Hebbia vs Obsidian — Pricing, Plans, and Verified Costs (2026)
Obsidian starts at $5/mo. Hebbia uses custom pricing — request a quote to compare.
How pricing works
These two tools don't price the same way, so the headline numbers below aren't directly comparable until you plug in your own volume.
- Hebbia (Per Usage) — Hebbia bills purely on usage. There is no fixed per-seat fee, so the monthly cost depends entirely on how much you consume.
- Obsidian (Freemium) — Obsidian bills on a fixed plan from $5/mo, so the listed price is what you pay regardless of volume.
Per-minute, per-credit and per-token rates exclude any downstream model, speech or telephony costs unless the vendor states otherwise.
Enterprise AI knowledge search platform — Matrix product searches across an organization's documents, emails, chats, and CRM records to answer questions. Enterprise-only, all pricing custom-quoted. Typical deals reported $100K-2M+/year. Popular with hedge funds, law firms, and consulting firms that need to reason across large private document corpora.
Local-first knowledge management tool positioned as the alternative to Notion and Roam for people who don't want their notes trapped in a SaaS database. Distinctive for storing everything as plaintext markdown files on your own disk (no vendor lock-in) plus a massive community plugin ecosystem. Personal use is free forever; Sync ($4/mo) and Publish ($8/mo) are optional add-ons. Popular with researchers, writers, and privacy-conscious knowledge workers.
All plans compared
| Tier role | Plan | Hebbia monthly | Hebbia annual | Obsidian monthly | Obsidian annual |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Free / starter | — / App | — | — | Free | Free |
| Entry paid | — / Sync | — | — | $5 | $4 |
| Pro / power | — / Publish | — | — | $10 | $8 |
| Enterprise | Enterprise / — | Custom | Custom | — | — |
Tier names differ across vendors. Rows are aligned by tier role, not name. Full tier structures on each tool's page.
What each is best for
Hebbia is worth it if… Hebbia is worth engaging with if you're a hedge fund, law firm, or consulting firm that needs an AI that can reason across thousands of your private documents. Not a general-purpose enterprise search — Hebbia's differentiator is multi-step reasoning across large corpora with citations.
Obsidian is worth it if… solo knowledge workers (researchers, writers, developers, PMs) who want offline-first, local-file, plain-Markdown note-taking with a huge plugin ecosystem — particularly if you value data ownership over collaboration. Free forever for personal use; Sync (paid) adds cross-device encrypted sync; Publish adds one-click static site publishing.
Bottom line: Choose based on how you want to pay — Hebbia is per usage, Obsidian is freemium.
Choose Hebbia over Obsidian if…
Choose Hebbia if…
- You want to pay only for actual usage (per usage, custom pricing).
- You match the profile Hebbia is built for: worth engaging with if you're a hedge fund, law firm, or consulting firm that needs an AI that can reason across thousands of your private documents.
- You need a general-purpose productivity option rather than a vertical-specific one.
Choose Obsidian if…
- You want fixed-price predictability (freemium, from $5/mo).
- You match the profile Obsidian is built for: solo knowledge workers (researchers, writers, developers, PMs) who want offline-first, local-file, plain-Markdown note-taking with a huge plugin ecosystem — particularly if you value data ownership over collaboration.
- You need a general-purpose productivity option rather than a vertical-specific one.
At a glance
| Hebbia | Obsidian | |
|---|---|---|
| Free plan | No | Yes |
| Entry price | Custom | $5/mo |
| Enterprise available | Yes | No |
| Pricing model | Per Usage | Freemium |
| Last verified | — | September 11, 2026 |
| Full pricing | View full pricing | View full pricing |
Pricing last verified September 11, 2026. Tracked daily.