Choose Obsidian if
You want your notes as files on your own device, free, offline and yours forever. You enjoy shaping a system with templates and plugins, and you mostly keep the campaign for yourself.
RealmBinder vs Obsidian
Obsidian is a general notes app that keeps everything as Markdown files on your own device. Many GMs build a campaign vault in it, with plugins for maps and statblocks. RealmBinder is made only for campaigns, and builds the record from your sessions for the whole table.
The short version
Choose RealmBinder if
You want the campaign kept without building the system first, and you want your players reading it too. You bring the session, and the entries, links, timeline and recap are made for you.
Request beta accessWhat Obsidian does well
Obsidian is free to use, with no account, and keeps your notes as plain Markdown files on your own device. It works fully offline, with apps for desktop, iOS and Android, and has links, backlinks, a graph view and an infinite canvas. Thousands of community plugins extend it, including TTRPG ones for maps and statblocks.
Where RealmBinder is different
No system to build
An Obsidian vault is as good as the templates, folders and plugins you set up, and the links you remember to add. RealmBinder comes ready for a campaign: session notes, a compendium, maps, a timeline and lore, linked as you write.
The links make themselves
Write the session the way it happened and RealmBinder finds the characters, places, items and factions in it, links them, and asks when a name might be someone you have already met.
The whole table is in
Sharing a vault means paying for Sync or Publish, or running a file-sharing setup of your own. A RealmBinder campaign is shared from the start: invite players as members or viewers, and they read the same notes, entries and recap you do.
Side by side
| Feature | RealmBinder | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|
| Writing up a session | RealmBinderYes:Paste rough notes, upload a recording or answer an interview, and get a written session note. | ObsidianPartly:Write the note yourself, with core templates or plugins. |
| Characters, places and quests | RealmBinderYes:Built from your session notes, with links to every session an entry appears in. | ObsidianPartly:Notes you create and link by hand, shaped with templates. |
| Maps | RealmBinderYes:Upload maps, pin places and people, draw routes, zones and labels. | ObsidianPartly:Through community plugins such as Leaflet, which is in maintenance mode. |
| Timeline | RealmBinderYes:Pulled from each session note and laid out by session. | ObsidianPartly:Through community plugins or the canvas. |
| Looking something up | RealmBinderYes:Ask Chronicler in plain language. Answers link to the notes they came from. | ObsidianPartly:Search and backlinks. No built-in AI answers. |
| Sharing with players | RealmBinderYes:Invite the table as owners, members or viewers, or share a public link. | ObsidianPartly:Shared vaults with Sync, or a read-only site with Publish. Both are paid. |
| Export | RealmBinderYes:The whole campaign as a ZIP of Markdown files, links kept. | ObsidianYes:Nothing to export: your notes are already Markdown files. |
Pricing
Obsidian
The app is free, for personal and work use. Sync: from US$4 a month billed yearly, or US$5 monthly. Publish: US$8 a site a month billed yearly, or US$10 monthly.
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 between them
Both speak Markdown. Import your Obsidian notes into RealmBinder as Markdown files and choose, note by note, whether to keep them as they are or have them rewritten. Going the other way, a RealmBinder export is a ZIP of Markdown files with the links between notes and entries kept, ready to open in Obsidian.
How we checked
We wrote this from Obsidian'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.