Obsidian
Obsidian is a locally stored note-taking application with millions of PKM fans.
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Obsidian Reviews
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Joseph Goodman
Dec 24
Sultan of Streamlining
9.0 out of 10 stars
The only PKM App
Love obsidian for personal knowledge management. It's the only tool I'll use for capturing ideas, book notes, and writings to link together. The best part is that it's just a fancy wrapper for markdown files. Meaning you own your writing, it's available offline, and if Obsidian disappears, your files are still right there. Community plugins are great to transform Obsidian into whatever kind of app you want, from a simple text editor to a database focused task and project management software, integrated into your entire app ecosystem.
Andrew Shell
Dec 24
Focus Wizard
9.8 out of 10 stars
Obsidian is my daily driver
I use Obsidian every day. I came to it from Roam and Logseq, and this is where I landed. I love storing everything as markdown files on my drive, and syncing works very well. My main vault uses Obsidian Sync and I've never had issues with it across all my devices. One big win with Obsidian is that plugins work on desktop and mobile, so I don't need to worry about having a different experience on my iPhone vs. laptop vs. iPad.
Mike Dionne
Dec 24
Pastor
9.6 out of 10 stars
Not simple, but simply the best
Obsidian takes work--more work than Capacities or Roam or even Notion. But it works well, and it does what you want it to do. It makes it possible for you to have all of your notes work together, in one place. And the amount of customisation and options available is incredible. The best use of money, the best app, one of the best apps I've ever used. I've drifted away before but I always come back.
Adam Hoffman
Dec 24
Time-Management Titan
8.2 out of 10 stars
I really wanted to love Obsidian
Last year I came across Obsidian, and I will admit, I fell in love. This app introduced me to the world of markdown (I know I'm late to the game, but I have no idea why anyone complains about markdown. It saves so much time). As well I like how I could utilize icloud for seamless syncing, could make connections easily across notes and customize my experience to my heart's content. I also explored connecting the app to Matter and Kindle to take my notetaking to the next level. I probably annoyed anyone I talked it, Obsidian was all I could talk about. The honeymoon phase started to wane after a few months. The customization I loved soon became a huge distraction. I could never get the app "Just Right". There is also a decent learning curve with the app, and I would have to spend countless hours digging through tutorials. All of this takes away from being productive. I also use an iPad, and while using Obsidian, I found I missed the ability to make handwritten notes. Sometimes I switch this up on mood, and I would rather not lose notes across multiple apps. While Obsidian ultimately didn't work for me as my go to app, I still use it for specific use cases. This is mostly for the ability to highlight text in Kindle and export it to Obisidan for later review and notetaking. I still think Obsidian is a great app, and there are a number of reasions why it should be considered as your preferred note-taking app, especially if you use the the more complex note-taking systems out there. If you want to make connections across notes, love an active community and access to plugins for a customized experience and don't mind the time it takes to get set up, Obsidan could be right for you.
Gogi Rogi
Nov 24
Inbox Invincible
8.4 out of 10 stars
Too much freedom, but great otherwise
Obsidian was the first tool I used in the PKM space, but I stopped using it because personally for me it was not scalable when I had hundreds of notes. It could be due to my inefficient tagging or foldering system, but I needed something more stringent. On top of this, there were way too many choices for plugins, which made me distracted easily and I spent more time tweaking plugins than using Obsidian over the past two years, I wasn't that efficient at all. However, it is great because it's free. There's a great iCloud sync which I use. Notes load up instantly because it's all local on my MacBook. It's a reliable piece of software. I love that the notes are portable, meaning that they're not in any weird format because if you export from some platforms (like AnyType, Capacities and etc.) that save their properties, when you load it to other software it makes it look ugly because it's markdown with extra metadata that is not parsable.
Anna Here
Nov 24
Workflow Wizard
10 out of 10 stars
Distraction free note-taking
Obsidan can be anything you want it to be. I find it is wonderful for working without distraction. I can easily change the looks, create links, a kanban or a canvas from my notes. It's limitless. The Obsidian sync feature is super fast and accurate. The license to get early releases is a one-time $25.00 fee - a bargain. Their new clipper feature incorporates notes and highlights to read later without having to go through something like Readwise Reader - and it's free. It's for serious notetaking, or unserious notetaking. It's for whatever you want.
Gabriele Luca
Nov 24
Sultan of Streamlining
8.2 out of 10 stars
My digital second brain
After using Obsidian for a year, I can confidently say it's become an indispensable part of my digital life. As someone who loves to learn, write, and organize information, Obsidian has provided me with a powerful and flexible tool to manage my thoughts and projects.
Anne B
May 24
Chief Efficiency Overlord
10 out of 10 stars
Great for Writers
I used to use Scrivener - but you have to manually make incremental backups, which is crazy. I can sync this securely and adapt it to my needs and the project I'm working on. It's beautiful and simple to use if you keep the setup simple. I love changing the theme whenever I need a change or feel a little stuck. There's a great community on Discord where people are always available to offer help.