Folding Mirror vs Obsidian
Both keep your writing as plain .md on your own disk, but they are built for two different jobs. The short answer first: if what you want is a knowledge base that keeps growing, or you need to write on your phone, use Obsidian. It is also free.
This page is about the other job: writing one thing, revising it, sending it out.
Where Obsidian wins
What it does well first. Three of these are gaps Folding Mirror will not be closing soon.
- It is free, for every purpose. Personal, commercial, non-profit — their site says so plainly. The $25 Catalyst and $50-a-year Commercial licences are voluntary support; skip them and you still have the whole app. Folding Mirror is $25.90, once. There is nothing to argue about in this row.
- It is on every device you own. macOS, Windows and Linux, plus official iOS and Android apps. Folding Mirror is macOS only. Catching a thought on your phone is something it simply cannot help you with.
- Thousands of plugins. Add whatever is missing — a calendar, a kanban board, database queries — until it has become a different application. Folding Mirror has no plugin system.
One more: wiki links, the graph and tags are Obsidian's own ground, years of work and further along than Folding Mirror's. If what you want is loose thoughts joined up, that is the answer.
What you see when you open it
Obsidian opens as an empty vault: file tree on the left, blank page on the right, and the rest is yours to assemble. Folding Mirror opens as a sheet of paper.
More concretely: there is no toolbar. Four icons sit in the top bar, coloured to match the paper. To insert something, type a slash on an empty line and what you can put there is listed under the caret; keep typing and you are filtering. Tables are edited on the page, with a right-click for rows, columns and alignment. The body type is set for long prose, and its spacing was tuned rather than inherited. None of this is a setting you have to go and find.
Obsidian can do most of it too, once you know which plugins to install, where to find them and how to configure them. Plenty of people enjoy that part. Folding Mirror is for the ones who don't.
- Four colour schemes, or follow the system. The switch is that half-dark circle in the top bar. One click per scheme, no settings panel to open.
- The assistant is the column on the right. Nothing to choose, nothing to compare. It reads your whole library, rewrites a section, and stops for your confirmation before every write. Obsidian ships no official AI; which community plugin and whose API key are yours to sort out.
- Checkpoints cover the folder. Go back to a given day and see what the whole pile looked like, then take all of it back at once. Obsidian's File recovery is per file, every 5 minutes by default, kept 7 days; longer than that means a Sync subscription.
- The drawing is in the document. An Excalidraw sketch sits in the page: double-click to edit it, drag to resize it. Obsidian's Canvas is a board in its own .canvas file — a different thing, useful in a different way.
Row by row
Both columns are sentences rather than ticks and crosses. Obsidian takes at least as many of the rows below as Folding Mirror does.
| Folding Mirror | Obsidian | |
|---|---|---|
| Price and licence | Folding Mirror | Obsidian |
| Price | $25.90 one-time (early bird $14) | Free, for every purpose. The $25 Catalyst and $50/year Commercial licences are voluntary support, not a requirement |
| Updates | One year included; the version you have keeps working afterwards, renewal optional | Free updates |
| Where it runs | Folding Mirror | Obsidian |
| Platforms | macOS 12 and later; Windows and Linux are planned | macOS, Windows and Linux, plus official iOS and Android apps |
| Where your files live | An ordinary folder on your own disk, one .md per document | Same. Obsidian calls the folder a vault; the only addition is an .obsidian directory holding its settings |
| Writing | Folding Mirror | Obsidian |
| Live preview | The line under your caret shows its source; every other line stays set | Live Preview, which they describe as showing “Markdown syntax around the cursor” — the same idea as Folding Mirror. There is also Source mode and Reading view |
| Seeing the whole source | ⌘/ to toggle, or fold the sheet into two draggable halves | Source mode, for the whole file |
| Tables | Real tables edited in place; add, remove and align from the right-click menu | A native table editor since 1.5: Tab between cells, add and reorder rows and columns, sort |
| Formulas | KaTeX; rendering waits until the caret leaves the pair, so a half-typed formula never snaps shut | Yes, MathJax |
| Mermaid diagrams | In a fence, or as a standalone .mmd file you open like any document | In a fence |
| Drawing canvas | An Excalidraw canvas embedded in the page; double-click to enter it | It has Canvas, an infinite board — but as its own .canvas file, not a drawing inside the document |
| Once you have a pile of them | Folding Mirror | Obsidian |
| Wiki links and backlinks | Yes; each document lists what mentions it | A core feature, and more developed than in Folding Mirror |
| Graph view | Yes | Yes, and it filters by tag and folder |
| Version history | Checkpoints for the whole library; go back to any day and read what was there | The File recovery core plugin: per file, a snapshot every 5 minutes by default, kept for 7 days. With a Sync subscription, a year of history per note |
| The assistant | Folding Mirror | Obsidian |
| AI | Built in; it can read and edit your documents, and every write waits for your approval | Nothing official; plenty of community plugins, which you pick and key up yourself |
| Making it yours | Folding Mirror | Obsidian |
| Plugins | No plugin system. What you need is there when you open it | Thousands of community plugins: add what is missing, or turn it into a different app altogether |
| Themes | Four built in, switched from one button in the top bar, or following the system | Thousands of community themes |
| Getting it out | Folding Mirror | Obsidian |
| Export | PDF, HTML, or just hand over the .md | PDF export built in; other formats through plugins |
Checked against both vendors' own pages on 2026-08-21. Both apps keep changing and this page will not follow them, so check Obsidian's own site for anything that matters to your decision.
Coming over
A vault is a folder, and Folding Mirror opens it directly.
- Files and links both carry.
[[Wiki links]]are written the same way here, and each document still lists what mentions it. - What plugins wrote into your notes does not. A Dataview query block, or any plugin's own syntax, reads as an ordinary code block. If those are part of your daily work, this move is not worth making.
- The .obsidian folder stays where it is. Folding Mirror neither reads it nor writes to it, so you can switch back whenever you like.
- You can run both at once. Same folder, each picking up what the other saved. Take your time.
Asked before buying
Obsidian is free. Why does Folding Mirror cost anything?+
A fair question. Obsidian is free for every purpose and does a great deal, so a longer feature list is not an argument. What Folding Mirror sells is a different thing: it writes well the moment you open it, without a weekend spent choosing plugins and tuning settings. The assistant, the checkpoints for the whole library, the typesetting — those are the factory settings, not a shopping list. If you enjoy assembling your own tool, Obsidian is the better answer, and that is meant plainly.
Can Folding Mirror open my vault?+
Yes. A vault is an ordinary folder of .md files, so Folding Mirror just opens it, wiki links and backlinks included. One thing does not carry over: syntax that plugins write into your notes, such as a Dataview query block, shows up as an ordinary code block. If that is a daily part of your workflow, this move is not worth making.
Is there a Folding Mirror app for my phone?+
No. Folding Mirror is macOS only, while Obsidian has official iOS and Android apps. If you are used to catching a thought on your phone, that gap is real and there is no way around it.
Can I install plugins in Folding Mirror?+
No, and there is no plan to allow it. Folding Mirror is built to work as it comes. That is a trade: you never maintain a plugin set, and in exchange, anything missing waits for Folding Mirror itself to build it.
Run both,
on the same folder.
It is the least troublesome way to compare them. The Folding Mirror trial runs 14 days and needs no account and no card.