Obsidian is really good. Very feature-rich and customizable.
I personally prefer Joplin for a couple of reasons. It’s fully open source and while it has less features and customizability, I also feel it keeps out of my way more to allow me to focus purely on taking notes and not messing around with other features. Obsidian encourages me to play with its extra features more, which for my case usually just reduces the productivity of my note-taking.
Probably just a me-thing. I tend to gravitate to more straightforward and minimalist solutions generally.
I’m sort of the opposite. I liked Joplin but found myself needing the features of Obsidian. I do know what you mean about Obsidian getting in the way. While it’s easy to start using it, there is a bit of a learning curve to using it well. And it can be a little quirky-annoying at times.
I think that’s one reason there are so many software offerings in this space. There’s a wide range of preferences when it comes to features vs simplicity.
For me, Obsidian is just about perfect without any extensions, but I’m also glad it is extensible if you need them. The configurability and customization, while using standard markup, and keeping the vault storage sizes small were the major pros for me.
Some other products I’ve tried in this space were just too much for me. Huge save files, overdone UXs, and proprietary formats. Joplin and Obsidian were both a breath of fresh air when I found them.
I switched to Joplin after dumping the fully enshittified Evernote earlier this year. Joplin’s entry and reading interface is straight up terrible, and I sorely miss the auto-ocr search from Evernote, but it’s overall layout basic enough to be usable.
Trilium for a database and therefore faster method that is actually foss.
Obsidian is reaching market criticality so I’m expecting enshitification any time now.
I’ve recently switched from Notion to Obsidian (almost anyway). But I still have to find a good way to sync. I tried nextcloud, but I couldn’t get two way sync to work on mobile. I feel like €10,- a month for just sync is a bit much, and it (partly) defeats the idea of “the files are mine”.
I wish the official sync software was available for self hosting (ie as a Docker container). Maybe even against a one time fee?
What solutions do others here use for syncing?
I use syncthing, it is great for folder syncthing between multiple devices and no “server” needed
SyncThing is fantastic; I use it for Obsidian files and also for password manager databases.
I used to use syncthing but got annoyed by it drawing sooooo much battery from my android phone. Tried the fork and got it down a bit but kt was just too much in the end.
I just keep my vault in Dropbox and use Dropbox sync for Android to keep it working on my phone.
Pros:
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bullet proof
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Simple
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FOSS
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Selfhosted
Cons:
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password/secrets manager nearly required to setup new devices
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fails to make my morning coffee
Is this better than syncthing?
A thousand times. And I say that as a fan of Syncthing, I use it for half a dozen other use cases.
Amazing, sync has been holding me back from adopting Obsidian. I’ve been tooling around with Nextcloud Notes/Quillpad thus far and while it works, it has its limits - especially since I like to link my notes to one another. This might actually be the thing that finally gets me to switch. Thank you for sharing.
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If you’re in the Apple ecosystem, you can toss your vault into iCloud Drive. If you’re technically proficient (and brave) you can write a cron to sync into whichever service you want via a local machine.
In addition to iCloud, I have a one-way sync (rsync) which functions as a poor man’s backup to get all my files into Dropbox; lots of stern warnings from Obsidian not to use Dropbox.
Syncthing. Works really good for paying nothing.
Obsidian and Syncthing should work together in theory, though I haven’t tried them.
My sync setup, working perfectly, and using Obsidian on all 3 devices almost daily. YMMV.
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Desktop (Mac): Google Drive
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Chromebook (installed as Linux app): Google Drive
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Phone (Android): AutoSync for Google Drive. Bought paid version just to support them, don’t think it was necessary. $5, got to spend my Google Play Credit 😊👍
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I keep the vault in Nextcloud, and use Nextcloud notes for any other platform than desktop. For the most part it’s working pretty great.
They make some great RPGs ;P
Literally what I thought when I first saw the headline.
I love it, but I wish it were open source. I have since switched to LogSeq, and now I’m even trying out TiddlyWiki.
Oh boy. Weve all been there.
Stay hydrated.
I’m just switching from TiddlyWiki to Obsidian lol. Have not looked at Logseq though.
I downloaded obsidian, but I haven’t used it yet because I’m intimidated and don’t know where to start. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Same for me. I got some plugins too, people say they’re a must, but they have their own tutorials almost. But one day I’ll try it
You can use without plugins as well, they are not a must. I’ve been using Obsidian for years just for it’s inter-connected markdown references. Kind of like a wiki, I’m just taking markdown notes and sometimes create a link to another related note. Also, good at handling attachments and embeds. I haven’t used anything else (maybe tags nowadays… But that’s it) Thing is, if you like markdown then you should give it a go.
Nice app, like the idea of it being just plain text, but will stick to one note myself. The synch service is a must for me, and don’t want to pay for another service, when onenote and onedrive synch all that I need.
An interesting app nevertheless and am sure will suit many users.
There’s lots of alternate, free and open source syncing solutions. I use syncthing myself.
Like another person said, many ways to sync. I use Resilio personally and love it.
Obsidian is the best thing I’ve been able to find for my use case. I’m able to fudge collaboration for the things I need by using separate files and dataview to combine. As soon as someone comes out with an open source alternative that has plaintext storage, local-first editing, and live collaboration, I’m switching to that.
I enjoy using Obsidian, mostly because it’s faster than Notion, and it’s one of the few Notion alternatives that has good and fast table editing support.
Better table editing than many other markdown editors, but I wouldn’t call it very good for a note taking app.
May I offer that it really depends on your note-taking style? I’ve been using it since July having come from linear note-taking on Cornell NTS. It’s way faster and much more interlocked once you get past the slight learning curve.
I’d love to get into using Obsidian but it overwhelms me and freaks me out and also I just don’t know how to best utilize it for my personal work cases…I.e, how to blend professional/personal/creative uses into one all in app experience with Obsidian.
Check out this plugin for it!
It’s goal is to lower the barrier to entry for obsidian substantially.
As for different use cases, you can create different “vaults” for different applications. For example, I have a vault for work, and a vault for personal. They’re basically just different folders on your computer, but it helps keep differentiation.
Been on a Notesnook kick myself
Joplin user here. What does obsidian have that I might want? I remember briefly trying it years ago and disliking it.
Write 4000 notes
Get a new device
Sync
Die waiting
I do miss joplin, but not cuz it looked good or cuz it was good at syncing
Looks like Obsidian’s sync is $8/mo and is a bit messy to sync otherwise, if sharing between Android and Windows. Not a fan of that at all. Joplin sync just works.
Therns an addon that lets you use dropbox, oneD, aws3, or custom
I use Joplin for a simple notes app mostly for my phone but I do have it on my desktop and sync. What I do not use it for is my desktop notes collection which is a several thousand notes pages some quite big. I use Zim for that. It is a desktop Wiki.
I do not use Obsidian but it seems like knowledge base and linking is what people rave about. These are the ways in which I use Zim for example.
I use it to keep track of my dinosaur breeding on ark survival evolved
I use foam for vscode. Works great, is codium compatible, and is open source
This. Foam is awesome and it’s what I use.
Also I really like how it’s just a folder full of documents so if I need something that foam can’t do (like a proper spreadsheet with formulas) I can just use another product for that and save the file in the same folder alongside my Foam notes.
The only thing is it’s not a complete package. You do need to combine it with other VSCode extensions and a sync platform. Also VSCode doesn’t run (well) on a phone.
Commenting to remind myself to check this out. Thanks.
I love the idea of it, but it hasn’t clicked yet. It never occurs to me to even tag things in order to leverage my notes as a mind map/second brain.
The absence of a clean means of using it from multiple devices and syncing between them without their cloud service is kind of disappointing. The git community plugin is godawful to set up on mobile/tablet, something native that handles git behind the scenes would be excellent.
Ultimately, what I’d like is obsidian but with the interface of confluence.
