Obsidian

Obsidian

A versatile writing app tailored to your thinking
•534 reviews•8 shoutouts•
3.3K followers

What is Obsidian?

Store notes on your device, so you can access them quickly, even offline. Use hundreds of plugins and themes, to fit your way of thinking.

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Obsidian gallery image
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Obsidian Canvas was ranked at #2 Productivity for 2022
#2 Productivity Product of the Year

Recent Obsidian Launches

Obsidian Canvas
Obsidian 1.0
Obsidian for Mobile
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Forum Threads

Is Obsidian really that much better vs Bear? Should I switch?
I'm a compulsive note-taker - first started taking notes in @Evernote circa 2011, and switched to @Bear around 2016 when Evernote got too slow (time-to-note and time-to-retrieve got so slow that I found myself taking 5x fewer notes... it felt like my augmented brain was getting dumber). Since then I've used Bear, and while it's generally nice to use and fast, I've got two main gripes: 1) It's too slow to take notes on desktop (I'd love keyboard shortcuts to open it from anywhere) - I often default to @Sublime because it's so fast to open (yeah, I'm still using @Quicksilver as a launcher... I'm a dinosaur) and I love the editor / know lots of keyboard shortcuts. I write in markdown then use a Sublime-to-Bear plugin to create a new Bear note, which is annoying. 2) The backlinking feature is terrible - it's so buried that I find myself creating backlinks by hand right at the top of notes. This means it's hard to create a useful hierarchy. There are some other gripes, like the lack of version backups (I accidentally deleted a really critical note and there was no recourse), but generally, I like everything else. I've heard lots of people talk about @Obsidian, but I've been reluctant to explore it because it seems non-trivial to set up syncing, and I'm dreading making the transition (I never transitioned my Evernote notes due to lots of rich media - audio notes... so my augmented memory is kinda split between pre-2016 and post-2016). So... should I switch? Is there anything else I should consider?
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Obsidian Alternatives

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Review Obsidian?

4.85/5 based on 534 reviews
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Maker reviews of Obsidian

Voicezap AI
Ron Jansen
used this to buildVoicezap AIVoicezap AI
(177 points)
The local file first philosophy is refreshing!
Mac Pet
Toby Miller
used this to buildMac PetMac Pet
(374 points)
The best note taking app on the market. Markdown is king.
Pile Commander
Alexander Matyukh
used this to buildPile CommanderPile Commander
(77 points)
A super powerful tool for visually capturing ideas with the relational connections that other tools sometimes lack.
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Reviews

Francisco Ceruti
•1 review
Definitely feels like there are layers to this product I'm not using, but as a n00b I still get tons of value.
owlyph
•3 reviews
Really excellent tool, especially for long-form note-taking. The user interface has an overall elegance that makes this tool stand-out. It would be five stars if the developers truly respected user freedom by making Obsidian open source software.
Bryant.Chen
•4 reviews
Personal knowledge management tool.
Joshua Hustler
•2 reviews
Very steep learning curve. Adding Nick Milo's LYT framework on top really helped me focus on what was required to make this a useful PKM for me!
Marc
•20 reviews
Great note taking app and also good for creating a knowledge database. It can be synced using a paid plan, but it is also easy to sync via OneDrive or Google Drive. I really like it to work on complex projects for university.
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