Kill Notion
$16/mo per user
Notion is powerful but charges per seat, stores your data on their servers, and has become bloated for teams that just need a reliable wiki and notes system. Obsidian is free forever, stores everything locally as plain markdown files you own, syncs across devices for $4/mo (optional), and has a growing ecosystem of AI plugins that connect to Claude.
Why Replace Notion?
- ×Per-seat pricing scales badly - a 10-person team pays $160/mo for what is essentially a note-taking app
- ×Your notes are locked in Notion's proprietary block format - exporting to markdown loses formatting, databases, and relations
- ×Notion's AI features cost an additional $10/user/mo on top of the base subscription
- ×Obsidian stores everything as plain .md files on your own machine - you can open them in any text editor, back them up anywhere, and never lose access
What People Use Notion For
Replacement Stack
Obsidian
Free, local-first note-taking app that stores everything as plain markdown files in a folder on your computer. Powerful linking between notes, graph view to visualize connections, and 1,500+ community plugins. No account required, no data on their servers.
Obsidian Sync (optional)
If you need notes on multiple devices (phone, laptop, tablet), Obsidian Sync handles end-to-end encrypted sync for $4/mo. You can also skip this and use iCloud, Dropbox, or Git to sync your vault for free.
Smart Connections plugin
Free Obsidian plugin that uses AI to find related notes, suggest links, and let you chat with your entire knowledge base. Connects to the Anthropic API so you're using Claude to search and reason over your own notes.
Anthropic API
Powers the AI features in Smart Connections and any custom automation you build. Chat with your notes, auto-tag content, generate summaries. Haiku model keeps costs minimal - most users spend $1-3/mo.
Kill Checklist
Export everything from Notion
~15 minsLog into Notion > Settings & Members > Settings > scroll to Export all workspace content > choose Markdown & CSV format > click Export. This downloads a ZIP file with all your pages as .md files. Important: Notion's export is imperfect - databases export as CSV files, and some formatting gets lost. Do a quick scan of the exported files to see what needs manual cleanup.
Download and set up Obsidian
~10 minsDownload Obsidian from obsidian.md (macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS, Android). Open it and create a new Vault - this is just a folder on your computer where all your notes will live. Choose a location you can easily find (like ~/Documents/Notes). Turn on 'Files & Links > Automatically update internal links' in Settings so links stay connected when you move notes around.
https://obsidian.md →Import your Notion export
~20 minsUnzip the Notion export and copy all the .md files into your new Obsidian vault folder. Open Obsidian - you'll see all your notes. Some cleanup is needed: Notion adds UUIDs to filenames (like 'Meeting Notes abc123.md'), and links between pages will be broken. Install the 'Notion Importer' community plugin (Settings > Community Plugins > Browse > search 'Notion Importer') - it fixes filenames and repairs internal links automatically.
Get the full kill plan for Notion
Sign up to unlock 5 more steps, a customizable Claude Code prompt tailored to the features you actually use, and a checklist to track your progress.
- ✓Pick which Notion features you care about - skip the rest
- ✓Get a Claude prompt customized to your exact setup
- ✓Track your kill progress across all your SaaS tools
Free account. No credit card required.