Obsidian with plugins for SMEs: a good foundation, a lot of DIY

If you use Obsidian, you have usually made one decision right already: your knowledge sits in plain text files on your own computer, not in a provider’s database. A disclosure first: our vault (The vault is a folder of your working files on your computer; we create it from the vault template.) is organised by PARA (PARA organises storage into four parts: projects, areas, resources and archives.) too and opens in Obsidian by default. So this comparison is less about the program than about what happens around the folder.

This article belongs to our series of comparisons: the same six questions for every tool. We read the information from Obsidian and the plugins on 14 October 2026; the sources are listed at the end.

What you use today

Obsidian is free for any use, in companies too; a commercial licence at USD 50.– per person per year is optional. If you want your vaults to stay in step across devices, Sync costs USD 4.– to 10.– per person per month, depending on plan and billing. The AI comes through community plugins: Copilot (An AI assistant is a chat program such as ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini or Perplexity: you write in plain language, and a language model answers.) for Obsidian is free with your own keys and costs USD 14.99 a month as Plus, Smart Connections searches with a local model and no key, and Text Generator is free and needs your own provider.

Where Obsidian is strong

Your notes are Markdown (Markdown is a simple way of writing text files: characters such as # or * mark headings, lists and emphasis.) files on your computer. They work offline, any program opens them, and Obsidian says your data is yours. Links between notes, the graph view, Canvas and Bases, tables and cards over your notes, turn it into a knowledge base that grows with you. Almost 9,000 plugins are available, more than a thousand of them with AI.

The AI plugins have come a long way. Copilot for Obsidian now lets agents (An AI agent carries out several steps of a defined task. A person decides before it sends anything outside your firm or spends money.) such as Claude Code (Claude Code is an AI harness made by Anthropic: it runs on your computer, reads files and carries out steps you describe in plain language.) or Codex work directly in the vault. The Local REST API (An API is an interface through which one program uses the data or functions of another, without a screen or a mouse.) plugin includes an MCP server (MCP (Model Context Protocol) is an open standard for connecting an AI harness to other software and data sources.), through the open protocol AI uses for tools, so Claude can read and write your vault. Sync is end-to-end encrypted if you want it to be.

For one person who likes tinkering and organises their own knowledge, it is an excellent environment for almost no money.

Where Obsidian stops

• Everyone builds their own AI. Each person sets up keys, providers and plugins on each device. Five people have five setups, and nobody knows exactly which data goes to which provider.
• Plugins are other people’s code. Obsidian itself writes that it cannot reliably restrict plugins to specific permissions: they may access files, reach the internet and install other programs. Obsidian recommends an independent review before using one.
• Collaboration is thin. A shared vault has at most 20 collaborators, each needs their own Sync subscription, all get the same rights as the owner, and there is no simultaneous editing.
• No server (A server is a computer that runs all the time and provides services to other devices, such as email, files or a website.) in Switzerland. Sync runs on DigitalOcean, with Frankfurt, Singapore or San Francisco among the choices. There is no Swiss region (For cloud providers, a region is the area where the data centres that process your data are located, such as the EU or Switzerland.).
• Knowledge is not yet work. Obsidian organises what you know. Workflows (A workflow specifies what information goes in, what happens to it and who checks the result.) that read mail, post invoices or write to a supplier are not part of the program, and the plugins for them depend on the computer where Obsidian happens to be open.

Obsidian connected to our platform

The first way leaves your vaults as they are. We connect them to the Jules Solutions Platform: the agent in your vault, whether through Copilot for Obsidian or directly in the AI harness (An AI harness is the workspace on your computer in which AI reads files and carries out agreed steps.), gets the same tools for everyone through the MCP gateway, instead of five home-made setups. What the team shares lives in the shared project repository (A Git repository is storage for files that records every change with its date and author; GitHub is a well-known service for it.), on GitHub or your own Git server, with rights we set per person.

The AI in the vault can then do more than write notes. It has invoices and delivery notes read by the document processing, creates tasks, searches your project files with the passages behind each answer and starts workflows that talk to your systems within the agreed scope. The platform sends a message to the outside or a payment only once a person has decided; each connection sees only the projects granted to it, and every step is in the log (A log records what a program or an AI agent did and when, so that afterwards you can trace who triggered what and what happened.).

For five people: Operator System (Operator System is our package for teams at CHF 3'500.– to 5'000.–: the shared base with workflows for the team and connected systems.) as the shared base, CHF 3'500.– to 5'000.– once, with six months of Business seat (The Business seat is one person’s access to our platform (open alpha); Pro Setup includes three months, and with Operator System it is six per person.) per person; then CHF 199.– per person per month, or CHF 169.– billed yearly. Obsidian stays free.

The whole system

In the whole system we set up each person’s vault: organised by PARA, with templates (A template is a prepared structure, for a document, an email or a folder for example, which you only complete for each case.), skills (A skill is a written instruction for a specific AI task, such as checking invoice details.) and instructions for recurring tasks, readable in Obsidian or in any other program that opens Markdown. Pro Setup (Pro Setup is our recommended package at CHF 1'490.–: vault, workflows with AI agents, first integrations, an introduction session and three months of Business seat.) adds three to five commands (A command starts a defined workflow. In Pro Setup, we set up three to five commands for your work.) your people use to start workflows. The AI harness is set up, we recommend Claude Code, and each agent sees only its own project.

Workflows start with a short command, with an incoming email or on a schedule, and run on your device, on a computer in the office, on our platform or with a cloud provider (The cloud means computers in a provider’s data centres on which programs run and data is kept, instead of on your own device.), as the quote sets out; they do not depend on Obsidian being open. We keep backups (A backup is a copy of your files in a second place, from which you restore data that was lost or damaged.) locally, on network storage or in Switzerland at Exoscale (Exoscale is a Swiss cloud provider with data centres in Switzerland. It rents out servers and storage in its own data centres.).

The platform runs on our own infrastructure in Switzerland and is in open alpha (Open alpha means the platform is at an early stage: we use it ourselves, and it changes all the time.); we run our own company on it. For five people: Operator System plus one Pro Setup per person, CHF 10'950.– to 12'450.– once, with 60 days of follow-up support (Follow-up support means that questions and adjustments by email and phone are included for 30 days (Pro Setup) or 60 days (Operator System) after handover.), then the Business seats and model usage (Model usage means accessing an AI provider’s language model. The cost is not included in the setup price.).

Our verdict

If you work alone and enjoy building your own tools, stay with Obsidian and plugins. It is the best value in this series, and your files are yours anyway.

For a team, DIY is expensive, just not on the invoice: five setups, unreviewed plugins, no shared rights and no workflows beyond the vault. The first way gives everyone the same tools and leaves Obsidian as it is. The whole system pays off when the knowledge in the vault should turn into work that runs even when nobody has their laptop open.

How to choose the first workflow for that is explained in ‘AI for SMEs: examine the work before choosing a tool’.