Comparison · Checked 13 August 2026

New Quest vs Obsidian

Obsidian is a free markdown editor that keeps every note as a plain file on your own disk. The worldbuilding is not Obsidian's. It comes from community plugins, which are also free. Longform turns a vault into a manuscript manager with ordered scene files and a compile step that strips front matter and comments. Calendarium builds custom fantasy and sci-fi calendars and applies them across the vault. Leaflet embeds interactive maps with linked markers. World Builder adds characters, locations, factions, lore and timeline events. The Novelist is a ready-made vault template if you would rather not start from an empty folder. Several other plugins expose the vault to an LLM over MCP, locally. No company sits between you and your notes, because they are only files.

Obsidian hands you files nobody can take away and asks you to build the schema and the plumbing yourself; New Quest hands you the schema and a hosted MCP endpoint any model can reach, and asks you to keep your book on someone else's server.

Everything below was true on Obsidian’s own site on 13 August 2026. If we have it wrong, tell us and we will change it. Their site.

The ledger

The same question, asked of both.

Can my model read my world from whatever I draft in?
Obsidian
Yes, locally. MCP Tools, MCP Server, MCP Connector and REST and MCP Server all expose a vault over MCP, and the server runs on your own machine. That means a local or local-adjacent client: Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor. It does not reach ChatGPT on the web, Gemini, or your phone.
New Quest
A hosted remote MCP server. Nothing runs on your machine, so the same world answers from Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or Cursor, on any machine with a browser.
Can I be certain my manuscript never touches anyone's server?
Obsidian
Yes. The vault is markdown on your disk and the MCP server is local too, so a model can have real memory of your world without a word being uploaded.
New Quest
No. Your world and your prose live in our storage. We never train on either, they reach a model only when you connect one on your own account, and export and delete both work whenever you ask. It is still our server.
What will this have cost me in ten years?
Obsidian
The app is free for personal use, with no sign-up and no limits, and every worldbuilding plugin is free. Sync is $4 per user per month billed annually if you want it. Catalyst is $25 once. The $50-a-year commercial licence is encouraged for organisational use, not required of a self-publishing novelist.
New Quest
$39 a month for the app, $29 through the Guild. Ten years of the app tier is $4,680, against nothing for a vault, or $480 with Sync. It has to buy you something you would otherwise build yourself.
What happens to my series bible if the company folds?
Obsidian
Nothing happens. The files are already markdown on your disk. No company can raise your price, cap your entry count, change your terms, or go out of business and take the bible with it.
New Quest
Export hands you the world data and the manuscript, with the book compiling to a single Markdown file, and delete means delete. That is a promise from a company rather than a fact about your filesystem, and the two are not the same thing.
Where does the drafted prose actually live?
Obsidian
In the vault. Longform manages the manuscript as ordered scene files and compiles them, stripping front matter and comments on the way out.
New Quest
In scenes, next to the world state, and the whole book compiles to one Markdown file.
Will anything tell me chapter 61 contradicts chapter 4, or do I have to notice?
Obsidian
You notice. A stat block is whatever YAML front matter you invented, and nothing validates that chapter 61 uses the same field names as chapter 4. Backlinks and the graph view will show you what connects to what. They do not tell you a number moved backwards.
New Quest
A continuity check that never calls a model, so the same manuscript gives the same answer every time. Dead characters walking, spells nobody learned, HP over max.
Are levels, XP and skills real fields, or free text?
Obsidian
Free text, or front matter you design. World Builder gives you characters, locations, factions, lore and timeline events. Anything numeric past that is a schema you invent and then have to keep typing the same way for a hundred chapters.
New Quest
Typed and validated: levels, XP, skills, inventory, stat blocks. Optional, too. Turn the game layer off and it is characters, knowledge, locations and timeline.
How much work before I write, and how much after?
Obsidian
Realistically a weekend or more to assemble a working setup, then maintenance forever. Plugins are volunteer projects and they rot: Leaflet, the standard mapping plugin, is in maintenance mode with feature requests closed. Syncing without paying for Obsidian Sync means Dropbox or Drive, which conflict-clash on a vault's many small files.
New Quest
Sign up, build the bible, give your model a URL. The MCP server is the product rather than a volunteer plugin, so keeping it working is our job.
Can I get the finished book out to a shop and to a narrator?
Obsidian
EPUB needs another plugin or an external Pandoc step. There is no Scrivener import and no pronunciation guide.
New Quest
Word and Scrivener import on the way in, EPUB on the way out, and a pronunciation guide for whoever reads the audiobook.

Choosing

One of these is probably you.

Choose Obsidian if

Privacy is your first principle. Obsidian is the only setup here where the manuscript never touches anyone's server, and the local MCP plugins mean you can still give an LLM real memory of your world without uploading a word.
You would rather spend a weekend configuring than pay a subscription for the next decade. Free, or $48 a year with Sync, against our $468.
You are technical and you enjoy building your own system. Longform, Calendarium, Leaflet, World Builder and The Novelist are all free, and the vault does exactly what you tell it to.
Your world genuinely does not fit anyone else's schema. Ours is opinionated on purpose, and an opinion you disagree with is worse than a blank file.
You want connections you did not plan. Backlinks and the graph view surface links between entities that a database schema would never have suggested.

Go and look at Obsidian →

Choose New Quest if

You draft in ChatGPT on the web, in Gemini, or on your phone. A local MCP server cannot be reached from any of them.
Your LitRPG numbers need to be numbers. Levels, XP, skills and stat blocks as validated fields, not front matter you hope you spelled the same way in chapter 61.
You want continuity checked rather than filed. The check is deterministic and never calls a model, so it does not have opinions about your book.
You do not want to be the sysadmin. No plugin to replace when it goes into maintenance mode, no Dropbox conflict files, no Pandoc step.
You need the publishing end handled: a manuscript imported from Word or Scrivener, an EPUB out, and a pronunciation guide for the narrator.

Join the Guild · $29/mo →Or the app alone · $39/mo

A tall faceted crystal glowing on a stone dais, holding a whole world inside it: a castle, waterfalls, a village and a small party of adventurers, with a game menu beside it reading SAVE, REST, MEMORIES, EQUIP, JOURNAL, SYSTEM.

Questions

What people ask before switching.

Obsidian is free. Why would I pay $39 a month?

You should not, if the free setup does the job. The honest test is where your time goes. If you are happy maintaining plugins, designing your own front matter and drafting on the machine your vault lives on, Obsidian costs you nothing and we cannot beat that. Pay us when you want typed world state you did not design, a continuity check you did not write, and a bible your model can reach from a browser tab on someone else's computer.

Can I use both?

Yes, and plenty of people should. Keep drafting in the vault if that is where you are comfortable, and let New Quest hold the canonical world your model queries. Export hands you the world data and the manuscript, with the book compiling to a single Markdown file, so what comes back to the vault is text.

I have two years of notes in a vault. How do I move them?

There is no one-click vault import, and we would rather say so than let you find out afterwards. Paste a manuscript and it lands split into chapters and scenes. Entities are quicker than they sound, because the MCP connection is read-write: you can point your model at the vault and have it fill in characters, locations and timeline while you check its work. Budget an afternoon, not a button.

What happens if I stop paying, or you go under?

You export the world data and the manuscript, the book compiles to a single Markdown file, and delete means delete. On the free tier your one book stays yours. Prose storage is new, so keep your own copy as well. All of that is still a weaker guarantee than files already sitting on your own disk, which is the whole reason the ledger above gives Obsidian that row.

Does my prose get used to train a model?

Never. Your work is yours. It goes only to the LLM you connect, on your own account, and nothing you write here trains anything. If that promise is not enough for you, that is a reasonable position, and it is an argument for Obsidian rather than against us.