. Nothing to install, and nothing to extend either. | Hundreds of community plugins |
| Getting your notes back out | Export a whole vault, markdown bodies and all, as one JSON file | They were always your files |
Swipe the table sideways to see Obsidian’s column.
Obsidian add-on prices read from obsidian.md/pricing in August 2026. The Obsidian app itself is free.
Nothing in that table needs a credit card to try.
Start freeWhat you keep
The parts you would actually miss.
A switch that costs you your links and your formatting is not a switch, it is a rewrite.
Markdown, all the way down
Documents are markdown, not a proprietary block soup. Tables, code, and Mermaid diagrams render cleanly, and what you write is what comes back out.
Wiki-links and backlinks
Write [[Exact Document Title]] the way you always have. Links resolve inside the vault, and every document lists what points back at it.
Bring the vault with you
Import .md, .markdown, and .txt files, 50 at a time. Frontmatter titles and tags carry over, and the original filename is kept as the source.
Search with no AI bill
Weighted Postgres full-text search, out of the box. No embedding pipeline to run, no API key to supply, no per-query cost.
Bringing your vault over
One-time import- 01
Pick your markdown
Select .md, .markdown, or .txt files straight out of your vault folder, 50 at a time. Run it as often as you need.
- 02
Choose where they land
Pick the bucket for the batch and its visibility comes with it. Anything headed for public still arrives as a draft until someone with publish permission takes it live.
- 03
Keep your metadata
Frontmatter titles and tags carry over, a leading heading becomes the title if there is no frontmatter, and the filename is kept as the source.
And the way out is the same size as the way in: export a whole vault, markdown bodies and all, as one JSON file whenever you like. Nothing here is designed to make leaving hard.
Bring a handful of notes over first. Nothing here is a one-way door.
Start freeWhat you gain
Notes that are useful to a model, not just to you.
Not memory bolted onto one chat window. A governed layer underneath every tool you connect.
Every AI tool, one endpoint
Standard MCP over HTTP. Paste one URL into Claude, Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, or ChatGPT and they all read the same notes, with exactly your permissions.
AI drafts, you approve
An AI client can write, but a public document never goes live as a side effect. Publishing needs publish permission plus a separate, explicitly confirmed call.
The current answer wins
Supersede a note and the old one stays queryable but clearly marked. Your tools stop quoting a decision you reversed months ago.
See what your AI could not find
Every search that comes back empty is captured and ranked. Each one is a note you never wrote, and one click turns it into a document.
Connect in minutes
No plugin. No local bridge. One endpoint.
Generate a token, paste one command, and your AI client can search, draft, and update your notes with exactly the permissions you would have yourself. It keeps working when your laptop is closed, because nothing is running on it.
claude mcp add --transport http verde \
https://getverde.ai/api/mcp \
--header "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_TOKEN"Works the same in Cursor, Codex, and any client that reads .mcp.json. OAuth 2.1 supported for Claude.ai connectors.
Better on your own, too
Nothing here needs a team. Your phone, your work laptop, and your assistant all read the same vault, with no sync subscription in between.
Private stays private
Three scopes, enforced in SQL on every query. A private document never crosses to another member, not even to an owner or admin.
Publishing is a toggle
Any document can become a public page on your knowledge base, free on every plan. No separate product, no second subscription.
Where Obsidian still wins
Three good reasons not to switch.
If one of these is your requirement, Obsidian is the better tool and we would rather you kept it.
You want it fully offline
Obsidian works with the network off, forever, with no account. Verde is hosted, so it needs a connection. If offline-first is the requirement, Obsidian wins outright.
You live in the plugin ecosystem
Dataview, Templater, and hundreds of others have no equivalent here. Verde has no plugin system at all, by design. That is a real trade, not a rounding error.
You want files on your own disk
An Obsidian vault is a folder you can back up, grep, and open in any editor. Verde exports the same content on demand, but it lives on our servers between exports.
FAQ
Questions people ask before switching.
Can I import my Obsidian vault?
Yes. Verde imports .md, .markdown, and .txt files, up to 50 at a time, and you can run it as many times as you need. Frontmatter titles and tags are carried over, a leading # heading becomes the title if there is no frontmatter, and the original filename is stored as the document's source so you can always trace a note back to the file it came from.
Do [[wiki-links]] still work?
Yes, and they are first class. A [[link]] resolves to another document in the same vault by title, case-insensitively, and [[Title|shown text]] works too. Every document shows what it references and what references it. Your AI tools get the linked document's id directly, so following a reference costs them no extra search.
Do I need to install a plugin or run anything locally?
No. That is the main difference. Verde is a hosted MCP server, so your AI client connects to a URL rather than to a bridge process on your laptop. Nothing has to be installed, nothing has to stay awake, and your notes are reachable when your machine is closed.
Does Verde work offline?
No. Verde is a hosted service and needs a connection, which is the honest trade for being reachable from every device and every AI tool without a sync subscription. If working with no network is a hard requirement for you, Obsidian is the better tool and we would rather you kept it.
Is this only useful if I have a team?
No. A solo vault gets the same thing a team does: notes you can open from your phone, your work laptop, and your AI tools without paying for sync, and one place your assistant reads instead of five separate chat histories. Teams are supported, not required. A personal workspace is free.
I am coming from Logseq, Roam, or Notion instead. Does any of this change?
The import path is the same as long as you can export markdown, which all three can do. The comparison changes at the edges: Logseq and Roam are outliner-first and Verde is document-first, and Notion is already hosted, so what Verde adds there is the MCP access, the per-document privacy scopes, and the draft-to-published-to-superseded lifecycle rather than being online at all.
Do I need an OpenAI or Anthropic API key?
No. Retrieval is weighted Postgres full-text search, so there is no AI bill attached to searching your own notes. Your AI client brings its own model; Verde just answers its questions.
Can I get my notes back out?
Yes. A vault export gives you every document, markdown bodies and all, as a single JSON file, with buckets and links intact. You can also export your personal account data from account settings. Leaving should be boring, so we keep it that way.
Is the free plan a trial?
No. It is a plan, with no clock and no card on file. Free covers unlimited documents, 3 write seats, 5 free read-only seats, 1 vault, 2,000 AI calls a month, and a public knowledge base of up to 10 live pages. A solo vault can sit there indefinitely.
Move your notes somewhere your AI can reach them.
Import your markdown, connect your first AI tool, and keep working. Free forever, no card, nothing to install.