i have never heard of this program… and to be honest, i wasn’t even looking for this. I was just searching for obsidian like the lava rocks lol. but i could really use this for my work (as a software engineer). I like making my daily notes on markdown files for things to work on, notes on the stuff i’m working on, source code snippets, design pattern usage. I’m really happy i found this video. thank you!
I love it! Easy, no frills and can use offline, it’s all locally saved. Notion was such an over-organize rabbit hole and the needing to be online was limiting it for me. Obsidian has better workflow for me and nice preview of your markdown
Notion databases has its own place but I have majorly transitioned to Obsidian as my knowledge management system of choice no regrets. you own your data and its simple markdown files which makes obsidian awesome. too many awesome things in obsidian like graph view , linking of files and third party plugin support and a great community above all.
Because of your review, I began to use Obsidian about a year ago. The secure and offline potential got my attention. Thus far I’ve transferred my coursework to my Obsidian vault. With a little TLC when moving information in - the graph view has offers invaluable insight into the interconnectedness of my coursework. Thank you for the excellent review!
I really love obsidian, I use it to take all my notes for uni. For law, it is amazing as can link all the common concepts and cases together. The main downsides for me are that it can become a mess if you don't keep constantly sorting stuff, it does not deal with images well and the possibility that devs abandon it. Plus no mobile app is annoying. But overall really saved my life with online open-book exams, it makes note-taking almost effortless and can find stuff super fast.
Images can be stored locally in a global folder or in current folder, your choice. You can even upload them to Imgur for free private use. Even images uploaded to Notion are saved in their Amazon storage. So it's better to save our images locally or in Imgur. With local images, you can edit them anyhow or even rename them quickly with PowerToys and with regex. And you can even back them up in your choice of Cloud. For images in Imgur, they are stored practically forever, are Free, are Private, and you can quickly download all your images from Imgur's settings. In Notion, you simply don't know what all images are saved in which all pages. But in Obsidian, with regex search, you can quickly know this. And Obsidian even has basic OCR support with plugin.
Yeah, this is the use case I was considering for obsidian. Not really sure about using it to run my life/productivity, but I was considering it as a useful tool for learning.
How do you sort and categorize your pages? Obsidian seems like the perfect place for learning because of the links that we can do, but I haven't seen a hierarchical/organized method of classifying things, except for the web. And that can get really confusing.
I'm here after Notion went offline today and made me essentially have to take notes that probably won't be useful at all for all my classes today and have no idea of my todos for today... Needless to say, I'm ready for something new, thank you for the lovely video!!
I really wanted to like Notion and made quite an effort to use it as my main note taking app and PKM database, however after 6 months I realized that I was spending 80% of my time tinkering and making it look nice and pretty and only 20% on actually writing. With Obsidian once I was done with setting it up to my liking, which took a couple of days, it’s all about writing writing writing. I rarely mess around with the setup anymore. The recent developments and additions, app access and sync, made it the perfect app for me.
Same here! Glad to know that I'm not alone in this situation. Organising the notes have always been a big part of note taking platforms, and Notion is so slow. I felt overwhelmed while using Notion for aesthetics. It has its goods, but I don't think I can go back anymore after using Obsidian, it's just so much more comfortable to use.
I found Notion first, and after a steep learning curve really like it. I then found Obsidian and decided to use it to track all of my contacts and their degrees of separation. As I got better with Obsidian, I realized I could import exported Notion pages giving me an off-line backup, an opportunity to polish my notes at the time of import, and the graph capability. Plus, the Random Note capability is great for productive distraction. I am just scratching the surface with Obsidian, resisting the temptation to go down a rathole. At this point, I am still torn between the two. As I learn Obsidian I may decide to go "all-in" but still replicating between the two and since I need to polish my notes anyway, I might as well. Thanks for the review and the great resource links.
Hey I was wondering if you explain how you're exporting from Notion into Obsidian. I'm having some trouble but also plan to use it when offline or when outages (like this morning) occur for Notion. Thanks!
@@Benjamin-nq1gl Sure. I click on the ... in the upper right corner and select Export from the drop-down. For Obsidian imports I select Markdown and usually include subpage(s). This creates a ZIP file in the desired location. When I open the ZIP file there is an MD file that I can drag into a note in Obsidian. This creates an attachment which I usually rename to something meaningful. I usually have to clean up some links, or import other pages to complete the note, but when done I have it in both places. This was really handy when Notion was down today due to a DNS issue. Does that help?
i think *notion* as a *management hub* and *obsidian* as *research* and documents is good. that's what i do. I like *databases* of notion but i like the *formatting* of obsidian . the reason i would use obsidian to put my notes is because the documents are more *sensitive* therefore locally run is better whereas a management system isn't as much and can be *replaced* with another app that allows you to *manage* your work and/or life
I just love how I got your video about an honest review of Notion to popped-up in my recommendations because I was about to use Notion to strategize and plan everything until I saw it. As for someone like me who truly values privacy, imma say no-no to Notion quickly and start using Obsidian instead. So, I'm really thankful that I got to watch this video, move on and resort to an alternate version of Notion which is Obsidian. Thank you so much for this vid! ^-^
I've been using Obsidian for around six months and it's completely revolutionised my work. I would recommend it highly for anyone needing to write assignments, journal articles, book chapters, etc. There are a million and one ways you could set it up to work with your own use case, and the community is super helpful anytime you get stuck or need advice. It's quite different to notion; notion is more like a super-powered Microsoft Excel while Obsidian is more like a super-powered Microsoft Word. If you spend more time in Word than Excel, it would be worth giving Obsidian a look. It's free too which is the most mindblowing part. Cheers
It was the most honest review I've watched about Obsidian. I am Notion friendly user, but I have a few concerns. However, for me, Notion works much better to organize my classes, tables of requirements, and to do reminders. The Obsidian it is amazing when you see, but is not friendly to initially users, or who doesn't know much about Markdown. My next it will Walling, just for organize todo list.
@@KeenestObserver Well, I disagree with, at least I don't have any problem in use Notion in my Samsung galaxy s10e. But, perhaps in IOS it works better, I don't know.
I've only watched a few videos of yours but I love them because they aren't overwhelming long, and yet they are very informative and interesting, which for me is a big plus because I have a short attention span. My favorite bit in this vid if the "don't try if/do try if" because I could instantly rule out obsidian for me as an application. Thank you for your work! Looking forward to watching more videos from you!
I've been using obsidian for months and I just learned 6 super valuable tips from this video. Can't thank you enough for sharing! Definitely subscribing.
Thank you. This really helped me not to opt for Obsidian, although it was tempting. I am a quite visual person, I need a great database and love creating N. templates. For typing on my computer I use Typora and for journaling, my Bullet journal.
I just filmed a Notion set up video, and you've come out with a video that makes me want to try something new!!! AHHH!! Not sure if I can let me love affair with notion go yet (I just love how clean it looks) but after watching this, I definitely will be playing around with Obsidian!
Notion ain’t secured btw. Just for your privacy I wanted you to know that, I had motion and after I knew this stuff I deleted it sadly it took 3 hours to set up with all the detail and stuff but yeah
i actually like obsidian more that notion. yes, i spent forever making notion aesthetic and to my liking yet i found it a hassle to take notes on there and never really used the templates or tables on there. i also would get super annoyed when it wouldnt load due to my many internet problems (laptop disconnects from the wifi more times than i would ever want) and once i realised that the data wasn't exactly safe, i didn't want to trust it as i was using notion for personal things that i didnt want others to easily find. if notion was offline and data safe then i would use it yet i'm seeing that obsidian works better for me overall (mostly for the easier workflow of notes and linking notes together instead of having to create new pages and having that train of thought and pace interuppted)
if you're not a celebrity or president or a top company ceo, no one really wants your data/cares what you do. just don't plan illegal activities on Notion and no one will be looking over your shoulder
I've left some things in Notion but most of my note taking happens in Obsidian. So figure out what needs a db type structure and lave the rest in Obsidian. Nice, honest view
I was using Notion for my Uni work but have since switched to Obsidian, as I realised I'd be able to create a completely separate vault for it, so I'd be able to see how my learning is all connected!
My setup for work with pdf files: - ms academic for finding the research papers - zotero for adding papers to collections - ms edge canary beta or XODO pdf reader for browsing the pdf files (ms edge has the read-aloud option in the pdf browser and it really helps me focus) 1. Add the paper to zotero 2. Highlight and note it in the pdf browser 3. Export the highlights and notes with zotfile 4. Batch export (reference to your pdf file, notes, and highlights) to markdown files with zotero-mdnotes to obsidian vault directory 5. Open notes in obsidian
I personally prefer notion since backlinking works just fine and the graph view is more optical than functional imo. I know a lot of people dont like the cloud but for me I think it will always be safer. If only notion had shorter loading times...
I tried Obsidian. I don't understand why so many people suggest it as an alternative to Notion. I love Obsidian for the very reason for which I hate Notion: The abilty to operate it offline; you can't use Notion in offline mode and I hate it for that. But I felt like, Obsidian actively punishes me for trying to be organised. Zettelkasten has its uses; it is super awesome for the Snowflake form of plotting for novellists; it is great for long-term random note taking. But it is not an organiser, trying to plan your days, track habits, manage a project or anything that need forward planning is a chore and it feels to me like you're being punished for even trying. Even just the UI is very unintuitive and a pain to work with and look at. I am still going to use Obsidian, to collect my world building and to snowflake my stories, but for anything else, I am still looking for an alternative to Notion that actually is an alternative to Notion, as in, Notion in its purpose and functionality but made by a different company that allows you to work offline mode and deactivate the sync function. Obsidian is an alternative to Notion as Skydiving is an alternative to Scubadiving.
Oh I also use Joplin. But in my opinion it's more like a replacement for Evernote. I use the web clipping on my browser so I can save pages I find online as markdown notes. It helps me a lot when I'm collecting information and inspiration for future art series.
This was super useful! I just downloaded obsidian and your video really helped me figuring out if it was a right fit for me. I think it is but I feel like I'm gonna be using it as Notion complementary note taking tool.
Great video, thank you so much for the quality content you make! 😊 I'm more interested in Obsidian now, it escaped my attention that it's free for presonal use. Although local storage seems more tempting (at least for me) than storing your data in a cloud without end-to-end encryption, I think I'll learn more about other apps as well until I choose the one to use. I'm not in a hurry in this case and privacy is quite important for me I'm looking forward to your video about Standard Notes and maybe that other one, which I haven't heard of, but I'll gladly know more about secure note-taking apps :) (Also, English is not my native language, so sorry for any mistakes)
I’m a new fan! I am loving your videos and your down to earth persona! Could you please do a step by step lesson or series of lessons of how to set up Obsidian to be like Notion? I am not an engineer and it takes me forever to learn how to set up a new program. I downloaded Obsidian to try it but I have NO clue how to start! I used Notion for a while and that took several months. I think a lot of people like me would love to see you teach us how to use Obsidian and customize it in different ways. Thank you so much and keep going!
I'm deeply amused to watch this over a year later as I start down this road, and find that I think every lacking thing mentioned in the video has been added either in the core or via community plugins ;)
Thanks for the video, that was super interesting! I got Notion a few months ago and I love it, both for the visual and the powerful linked databases! I just don't keep any sensitive information since, as you said, it is not very secure. Without installing a fully new environment, Typora can be a good alternative for just writing without distractions. It supports Markdown, code, HTML and Latex (I wish notion would have inline math with the dollars shortcut!!) but it doesn't give you an arborescence structure as in Obsidian.
Thanks for the great review. I think it is what I need and I am down loading it right now. Also I wanted to say I love the cute "bloopers reel" at the end. Best wishes.
Very informative. I've been looking into Notion, but didn't want to invest much time into it due to security and data portability concerns. Obsidian looks like it checks a lot of boxes. Thanks for the overview.
This is interesting... any takes on whether the switch is worthwhile for a non-power user? Specifically a writer who uses notion to replace a thousand notebooks, do some light writing (still use mostly google docs for the heavy lifting), organise daily tasks, and plan pretty variable projects across clients (could be a single newsletter, could be 6 weeks of content branding sessions for fashion designers). I need a few specialised features, but not many, and don't have the time to get stuck in and play with building them myself (community templates and formulas have been super helpful). Speaking only to use, not security; you've already explained that pretty clearly.
Your videos are always great and informative, and it's nice to see the growth in your film making style (especially in your latest digital minimalism video!) Was curious if you've ever used ClickUp or would ever consider doing a video on it? Notion and Obsidian while definitely feature-rich are a little too overwhelming for me to use with the set-up required. I'm also trying to move away from Asana which is a bit too clunky and lightweight so I'm looking for a more middle-ground platform. ClickUp has come up a few times so that's what I'm leaning towards but still doing my research on it. I'd definitely be curious if you had an opinion on it though. Keep doing what you do!
Even if there's no mobile app it is plaintext, so there are ways to work on your files on mobile; it would just lack features like the linking / map thing, which is cool.
It is funny because actually i was really interested in the databases of notion but for some reason it just didn't work for me, however interesting and useful i thought the concept was. These obsidian graphs/zettelkasten system however, seems to be the perfect match for me! It feels really natural for me to use and its fascinating to see my brain actually being displayed in a logical way, it really matches the way i think. So thank you for introducing this to me, i'm definitely going to use this!!
Thank you for this great video! This convinced me to try both. I've been using Notion for a while and was mostly happy but I found some parts of it to be too chaotic for me. I do research and I feel like project planning might be easier for me in Notion, while references and their links could benefit from obsidian's features.
Very interesting, I wasn’t aware of Obsidian and I just downloaded it. I guess it’s still early days (it’s at v0.11.13) but it doesn’t feel polished to me - it looks like there will need to be a lot of tweaking to get it right. However the plugins look powerful and cool, and I like the fact that the notes themselves are plain text files and not stored in database. It looks like a Chromium app to me which set my imagination going: the app I pretty much live in is Visual Studio Code, both for my day job and for my personal writing projects as I write in LaTeX and use VS Code with the LaTeX Workshop extension - it would be cool to see this or something very similar available as a VS Code extension, and then I’d just do everything inside the same app.
it for sure is a chromium app. would also love to have it in VS code. i get why its a broader audience if not based in VS code (scary to new people) but I've found a pretty good alternative with FOAM and some other graph / md plugins. I first made sure whatever my "core" system is in obsidian that it works well with FOAM and anything that I MIGHT want from obsidian I know that I could write as a plugin for VS code. That way, if Obsidian devs disappear and don't release source, I'm not entirely dead.
@@TylerHallHiveTech I’m familiar with FOAM. I’ve actually been using Dendron (another VS Code extension). It’s pretty cool, you should check it out if you haven’t.
@@DarrenBrierton I wish they put a clause on obsidian “will open source if we decide to shutdown sync/discontinue operations”. I want some assurance that 5+ years down the road the app just doesn’t disappear into the ether.
Wow I had no idea it launched so recently! makes Obsidian all the more impressive!! I just started using it last night and its been amazing. I didn't want to rely on notion anymore that's how I found Obsidian. And I love it already 🤸♀️ always wanted to give markdown a go anyways, now's the perfect time for me. Thank you for this video. It's funny how I didn't see this video before I decided to find alternatives but I still learned more useful things to apply now :)
Hey Harshibar this video is so informative! I use Roam but I think Obsidian is better then Roam because of the security thing and been using it since past few weeks! I’m also planning to do a video like Obsidian VS Notion on my channel! Guys please hit me with the things which I should talk about!
Thank you! Yes, the security factor itself is huge, and I imagine the adjustment to Obsidian won't be too difficult from Roam. I look forward to seeing your video!
This looks really cool it's like a mix between Notion and Visual Studio Code and I use both those softwares so it's nice to see Obsidian be like a combination of both, first time i'm hearing about this, been using Notion all this time, will look into this one too thanks!!!
I think you might have convinced me to get Obsidian because the concerns you have was the same that's kinda why I end up using it on and off. edit: I hope you do a standard notes video
pls dont forget you can use the same data base on mobile an destop!! just use any cloudservice and sync. the on device folder with the cloudfolder automaticly(App. like "Foldersync"). this way u keep all our data at ure place and dont pay anything extra
I just got here to know why people use obsidian. My question is, do you use obsidian instead for example Evernote? i mean, to organize your day? or the purpose of obsidian is just to write about ideas, thoughts, things like that, and have them connected to each other? I see it useful for copywriters or content creators but i don't see the point for other purposes. Any ideas?
I was wondering why I was getting an increase in subscribers on my channel. Great review, I use both notion and obsidian. Obsidian for research and writing my videos and Notion for goals and finance tracking.
I’m a big fan of your Obsidian videos, thank you. Given Notion’s lack of encryption and not so good security stance are you sure you should put financial into in it, even if just for tracking? I was really cautious with what I put in it when I was using it as digging through it I was seeing gaps, but they were planning on working on it, but have yet to do anything after a year.
Great personal overview. Tried Joplin for security, but always return to a Keep + OneNote combo. Can Obsidian provide the endless canvas feature in Onenote (or at least adjacent notes; Visual post it style previews like n Keep?
Great comparison. I have just discovered Notion and Obsidian not long ago. Right now I am trying Notion because I knew about it before Obsidian and had just get the main part setup. I like Notion database system, mobile apps, and cloud backup because thing that I store locally usually break. On mobile I usually want to just view it. I am looking into Obsidian because Notion's privacy concern issue. Right now I can tolerate this, but in the future I definitely want something better. I have heard that some people use Notion for database and Obsidian for note taking. I will look into doing that as well or at least try it, but I need to focus on thing one at a time or I will just screw everything up.
Great video. I use both -- as you said, they have different use cases. This is the first video I've seen of yours. Will subscribe and check out more. THank you.
Thanks for the video, pretty useful information. Could you please comment on why is "the most secure", especially considering community plugins? Someone can write malicious plugin, get popular with obvious feature it offers but steal all the data you keep in obsidian notes. The only way this to be prevented is that someone checks the source code and identify malicious code. In practice very difficult so I raised my eyebrows on in my opinion false "most secure" label. I might be completely wrong, so thanks for commenting on this
