Is the Obsidian MCP server official?

No. It is a community-maintained server (mcp-obsidian) that reaches your vault through Obsidian's Local REST API plugin and runs locally over stdio. Notion's server, by contrast, is official, hosted, and authorized over OAuth.

Does Obsidian's server need anything running locally?

Yes. It connects to your vault via the Local REST API plugin, so Obsidian must be running with that plugin enabled, and you supply an API key plus host and port. Notion needs no local process because it is a hosted remote server.

Notion vs Obsidian

Notion MCP and Obsidian MCP both let an agent read and write your notes, but they reflect a cloud-versus-local split in how that knowledge is stored and reached. Notion is a hosted, collaborative workspace, and its official server connects over OAuth to search, read, create, and update pages, databases, comments, and users across a team workspace — with no local process to run. Obsidian is a local-first, Markdown-based knowledge tool where every note is a plain .md file on your disk; the community mcp-obsidian server runs locally over stdio and reaches your vault through the Local REST API plugin, listing, reading, searching, patching, appending, and deleting files. One is a managed multi-user platform; the other is a private vault you own as plain text. Here is a balanced look at how they differ on storage, collaboration, and the kind of knowledge work each suits best.

How they compare

Dimension	Notion	Obsidian
Storage model	Cloud workspace: pages and databases live on Notion's servers and the agent reaches them over the network.	Local-first: every note is a Markdown file on your disk, and the agent reads and edits those files directly.
Official vs community	Official, vendor-maintained server hosted by Notion with OAuth authorization per user.	Community-maintained server (mcp-obsidian) that talks to the vault via Obsidian's Local REST API plugin.
Collaboration	Built for teams: shared pages, databases, comments, and users, so an agent can operate in a multi-user workspace.	Built for individuals: a single private vault on your machine, with no built-in multi-user model.
Deployment and auth	Remote over OAuth — nothing to install locally; the agent connects to the hosted endpoint.	Local over stdio via uvx, with an OBSIDIAN_API_KEY plus host/port pointing at the Local REST API plugin in your running Obsidian app.
Best-fit task	Letting an agent work across a team's structured workspace — query databases, create pages, and leave comments.	Letting an agent operate on a private, plain-text knowledge base you fully own, editing Markdown notes in place.

Verdict

Choose by where your knowledge lives and who shares it. Reach for Notion MCP when your team works in a hosted workspace and you want an official, OAuth-based server that can query databases, create and update pages, and leave comments across shared content with no local setup. Reach for Obsidian MCP when your notes are a local-first Markdown vault you own outright and you want an agent to read, search, and edit those files in place, accepting that it is community-maintained and requires the Local REST API plugin plus a running Obsidian instance. In short: Notion for collaborative, structured, cloud-hosted knowledge; Obsidian for a private, portable, plain-text vault that you control end to end.

FAQ

Is the Obsidian MCP server official?: No. It is a community-maintained server (mcp-obsidian) that reaches your vault through Obsidian's Local REST API plugin and runs locally over stdio. Notion's server, by contrast, is official, hosted, and authorized over OAuth.
Does Obsidian's server need anything running locally?: Yes. It connects to your vault via the Local REST API plugin, so Obsidian must be running with that plugin enabled, and you supply an API key plus host and port. Notion needs no local process because it is a hosted remote server.