I really like Obsidian. Cozy borrows a lot from it: files on your computer, no accounts, no cloud lock-in. People sometimes ask me why I didn't just use Obsidian instead of building Cozy. The honest answer is that Obsidian is a notes app. I wanted a journal.
The short version
- What it's for. Obsidian is for organizing notes, research, and ideas. Cozy is for writing about your day.
- How much setup it asks of you. Obsidian rewards tinkering: folders, tags, links, plugins, themes. Cozy opens and you write.
- What's built in. Cozy has ambient sound, a moments timeline, mood tracking, and a calendar made for journaling. Obsidian doesn't, and isn't trying to.
- Both keep your files on your computer. That part is the same.
Different jobs
Obsidian is for connecting notes and growing a knowledge base over years. If you're a researcher or a writer working on a long project, it fits.
Cozy is for the quieter habit of writing about your day. Open it, see today, write a few sentences, close it. The point isn't to build a system. It's to keep going.
How much it asks of you
Part of Obsidian's appeal is that you can shape it. You pick the folder structure, the tagging system, the plugins. Some people love that. I found it was a lot to think about when I just wanted to write something down before bed.
Cozy doesn't ask you to make those decisions. One folder. Each entry has a date, a mood, a location, and tags. Photos sit next to the entry they belong to. That's the whole thing.
What's built in
Cozy has the things a journal needs and a notes app doesn't: ambient sound to write to, a calendar made for daily entries, mood tracking, and a moments timeline. You could build some of this in Obsidian with plugins. With Cozy it's just there.
Sync and pricing
Obsidian itself is free for personal use. Sync is a separate paid add-on: Obsidian Sync is $4 per month, billed annually ($48 a year). If you'd rather not pay for it, you can put your vault inside iCloud, Dropbox, or any similar service and sync that way.
Cozy is the same idea, minus the sync product. $35 once for the desktop app, with Cozy for iPhone included, no subscription. You point it at iCloud Drive or Dropbox if you want your journal on more than one device. One license covers it on every Mac and Windows you own.
Where your writing lives
On both, your writing lives in a folder on your computer, in a format you can open with any app. That's the most important thing they share.
If Cozy disappears tomorrow, you open your folder. Same as Obsidian. Your journal is yours either way.
So which one is for you?
If you want to build a knowledge base and live inside your tool, use Obsidian. It goes deep.
If you just want to write about your day in a calm desktop app and have it quietly pile up, that's what Cozy is for.
Comparing other apps? Read Cozy vs Day One, Cozy vs Bear, Cozy vs Diarium, or Cozy vs Apple Journal.