A vault of files or a subscription tool for client work: what you gain and what you give up

What do you gain with plain files?

A client note in an ObsidianObsidianEine kostenlose Notiz-App für Windows, Mac, Linux, iPhone und Android. Ihre Notizen bleiben Markdown-Dateien auf Ihrem eigenen Computer. Brievora ist ein Vault, ein Ordner mit Notizen und Ansichten, den Sie in Obsidian öffnen.obsidian.md vault is a text file with a .md extension in a folder on your computer. Any text editor opens it, with or without Obsidian installed. The vault works without a network, search runs on your disk, and nobody can change the price of reading your own records.

An online tool keeps the same records in its database. That is what makes sharing and real-time editing possible, and it also means the vendor decides how you get your data out. The difference shows on the day you stop paying. Before you commit to any tool, a vault included, run this exit test on a trial account with five real records:

1. Export everything in one go. Count how many clicks and how many minutes it takes.
2. Open the export without the tool. Can you read a project note in a plain text editor or a spreadsheet?
3. Check the links. Does the project still point to its client and its invoices, or did the export flatten them into names?
4. Look for attachments: the signed quote, the brief PDF, the mockups.
5. Read the terms on cancellation: what happens to the workspace when you stop paying, and for how long you can still export.

A vault passes the first four points by design, because there is nothing to export. The fifth does not apply: Obsidian is free with no limits, work use included, and only the optional services (Sync, Publish) are paid, according to obsidian.md/pricing (checked in October 2026).

How much does each option cost over three years?

The honest comparison counts your time. A subscription is ready in an afternoon. A vault built from scratch takes hours of setup: folders, templates, properties, views. At your hourly rate, those hours are a real cost, paid once.

The table below is an example built by our team, for one freelancer, over 36 months, at $90 an hour. The vault side pays for Obsidian Sync at $4 a month on annual billing, or $144 over three years. The tool prices are assumptions to replace with yours.

The formula behind each row: saving = tool price × people × 36 − sync cost over 36 months − setup hours × your hourly rate. If you sync through iCloud or Syncthing instead of Obsidian Sync, add $144 per person to the saving.

For a solo freelancer, money is rarely the deciding factor: a few hundred dollars over three years, often less than one billed day. In a studio, the gap grows with every seat, and so does the setup time if each person builds their own habits.

What do you give up when you leave an online tool?

You give up five things: client access, reminders, real-time teamwork, automations and vendor support.

Clients can’t log in to a vault. You send them a PDF export or a status email, or you publish selected notes with Obsidian Publish ($8 per site per month on annual billing). The guide Obsidian or Notion for client work compares the sharing options in detail.

Nothing reminds you either. Obsidian does not email you when an invoice is late: you see it when you open the view, so the vault only works if you open it on a fixed day.

Two people can share a vault through a sync service, but without comments, mentions or per-folder permissions. The options for a small studio are compared in sharing an Obsidian vault in a small studio.

Online tools also send proposals, collect signatures and take payments. A vault tracks what you sent with another tool; our comparison of Obsidian and client management apps covers that split.

Last, nobody owes you support. When a view breaks, you fix it, or you ask the community forum.

Who is responsible for backups with a vault?

You are. With files, the backup that a vendor ran for you becomes your job, and sync alone does not cover it: a sync service copies deletions and mistakes to every device within seconds. Obsidian Sync keeps a version history, and the built-in File recovery plugin keeps local snapshots on each device, but neither is a copy outside your computer.

One afternoon covers the basics:

• Turn on disk encryption: FileVault on a Mac, BitLocker or device encryption on Windows. A stolen laptop then leaks nothing.
• Set up an automatic backup of the vault folder to a second disk or a backup service, separate from sync.
• Check that the File recovery core plugin is on. By default it keeps snapshots for 7 days, outside the vault folder.
• Restore one note from the backup once, to check that the backup works.
• Write down where client data lives, in case a contract asks.

That note also helps the day a client asks what you keep about them. A confidentiality clause may limit which notes you paste into an online assistant; client data and AI assistants covers how to sort them.

When is the subscription still the better choice?

Pay for the online tool if one of these is true for most of your projects:

• Your clients expect to log in and follow the project themselves, every week.
• Several people edit the same pages during the same day and talk in comments.
• You want proposals, contracts and payments in the same place as the project.
• You will not spend the setup hours from the table above, now or later.

Files are the better fit when you work alone or in a small studio, when contracts ask where client data is stored, when you often work offline, and when you want to read a 2026 project in 2036 without renewing anything. If you go that way, getting started with Obsidian as a freelancer covers the first settings, and managing client projects in Obsidian the structure of the notes.