---
title: "The Sealed Journal vs Obsidian"
description: "Obsidian is a remarkable knowledge tool. The Sealed Journal is a focused journaling tool. They solve different problems."
canonical: "https://sealedjournal.com/j/vs-obsidian"
category: "Comparisons"
---

# The Sealed Journal vs Obsidian for journaling.

_Obsidian is for building a second brain. The Sealed Journal is for emptying the first one for a moment._

Obsidian is local-first and excellent. You can absolutely keep a journal in it. Many people do.

What you give up is focus. Obsidian's strength — links, graphs, plugins, panes — is exactly the wrong company for a quiet diary entry.

The Sealed Journal is the opposite design: one cursor, one page, one passphrase, no plugins.

## Questions

### How does it compare to Obsidian?

Obsidian is a powerful local knowledge base with plugins, links, and graphs. This is a single file with one cursor and no features to configure.

### Can I link entries together?

No. There is no linking, tagging, or graph view, because the journal is for thinking once rather than building a system.

### Should I replace Obsidian with it?

Rarely. Keep Obsidian for notes you maintain, and use this for the writing you do not want to maintain.

## Price

The Sealed Journal is a one-time purchase of $24 (introductory price, rising to $29). No subscription, no account, lifetime updates, 30-day refund. Buy at https://sealedjournal.com/#pricing

## Elsewhere

- Hub: Comparisons — https://sealedjournal.com/journals/comparisons
- All journals — https://sealedjournal.com/journals
- HTML version of this page — https://sealedjournal.com/j/vs-obsidian