# Obsidian Sync

65 Hacker News commenters recommended Obsidian Sync and 13 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 8 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Paid end-to-end encrypted sync that works without setup across devices, and many like funding the developers. Critics mainly flag weak mobile background sync.

## Why people recommend it

- Supporting the developers (5 comments): "mostly to support the project but also because it's nice to not have to think about it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47761920)) "I've paid for obsidian sync as a way to support their team for the last 3 years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47198375)) "Its one of the few subscriptions where it actually feels like money well spent" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47198413))
- End-to-end encryption and privacy (4 comments): "End-to-end encryption, integrated version history, better mobile support, granular control over which settings and files are synced to each device." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200360)) "all while having the speed, privacy, customizability, end-to-end encryption of Obsidian Sync." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197430)) "To enjoy the native ease of use and security of Obsidian Sync as a human user on your devices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197541))
- Works without setup or tinkering (4 comments): "it is the best money spent aside from Claude. I don't have to tinker with weird settings anymore or deal with sync issues, it just works." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197820)) ""it just works" across platform, without having to think about/set something else up" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47204444)) "Obsidian Sync is just so damn frictionless compared to all other solutions" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47204991))
- Integrated conflict handling and app fit (3 comments): "the conflict resolution is far better, especially when you have it on both desktop and mobile" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47207638)) "The official Sync is focused on providing a more integrated experience in the Obsidian app" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47198716)) "Obsidian Sync has been built to provide the best experience with Obsidian." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47198437))

## What people warn about

- Mobile background sync limits on iOS (3 comments): "Mobile app is pretty good, my biggest complaint is it won't sync in the background." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200931)) "their only money-making method is to limit the iOS app to sell their cloud" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200023)) "Obsidian supports none of these on iOS so I cant sync all my devices" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47203847))
- Sync bugs and data loss (3 comments): "obsidian sync consitently empties random recently opened notes for me" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197991)) "were all way too issue-prone for me to ever trust it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757791)) "Great, now it can corrupt my data headlessly too." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47200387))
- No self-hosted sync option (2 comments): "I'd pay for the option to host my own server with the official sync but they don't offer that for now." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759415)) "the main supported sync module is cloud only they wont let you self host for free" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47265628))
- Costly for small amounts of data (2 comments): "A lot of people view that as pretty costly for what is incredibly small amounts of data in the scope of things." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759200)) "except it's ANOTHER charge then. I have more than 2 devices..." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47223042))

## Where to get it

- [Visit the official site](https://obsidian.md/sync)

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Obsidian Sync", https://hackerapproved.com/p/obsidian-sync/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).