Choose Archivist if
You play on Discord and want a bot to record every session live, or you use Foundry VTT. You like extras such as awards, highlights, trading cards and campaign statistics.
RealmBinder vs Archivist
Archivist and RealmBinder both turn sessions into recaps and a compendium, so this is the closest comparison on the list. Archivist is built around recording, with a Discord bot and a long list of extras. RealmBinder does fewer things and puts its care into the record itself.
The short version
Choose RealmBinder if
You want a campaign record you can trust and read, whether the session started as rough notes, a recording or nothing at all. You would rather have a few things done carefully than every feature at once.
Request beta accessWhat Archivist does well
Archivist's Discord bot records sessions live, with speaker recognition. It works with Foundry VTT and Obsidian, offers an API on paid plans, and handles more than 35 languages, detecting mixed-language sessions. It exports as an Obsidian vault, Markdown, HTML or PDF handouts, and it ships new features often.
Where RealmBinder is different
Your notes stay the source
When RealmBinder rewrites a session, your original notes are kept word for word beside it. A rewrite tidies the writing but keeps the names, jokes and tone of the people who were there, and you can select any passage to reword it.
Your table decides what happened
When a note says a quest is done or a character died, RealmBinder suggests the change and waits for someone to apply it. When a name might be someone you have already met, it asks you instead of guessing, so the compendium does not fill with near-duplicates.
Any session can start it
Recordings are one way in, not the only one. Paste rough notes, upload the audio, or have Chronicler interview you about a session nobody wrote down. Every route ends in the same note for the table to read.
Fewer things, done with care
Archivist adds a lot: awards, highlights, cast analysis, trading cards, benchmarks. We would rather make the session note, the compendium, the maps and the table brief good enough that you open them every week.
Side by side
| Feature | RealmBinder | Archivist |
|---|---|---|
| Writing up a session | RealmBinderYes:Paste rough notes, upload a recording or answer an interview, and get a written session note. | ArchivistYes:Recaps from a recording, an uploaded transcript or notes. |
| Recording | RealmBinderPartly:Upload the session audio. No live Discord bot. | ArchivistYes:A Discord bot records live, or upload audio in several formats. |
| Characters, places and quests | RealmBinderYes:Built from your notes, asking when a name might already exist. | ArchivistYes:Extracted from sessions at three levels of detail, with a quest log. |
| Status changes | RealmBinderYes:Suggested from each note, applied only when someone says yes. | ArchivistPartly:Quest statuses in the quest log. |
| Maps | RealmBinderYes:Upload maps, pin places and people, draw routes, zones and labels. | ArchivistNo:No maps. A relationship graph in Data Studio. |
| Looking something up | RealmBinderYes:Ask Chronicler in plain language. Answers link to the notes they came from. | ArchivistYes:Ask questions on the web, in Discord or in Foundry VTT. |
| Sharing with players | RealmBinderYes:Invite the table as owners, members or viewers, or share a public link. | ArchivistYes:Owner, admin and player roles, unlimited seats and a public link. |
| Export | RealmBinderYes:The whole campaign as a ZIP of Markdown files, links kept. | ArchivistYes:Obsidian vault, Markdown, HTML, transcripts and PDF handouts. |
Pricing
Archivist
From US$10 a month for one campaign and four sessions a month, up to US$60 for ten campaigns and forty sessions. Every plan has every feature. Extra sessions and campaigns cost extra. A 30-day trial with no card.
RealmBinder
Free during closed beta, with payments switched off. Launch prices and plans have not been set. Beta tables hear from us before anything changes.
Moving over from Archivist
Archivist exports a campaign as Markdown. Import those files into RealmBinder and choose, note by note, whether to keep each one as it is or have it rewritten. Duplicates are caught before anything is saved.
How we checked
We wrote this from Archivist's own pages on 18 October 2026. Products change, and we would rather be corrected than out of date. If something here is wrong, tell us and we will fix it.
RealmBinder uses AI to write up sessions, build the compendium and answer questions. What it touches, and where it can be wrong.