Oyma vs Obsidian

Obsidian and Oyma read the same thing: a folder of Markdown files. That makes this less a choice between two apps than a question of which jobs you give each one. Obsidian is the mature, extensible notes app with apps on every platform. Oyma is a newer notes app for the Mac, built around meetings: it records the call, transcribes it on your Mac and writes the result into a note in that same folder.

If you never take calls, Obsidian is the stronger notes app, and this page will tell you so. If you do, read on.

How each handles your notes

Obsidian stores your vault as plain-text .md files on disk and uses wikilinks as its default link format. Around that core it has grown a lot: 8,349 community plugins as of October 2026, themes, Canvas, Bases database views, an official command-line tool, and open formats for all of it. You can make Obsidian behave like almost any notes app you can describe.

Oyma takes the opposite bet. It ships a fixed set of features and no plugin system. Inside that set:

• A live-preview Markdown editor with wikilinks and aliases, callouts, highlights, comments, footnotes, tags and YAML frontmatter.
• Backlinks, an outline, a graph view, full-text search and a ⌘O command palette for notes, commands and tags.
• Daily notes, tabs, folding for headings, lists and code, and link cards with hover previews.
• Tables you edit like a spreadsheet: Tab and Enter to move between cells, row and column menus, sorting, CSV and TSV paste, and images in cells.
• Renaming a note rewrites the links that point to it.
• Export to PDF, Word (DOCX) and HTML.

One honest gap: [[Note#Heading]] autocompletes in Oyma, but ⌘-clicking it opens the note, not the heading yet. Math and Mermaid blocks show as source, and an embedded note shows as a link chip rather than inline content.

The difference in practice: in Obsidian you decide what your notes app is. In Oyma that decision is made for you, which is a loss if you enjoy tuning your setup and a relief if you don’t.

How each handles meetings

Obsidian has no first-party meeting recording or transcription. Its core Audio recorder plugin records your microphone only and doesn’t transcribe. A forum request for transcription has been open since December 2021; one user called it their “#2 reason for not fully switching to Obsidian from Evernote.” Community plugins fill some of the gap. The Whisper plugin has about 57,600 downloads, while the plugins that capture the other side of a call have a few hundred installs each. Some people run a separate meeting app and pipe its notes in with a plugin made for Granola.

Meetings are Oyma‘s main job. Any note can host a recording:

• It records your microphone and the call audio on your Mac, and no bot joins the call. Call audio needs macOS 14.2 or later and the Screen & System Audio Recording permission; recording permissions walks through it.
• It notices when Zoom, Google Meet, Teams, Webex, Slack huddles, Discord, Around or Whereby start and offers to take notes.
• If you opt in, it reads attendees from macOS Calendar.
• It transcribes live with Whisper on your Mac, in 13 languages plus auto-detect. The speech models download when you first need them: Base is 148 MB, Small 488 MB and Large v3 Turbo 1.6 GB. Transcription models explains the trade-offs.
• It writes a summary with key points and action items from one of five templates (general, standup, retro, design review, 1:1) and suggests a title.
• It can transcribe an audio or video file you already have.

The limits are real. Oyma doesn’t identify speakers: transcript lines show whether they came from your mic or the call, not who said them. Without headphones, your speakers can echo into the mic and duplicate lines. Meetings shows the full flow.

AI and privacy: what leaves your Mac

Obsidian itself has no AI. That’s a deliberate stance: the app keeps your files local and leaves AI to plugins and outside tools. What leaves your Mac therefore depends on which plugin you install and how you set it up. Copilot works with your own API key or a local model, and Smart Connections builds local embeddings for free. Point either at a cloud key and your note text goes to that provider.

Oyma builds AI in, with two routes you choose between:

• On your Mac with Ollama. You install Ollama separately and pull a model. Summaries and Ask then run locally.
• With your own Anthropic or OpenAI key. The text you summarise or ask about goes to that provider under your account. Keys are stored in the macOS Keychain.

Ask works on one note, a selection or a transcript at a time. It doesn’t search across your whole vault.

Two controls make this checkable rather than a promise. Local-only mode blocks all network access from the app, and the egress log records every outbound request it makes. Crash reports and usage stats stay off unless you turn them on. Privacy architecture lists what each feature sends, and when.

Price and what you actually pay

Obsidian’s app is free with no account, and the commercial licence is optional at $50 per user a year. You pay for services:

• Sync Standard: $4 per user a month billed annually, or $5 monthly.
• Sync Plus: $8 per user a month billed annually, or $10 monthly.
• Publish: $8 per site a month billed annually, or $10 monthly.

AI adds a second bill if you want the paid tiers. Copilot Plus is $14.99 a month or $139.99 a year. Smart Connections Pro is $30 a month or $299 a year. A common setup, Sync Standard plus Copilot Plus on annual billing, comes to about $188 a year. You can also stay on the free tiers of those plugins and pay a model provider directly.

Oyma is free during the private beta, with no account and no paid plan yet. Ollama is free; if you use your own key, you pay Anthropic or OpenAI for what you use. The build is signed but not yet notarised by Apple, so beta access is by invite. Pricing has the current state.

Use both: one vault, two apps

Because both apps read plain Markdown, you don’t have to pick. Open your existing vault in Oyma with Open vault… and nothing is imported, converted or renamed. The .obsidian folder, your plugins, themes and .canvas files are left alone. Opening an Obsidian vault lists what carries over.

A workable split:

1. Record and summarise calls in Oyma. Each meeting becomes a note with wikilinks, callouts and frontmatter Obsidian already understands.
2. Keep doing your planning, Canvas boards, Bases views and plugin-driven work in Obsidian.
3. Let Obsidian handle your phone. Oyma doesn’t sync, so the mobile side of the vault stays Obsidian’s job.

Avoid editing the same note in both apps at the same moment, as you would with any two editors.

Who should use which

Stay with Obsidian alone if you rarely take calls, if your workflow leans on Dataview, Tasks or other plugins, or if you work across Windows, Linux and mobile. It’s the more capable notes app and the safer long-term bet on maturity.

Use Oyma alone if you work on an Apple silicon Mac, your day is mostly calls, and you want the recording, transcript and summary in your notes without assembling anything. You give up plugins, themes and mobile for now.

Use both if you already have an Obsidian vault and take calls. That’s the case Oyma was built for: your meetings land in the vault you already trust, and Obsidian keeps everything it’s good at.

What Oyma doesn’t do yet

To be plain about it: no plugins, no themes, no Canvas or Bases, no sync, no publishing, no mobile apps and no speaker identification. It runs only on Apple silicon Macs, and it’s a private beta with a small user base, where Obsidian has years of community knowledge behind it. If any of those is a deal-breaker, Obsidian is the right call today.

Where Obsidian is better

• A huge plugin ecosystem (8,349 community plugins) and an open API. Far more extensible.
• Apps for Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, plus end-to-end encrypted Sync and Publish.
• Years of maturity and a large community, forum and documentation.
• Canvas, Bases database views and an official CLI.

Thinking of moving? Your notes in Oyma are plain Markdown, so you can always take them with you. Start withgetting started, or read what leaves your Mac.