What people struggle with in Notion and Obsidian, and what Thoth does

People who leave Notion or Obsidian name the same problems: notes that need the internet, lossy exports, sync that loses text, risky plugins. Here are the common ones, with sources, and what Thoth does and does not do about each.

Notes that need the internet

Notion added offline mode in 2025, but you turn it on page by page. Subpages "won't automatically download", and a database keeps only "the first 50 rows of the first view" (Notion help).

Offline also "isn't available on web browsers", the same page says.

In Thoth, a Private Space is a folder of Markdown files on your computer. It works with no connection and no account, every page, every time.

Pages in a shared workspace live on a Thoth server, and they still need a connection. That is a gap we know about.

Getting your notes back out

Notion exports databases as CSV files, and their views and relations do not come along. Moving a large workspace out takes work (Hacker News).

A Private Space is already plain Markdown. Any editor can open it, and Thoth keeps your formatting byte for byte when it saves. There is nothing to export because nothing was locked in.

Workspace pages can be copied into a Private Space, unless the workspace owner turned that off. A one-click export of a whole workspace is not there yet.

Sync that loses text

Obsidian users report conflicts that silently drop part of a note, and ask to resolve conflicts by hand (Obsidian forum).

Thoth never overwrites a change it did not see. If a file changed on disk while you were editing, Thoth keeps both: your version and a conflict copy. On a server, a save based on an old version is refused, and you choose what to keep.

Thoth does not sync a Private Space between your devices. If you put one in iCloud or Dropbox, that service's own conflict rules still apply.

Obsidian Sync costs 4 to 5 US dollars a month per user (Obsidian pricing). Sharing one folder with a team, rather than a whole vault, is a long-standing request (Obsidian forum).

The Thoth server is open source and free to run on your own machine. Workspaces have owner, editor and viewer roles, invite links, and read-only share links for people without an account.

Two people cannot type in the same page at the same moment yet. If they save over each other, the second save is stopped and shown as a conflict instead of lost.

Plugins you have to trust

Obsidian's own documentation says it "cannot reliably restrict plugins to specific permissions or access levels", so a plugin can do whatever the app can (Obsidian help).

Thoth has no plugins. Tabs, split view, favorites, backlinks, the command palette and two editors are built in, so no third-party code runs inside the app.

The assistants are your own Claude Code or Codex. They work in a private folder that holds only the pages you picked, and nothing changes in your notes until you review it and choose Apply.

Your notes and AI

Many people worry about where their notes go when an app adds AI. Thoth's desktop app sends no analytics, and your Private Space stays on your disk.

An assistant sees only the pages you give it, through your own account with Anthropic or OpenAI. Connected apps such as Claude Desktop can read your notes only if you turn that on, only the spaces you tick, and they cannot write.

Thai text

Thoth's interface is in English and Thai. Search finds Thai words inside a sentence, both on your computer and on the server, because Thai has no spaces between words.

We are checking two Thai details next: very short search words, and Backspace inside a word in Plain mode.

What Thoth does not do yet

There is no phone app, and the web app only opens workspaces on the free trial server.

There is no database or table view like Notion's, no live co-editing, and no sync of a Private Space between your devices. Page history exists on the server, but there is no screen to restore an older version yet.

These are on our list. We would rather say so than promise them.

Questions

Is Thoth a replacement for Notion?

For notes, documents and a shared team wiki, yes. If you rely on Notion's databases, not yet: Thoth has no table views.

Is Thoth a replacement for Obsidian?

If you want local Markdown files with links, backlinks and no plugins to manage, yes. If you rely on a particular plugin or on a phone app, not yet.

Does Thoth cost anything?

The desktop app is free and open source, with no limit on notes. You can run your own server for free. Only the hosted trial server has limits.