Obsidian Reviews

Summary: Very useful and versatile productivity tool for individual use that will, over time, build up your second memory of interconnected knowledge.

Positive: Simple structure - all based on Markdown. Can be edited in any text editor, is very portable, yet has a lot of potential for extending functionality into any productivity/automation area you can think of.

It becomes your second memory, really. The more notes you add, the more connections you create, create a network of interconnected knowledge that can be easily displayed as a graph. Impressive. Not only collecting knowledge, but connecting the ends and creating something new on that basis.

It's open source, meaning there's a lot of community development and addition of plugins from all sides etc.

It's generally free - with the option to buy some extra functionalities. I use the real-time secure sync plugin to synchronize content between smartphone and desktop vaults. Works like a breeze.

Negative: Though you can start using Markdown right after installation, the tool benefits a lot from first getting acquainted with the "Zettelkasten" methodology and pre-configuring your setup to your needs (for collecting notes).

Great for individual use, limited use for shared team collaboration.

I would wish for better granular automation integration on the Smartphone - e.g. automatically adding pre-filled notes for podcasts, videos or articles - but I believe this is more a shortcoming of Android, which doesnt yet (by default) allow a very granular degree of task automation.

Summary: If you're not worried about lock-in, Obsidian is a fine, feature rich note taking system that's very customizable.

Positive: Easy for new users to install, point to a folder tree, and go to work. But also very customizable as you learn. Hot key, installable themes and plugins are all available to make doing what you want to do easier.

This is also one of the few markdown based editors we've found that lets you use YOUR chosen folder tree on an android device. Most want to lock you in to whatever folder tree they decided to create for you -- which makes using repositories (like git) impossible.

Negative: NOT 100% markdown compatible. The developers (stupidly, in my opinion) decided to hijack the markdown/html "#tagid" construction for their own use. So standard markdown code such as [description](foo.bar#tagid) will open the file "foo.bar" but it will NOT go to the "#tagid" in the file. Obsidian interprets the hash tag as a request to search the HEADERS in the file for the name "tagid". So, having co-opted the hashtag, the developers had to come up with propriety replacement for the standard id="tagid" that is completely incompatible with any other "markdown" system.

This means that, in the final analysis, Obsidian is no better than any other proprietary note keeping system, and in fact is as bad as Nimbus Notes when at comes to finding yourself locked in. Like with Nimbus Notes, the only way to get out of Obsidian once you're in is to either hand edit each note that contains special Obsidian code, or export it as HTML and then import it as a standard markdown.

Summary: Taking notes and being able to see them as many times as we want has been an unparalleled help, with this we go back in time and visualize various points where there are edges and need our attention much more, without a doubt among so many things of work any minimum aspect can escape us, but Obsidian has been the ideal tool for knowledge management, where we reward ourselves for feedback and obtain real benefits from it to correct and find quick and feasible solutions to small problems and that these do not escape without realizing it. It has given us an innovation in our work, nothing better than ourselves to notice various important work aspects in which we must work more and keep them always present, it has led us to self-knowledge and to diversify our improvement options, being better every day in what we do, both personally and as professionals in our field, as service providers who only want to do a better job every day.

Positive: Obsidian is undoubtedly a diamond in the rough, which is still possible to exploit a lot of potential, it is a unique platform that offers a great particularity, and that is knowledge management, it provides a huge space to create notes on various aspects of our work and being able to review them when we need it most, either online or offline, and that is undoubtedly a plus to be able to maintain the flow of our work. That it is stored in the cloud also gives us peace of mind, knowing that all our notes and important information will be safe, backed up and that the storage will always be ample. The color of the interface is quite friendly for work in front of a computer, after so much work being able to make notes and the learning and correction process on a comfortable platform like Obsidian has undoubtedly earned millions of points, it is one of the characteristics What we liked the most, it provides an easy and simple interface to use, with a few clicks everything is done. The quick access is very special too, being able to access my notes and files quickly from a quick access we liked it a lot, it makes all the review quick and easy. It offers a space where the organization is present, it helps us to categorize the notes to always know in which folder it is located and in this way the search for the notes is not a problem at all.

Negative: I think a much faster synchronization is needed, in real time, sometimes it can take time to display all the current notes. It would also be nice to be able to obtain more material to understand its use well, it took us a while to take the thread on our own when we were beginners, it was a process to achieve a correct flow of the notes. We are waiting for updates, its function is undoubtedly magnificent, however visually we believe that it has better things to exploit so that Obsidian has greater potential for use and graphic design.