Obsidian alternatives for students: the $0-budget shortlist

The $0 shortlist for lecture notes

• Logseq — $0. Free and open source. The daily journal maps neatly onto lecture days: one page per day, bullets under each lecture, links between topics as the course connects up.
• Joplin — $0. Free and open source. Notebooks per module, tags per topic, encryption if your notes are sensitive, and sync through a free route you control.
• SiYuan — $0. Free and open source, block-based, with flashcards built into the same app — worth a look if revision cards are your study method.

All three keep working offline in a lecture hall with bad Wi-Fi, and none of them charges per note, per notebook or per device.

Sync without paying: pick ONE route

• iCloud — if every device you own is Apple. The simplest free route.
• Git — if you are comfortable with it: free version history for your notes, rougher on phones.
• Syncthing — private device-to-device sync on any platform; both devices must be on to sync.

The rule that protects your notes: pick ONE sync method and never run two on the same notes at once — two services racing to write the same files is how conflicts and corruption happen. The routes are compared in full in how to sync Obsidian for free — the same advice applies to these apps.

The 40% student discount truth

Before you rule Obsidian out on price, know this: the app is free with no limits, and the paid add-ons — Sync ($4/month billed yearly, $5 monthly) and Publish ($8/site/month billed yearly, $10 monthly) — carry a 40% discount for students, faculty and non-profits, as seen 2–3 November 2026. Re-check the discount and the prices on the official pricing page on publish day, because both change. With the discount, official sync can cost less than the evenings a DIY setup takes — run your own numbers in the true-cost calculator and on the is Obsidian free? page. Prefer learning inside Obsidian itself instead? Read Obsidian for students — that page is about using Obsidian; this page is about leaving it.