Notion vs Obsidian md

To-dos in Notion aren't just dot point lists. You can drag and drop them into columns just like Trello (Kanban style), you can have sub-tasks, and you can easily mark things off as completed so they are no longer in your way. Notes are also powerful, with proper formatting and ways to manage and search for them, which makes it a great Evernote alternative.

One of the most complete applications one can use to build a personal dashboard (or professional) and migrate all other services to it. No more calendar, task, notes, financials, lists, writing and wiki apps, just Notion.

You can easily start writing a bunch of web pages, share it with co-workers and choose whether to publicize or keep your contents private. It's also easy to hyperlink pages.

Even the right-click menus on the web are the same as the app.

You can have a ridiculous amount of information within a single note. Look at how it works, you'll be surprised!

The basic unit of organization in Notion is the block, which can be a chunk of text, an image, a bullet point, or even a link to another page. Each page consists of these blocks, which can be easily reorganized, moved to other pages, converted into other content types, or generally manipulated in many useful ways. Because of blocks, restructuring information in Notion is way easier than in any other wiki or notebook app.

You can upload files and embed online stuff in any hierarchical structure using pages, toggle lists, etc.

This feature makes it very easy to find certain notes and such. And great for visual people as well. You could also add images as icons instead, if you like.

Just type in a word and you'll have results in no time at all.

Works with Android, iOS, Windows, & Mac OSX

You can create different views for a page's content and easily toggle between kanban, table, etc. (As long as the content is able to allow different views.)

Lets you restore your page to a past edit. Also works with sub-pages and databases. Though it is worth mentioning that it's a paid feature.

You can use calculation/formula, links, attachment, inter-referencing of data from other pages or tables, embed documents and images in the table cells.

You can attach files in table cells, which is a feature missing in most spreadsheet-like applications.

Add code blocks, Headers, bullet point, numbered lists, or To-Do boxes by typing using Markdown Syntax (instead of klunkily moving the mouse to formatting boxes)

LOG¹⁰

It's becoming more powerful everyday, it seems like they add many functions within several days.

This allows you to link notes back and forth really easily.

Ability to tag-as-you-write and find each occurrence of a tag in the entire vault makes it very easy to organize and retrieve notes.

Linking notes is a game changing feature. Very easy to use and link notes. Their implementation of markdown doesn't deviate from the standard form of markdown and so the same files can be used by other markdown programs without any consequence.

A Vault in Obsidian is like a database. Internal links and files are not shared across Vaults. Each Vault is opened with a separate instance of Obsidian. Each Vault can have its unique app settings and plug-ins. Useful if you have distinct/unrelated projects or "data spaces" requiring different workflows and data relations.

In Obsidian, pane = window = note = page

Obsidian allows you to open as many notes as you can fit concurrently in your screen. You can split a pane horizontally/vertically. You can lock/link panes so they scroll in sync, useful for and edit & preview modes.

There is no mobile app yet.

Daily Notes plug-in, when clicked, generates a new note with the current date. Great for journaling and reduces friction in your writing habit.

You can create a custom template for your Daily Note.

Also open for anyone to develop their own extensions/plugins.

The app doesn't frustrate the user - the built-in help is excellent.

A plugin that, when clicked, surfaces a random note from your vault.

Easily turn your notes into simple yet sleek powerpoint-style presentations by enabling the Slides plugin and adding the --- separator.

This is a big difference, as having to read through long-form texts laden with [[links]] gives friction.

The onboarding consists of well-written help documentation (saved as a vault) served in small chunks and organized systematically so that you become familiar with all its features as well as get hands-on experience in real time.

When you hover on an internal [[link]], you get to preview the note without opening it on a new pane.

Page preview plugin must be enabled.

A feature unseen in other tools.
From the help doc, "This can be useful when modifying a lot of lines in the same way, for example putting - at the beginning of multiple lines to turn them into a list, or appending [[ to a series of links you’ve copied from elsewhere."

Can switch on or off Vim key bindings in the editor settings.

Due to the tool being very developer-friendly, there are tons of cool developments being made to it by 3rd party devs.

No lock-in to a certain company - just markdown files on disk.

PDFs are directly embedded in the markdown preview.