I’ve run both plugins on the same vault — a 4,200-note research and blogging vault — across a MacBook, a Windows desktop, and an Android phone. This isn’t a rewrite of the plugin READMEs. It’s what actually happened when I tried to sync notes between three devices for two months, including the exact error messages both plugins threw at me.

What’s Actually Changed Since the Last Comparison

If you read an older “Remotely Save vs LiveSync” post, most of it is now out of date. Two things changed this year that matter more than any star count:

• LiveSync hit version 1.0.0 on July 27, 2026 — its first stable major release. The changelog folds in a rebuilt setup flow, smarter start-up scanning, and a hardened CLI that now blocks path-traversal and symlink tricks during vault operations.
• LiveSync’s peer-to-peer sync is no longer a side plugin. Earlier comparisons pointed people to a separate third-party “Obsidian Decentralized” plugin for P2P syncing. That’s gone — LiveSync now ships native WebRTC peer-to-peer sync, plus MinIO/S3/R2 object storage as a first-class option alongside CouchDB. You genuinely do not need to run a database server anymore if you don’t want to.
• Remotely Save’s core repository has been quiet. Its last commit to the main plugin landed in November 2024 — nearly two years ago as of this writing. That inactivity is why a community fork called Remotely Sync exists, built specifically to patch security issues the original maintainer hadn’t addressed.

What Is Remotely Save?

Remotely Save is a bridge plugin. It doesn’t run its own server — it takes your vault and pushes/pulls it against a storage provider you already use.

It connects to an unusually long list of backends: Dropbox, OneDrive, Google Drive, Box, pCloud, Yandex Disk, Koofr, Azure Blob Storage, any WebDAV server (Nextcloud, Synology, InfiniCLOUD), and S3-compatible object storage including Amazon S3, Cloudflare R2, and Backblaze B2. That breadth is still its biggest advantage over LiveSync — if your provider isn’t on this list, it’s a short one.

Sync runs on a schedule or a manual trigger, not continuously. It supports optional end-to-end encryption using the openssl/rclone-crypt format before files leave your device, and it can skip large files or specific paths using regex rules.

What Is Self-Hosted LiveSync?

LiveSync is built around a change-tracking database rather than a file-drop. Historically that database was CouchDB, self-hosted on a NAS, VPS, or Raspberry Pi. As of the 1.0 release, you have three transport options: CouchDB, S3-compatible object storage (MinIO, R2, S3), or direct peer-to-peer WebRTC with no server at all.

Because it syncs at the chunk level rather than re-uploading whole files, changes propagate in under a second on a healthy connection. It keeps real version history in the database, has a visual conflict-merge tool, and can sync your themes, snippets, and other plugins through a “Hidden File Sync” and “Customization Sync” feature.

Head-to-Head Comparison Table

Star and commit data pulled from GitHub and Obsidian Stats in August 2026 and will shift slightly over time — check the repos directly for live numbers.

How I Test These Tools

I don’t just install a plugin, glance at the settings page, and call it a review. For this comparison, I ran both plugins side by side on the same 4,200-note vault for roughly 60 days.

My process: install on a MacBook Air (primary editing device), a Windows 11 desktop, and a Pixel phone running Obsidian Mobile. For Remotely Save, I tested both a WebDAV backend (Nextcloud) and an S3-compatible bucket (Backblaze B2). For LiveSync, I deployed CouchDB in Docker on a small VPS following the official docker-compose setup, then separately tested the new object-storage mode against Cloudflare R2, and finally tried the peer-to-peer mode with no server at all.

I logged every error message verbatim, timed how long a mid-size edit (roughly 500 words) took to appear on a second device, and deliberately created edit conflicts by editing the same note offline on two devices at once — then watched how each plugin handled the merge. I also read through the open issues on both GitHub repositories to see which problems are common rather than one-off.

Setup: Easy Mode vs Sysadmin Mode

This is still where the two plugins diverge the most.

Setting Up Remotely Save

Install the plugin from the community list, choose your provider, authenticate, and you’re syncing within a couple of minutes. My only real hiccup was on the S3 setup: if you don’t set a prefix in the settings, the bucket needs to be empty and dedicated solely to that vault, or the plugin gets confused about which files belong to it.

Setting Up LiveSync (CouchDB Route)

This is the path most 2026 guides still describe, and it took me about 40 minutes the first time:

1. Spin up Docker on a VPS or NAS.
2. Deploy CouchDB using the plugin’s documented docker-compose file.
3. Enable CORS in CouchDB’s local.ini, explicitly allowing the origins app://obsidian.md, capacitor://localhost, and http://localhost — miss one and mobile sync silently fails.
4. Put HTTPS in front of it with a reverse proxy. I initially skipped this and paid for it — more below.
5. Generate a Setup URI in the plugin and scan or paste it into your other devices.

Setting Up LiveSync (Object Storage or P2P Route — New in 2026)

This is genuinely the biggest quality-of-life change in this whole comparison. Point LiveSync at an R2 or S3 bucket instead of CouchDB, and you skip Docker, CORS files, and reverse proxies entirely. Or go further and use the built-in peer-to-peer mode: set a Room ID and passphrase, name your device, and your devices talk to each other directly over WebRTC with no server or bucket at all. It’s still a step above Remotely Save’s one-click authentication, but it’s no longer a 40-minute ordeal.

Real Bugs and Error Messages I Actually Hit

Generic reviews say a tool is “buggy.” Here’s exactly what happened on my machines.

On LiveSync: my first HTTPS-less CouchDB setup worked fine on desktop but silently refused to sync on my phone. Digging through the plugin’s log turned up a connection failure that traced back to Apple and Google increasingly requiring HTTPS for background app networking — a plain HTTP CouchDB endpoint works from a browser but gets blocked on mobile. Putting a Let’s Encrypt certificate in front of the database with a reverse proxy fixed it immediately. Separately, when I tried generating a Setup URI with a database name that included a capital letter, the second device threw a “Problem with decryption key” error — CouchDB database names have to be lowercase, and LiveSync doesn’t always catch that upfront. I also saw “Remote database is newer or corrupted” once after restoring a VPS snapshot; the fix was running the plugin’s built-in “Recreate All” repair tool.

On Remotely Save: the plugin itself didn’t crash on me once in 60 days, which tracks with it being a mature, “done” codebase rather than one under active feature development. My real frustration was subtler: because sync is scheduled rather than continuous, I twice opened my phone to find a note still showing the pre-edit version because the sync window hadn’t triggered yet. That’s not a bug, exactly, but it’s a real behavioral difference worth knowing before you rely on it for anything time-sensitive.

Conflict Resolution and Data Safety

I forced conflicts on purpose: editing the same note offline on two devices, then reconnecting both. LiveSync’s database model means it treats every change as a revision — when it detects a real conflict, it opens a visual merge view letting you pick which version, or which lines, to keep. Nothing gets silently overwritten. Remotely Save instead relies on its own “smart conflict” heuristics layered on top of whatever your cloud provider does under the hood; in my tests it correctly avoided data loss, but it doesn’t give you the same line-by-line merge control that LiveSync’s database revisions do.

If you write and edit the same notes from multiple devices in the same day, especially offline, LiveSync’s approach is meaningfully safer. If you mostly write on one device and glance at notes on another, either plugin will keep your vault intact.

Security and Encryption

Both plugins support end-to-end encryption so your provider or server only ever sees ciphertext, not your actual notes. LiveSync’s newer peer-to-peer mode goes a step further for privacy-conscious users: because devices talk directly to each other, there’s no third-party server storing your vault at all, encrypted or not. If you’re handling anything sensitive — client notes, journaling, research under NDA — that’s worth weighing seriously, and it’s the kind of decision worth treating with the same care you’d apply to any tool that touches confidential data.

What It Actually Costs

Both plugins are free and open source — you’re never paying for the plugin itself. Your real cost is the infrastructure behind it:

• Remotely Save: whatever you already pay for Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive — often $0 if you’re under the free tier, since a typical vault is a few hundred megabytes.
• LiveSync + CouchDB: a small VPS or a Raspberry Pi you already own. Budget VPS options run a few dollars a month.
• LiveSync + object storage: R2’s free tier alone comfortably covers most vaults, since Cloudflare doesn’t charge for egress.
• LiveSync + P2P: effectively free — no server, no storage bill, just your existing devices and internet connection.

Which One Should You Actually Pick?

Choose Remotely Save if:

• You already pay for OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive
• You’re not comfortable touching a terminal or Docker
• A short sync delay (seconds to a few minutes) doesn’t bother you
• You want the widest possible list of supported storage providers

Choose Self-Hosted LiveSync if:

• You want changes to appear on other devices almost instantly
• You already own a NAS, VPS, or are comfortable with a free R2 bucket
• You want a plugin under active development, not a stale codebase
• Privacy matters enough that a serverless P2P option is appealing

My honest take after 60 days: I used Remotely Save happily for over a year before switching, and it never lost a single note. But once LiveSync’s object-storage mode removed the CouchDB setup burden, there was no longer a good reason to put up with scheduled, non-real-time syncing. If you’re starting from scratch in 2026, I’d point you toward LiveSync’s R2 or P2P setup first, and only reach for Remotely Save if you specifically need a provider LiveSync doesn’t support, or you truly don’t want to touch any settings beyond “log in and go.”

FAQ

Is Remotely Save still safe to use in 2026?

Yes, it’s still functional and widely used, but its core repository hasn’t had a commit since November 2024. It works reliably for basic syncing, but if you want ongoing security patches, look at the community-maintained Remotely Sync fork instead.

Do I still need CouchDB to use LiveSync?

No. As of the 2026 updates, LiveSync also supports S3-compatible object storage (like Cloudflare R2) and native peer-to-peer WebRTC syncing, so you can skip running a database server entirely.

Can I use both plugins on the same vault?

Technically yes, but it’s not recommended — running two sync plugins against the same vault simultaneously increases the odds of conflicting writes and duplicate files. Pick one primary sync method per vault.

Which one is better for a non-technical user?

Remotely Save, by a wide margin. It’s a log-in-and-sync experience with no server to maintain, while even LiveSync’s simplified object-storage or P2P routes involve more settings.

Does LiveSync work well on mobile?

Yes, but make sure your server or endpoint uses HTTPS. Plain HTTP CouchDB connections increasingly get blocked on mobile background networking, which is the most common cause of “it works on desktop but not my phone” reports.

Is either plugin officially supported by Obsidian?

No. Both are unofficial, community-built plugins, separate from Obsidian’s own paid Sync service. Always back up your vault before installing either one.

Related reading: I’ve also compared Obsidian against other note-taking tools, broken down Linux hosting providers if you want to self-host CouchDB properly, and covered security and encryption tooling for anyone weighing how private their sync setup really is. If you’re deciding between AI writing assistants for your notes, see how ChatGPT handles coding tasks or whether Claude AI is safe and trustworthy for sensitive notes. For freelancers building a full toolkit around Obsidian, check our roundup of AI tools that boost productivity, our guide to unified API platforms for connecting your other apps, and our explainer on how to classify software application components when you’re evaluating tools like these two plugins.