| FMRS | 60 / 100 · C | 84 / 100 · B | 79 / 100 · B |
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| Reliability | 9 / 20 | 17 / 20 | 12 / 20 |
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| Security and permissions | 13 / 20 | 16 / 20 | 18 / 20 |
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| Maintenance | 10 / 20 | 16 / 20 | 15 / 20 |
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| Documentation | 15 / 20 | 17 / 20 | 19 / 20 |
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| Setup experience | 13 / 20 | 18 / 20 | 15 / 20 |
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| Best for | - Users who want to access a local Obsidian vault through multiple MCP clients.
- Note workflows that need to preserve raw formatting for unmodified frontmatter fields.
- Knowledge-base users who need local file operations, search, and tag management.
| - Local assistants that need to work inside explicitly approved directories
- Individuals and development teams that want path-based data boundaries
| - Serious Obsidian users who want AI agents reading and writing their vault
- Users wanting self-hosted, plugin-free operation with no external APIs
- Mobile/multi-device workflows accessing the vault remotely
- Security-conscious users (OAuth 2.1, atomic writes, container hardening)
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| Not for | - Users without an Obsidian vault or local vault directory.
- Users seeking a remote network service, cloud-hosted service, or non-MCP integration.
- Users who do not want an AI assistant to access or modify vault content and structure.
| - Highly sensitive environments that cannot allow model access to local file contents
- Shared remote file-service use cases
| - Users unwilling to run Docker or self-host a server
- Non-Obsidian note tools (Notion, Logseq, etc.)
- Scenarios requiring only a stdio local process without an HTTP server
- Remote multi-device sync without an Obsidian Sync subscription (the remote image requires one)
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| Required permissions | - Requires Node.js 18 or later.
- Requires read access to the specified vault; writing, moving, and deleting also require the corresponding write permissions.
- The server can access allowed `.md`, `.markdown`, `.txt`, `.base`, and `.canvas` files.
- The AI assistant can see allowed file content, directory structure, and some file metadata.
| - Read access to every local directory listed in the configuration
- Filesystem write access when write or move tools are enabled
| - Read/write access to the Obsidian vault folder (bind mount /vault, rw)
- Persistent /data volume (search index, OAuth token DB, logs)
- MCP_AUTH_TOKEN as Bearer token (also the JWT signing key)
- Obsidian Sync token for headless sync in remote mode
- Local download of embedding/reranker models (~45MB total), no external API calls
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| Risks and side effects | - The server provides full read/write access within its security boundaries, so incorrect instructions can modify or delete notes.
- Vault content, structure, and file metadata may be exposed to AI conversations with access.
- Permanent deletion may be unrecoverable; back up the vault before write operations.
- Path filtering does not isolate content, so sensitive data in allowed files remains readable.
| - Sensitive files inside an allowed directory may enter model context
- Write and move tools change real files; keep scopes narrow and maintain backups
| - The server can read and write personal notes — guard MCP_AUTH_TOKEN carefully; leaking it exposes the whole vault
- Writes to real note files; despite atomic writes and protected paths, misconfiguration can alter data
- OAuth token DB lives on the /data volume; container compromise could expose valid sessions
- Remote deployments expose a public port — set PUBLIC_URL and reverse proxy correctly
- The remote image bundles proprietary obsidian-headless (not MIT-licensed); requires an active Obsidian Sync subscription
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| Supported clients | Claude Desktop, Claude Code, OpenCode, Goose Desktop, ChatGPT Desktop, IntelliJ IDEA 2025.1+, Cursor IDE, Windsurf IDE, Ontheia, Microsoft Copilot Studio, OpenAI Codex | Claude Desktop, Cursor, Cline, Windsurf | Claude Code, Claude Desktop, claude.ai, Cursor, OpenCode, MCP Inspector |
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| Tools | 14 | 6 | 30 |
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