When comparing typora vs Obsidian md, the Slant community recommends Obsidian md for most people. In the question“What is the best cross-platform note-taking app?” Obsidian md is ranked 11th while typora is ranked 15th. The most important reason people chose Obsidian md is:
Everything is stored in your device. You can back them up, encrypt and process however you want to. Works completely offline. Read your notes anytime, anywhere.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros

Pro Live preview
Typora immediately renders what's typed on the screen in Markdown format. This helps users to have a better understanding of how their document is being formatted.

Pro Hybrid interface
The editor and preview dual-pane setup typical of desktop Markdown editors are gone; instead, a singular interface makes for a WYSIWYG experience. This streamlines the workflow and encourages direct manipulation.

Pro Support for LaTeX expressions
It supports LaTeX expressions, with an easy-to-use MaxJax panel.

Pro Syntax highlight for fenced codes
It supports GFM's code fences, with syntax highlight support for C/C++, java, etc.

Pro Custom theme support
Typora has clean yet beautiful built-in themes and allows for users to create new themes using CSS.

Pro Support for tables
It supports tables for Markdown Extra. And also provides a GUI to make it easy to insert and edit them.

Pro Inline images
It won't display image like 
, But shows the image content inside the editor.
Pro Free during beta
Pro Shows table of contents for the document
It supports an outline for the document, by showing a table of contents on the left side of the screen.
Pro Cross-platform
Currently works on Windows, Mac and Linux.
Pro Natural typing experience
Editing in Markdown, either in WYSIWYG mode or in markdown code mode, feels natural. It never gets in the way.
Pro Make charts and diagrams with Mermaid, FlowChart and Sequence
Use fenced code-blocks to render diagrams using syntax from Mermaid and FlowChart.js.
Pro Sidebar with a list of files
You can open any folder in sidebar and see a list of other markdown files.
Pro Syncs with iCloud
Pro Locally stored, not dependent on cloud
Everything is stored in your device. You can back them up, encrypt and process however you want to. Works completely offline. Read your notes anytime, anywhere.
Pro Markdown makes for flatter learning curve
Pro Lightweight and very customizable
Variety of settings, and community themes & plugins, available from built-in marketplace. Every community plugin is open-source which means you can learn from it and develop your own.
Pro Backlinking
This allows you to link notes back and forth really easily.
Pro Fast growing
It's becoming more powerful everyday, it seems like they add many functions within several days.

Pro Cross-platform: works on Linux, MacOS, Windows, Android and iOS
Pro Very easy to use and link notes, preserves the standard form of markdown
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.
While renaming note link still works.
Pro Multiple Vaults
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.
Pro In-line tagging
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. Supports nested tags.
Pro Infinite panes, split panes, lock panes
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.
Pro Functionality extensions with a growing number of plugins
Also open for anyone to develop their own extensions/plugins.
Pro Daily Notes with template
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.
Pro Helps visualize personal knowledge in ways nothing else allows
The Graph view is more than an aesthetic gizmo. It allows you to grasp and recognise clusters of information, follow branches and easily filter out what you don't want to see. The "animate" option shows how your notes and links have grown organically. With a bit of tweaking to the visuals and the proper theme, your graph might even start to look like a disturbingly "alive", eerie thing.
Pro Random note
A plugin that, when clicked, surfaces a random note from your vault.
Pro Support for tags
Pro Readable as it hides the [[ ]] around links when in Preview mode
This is a big difference, as having to read through long-form texts laden with [[links]] gives friction.
Pro Slides for giving presentations from within Obsidian
Easily turn your notes into simple yet sleek powerpoint-style presentations by enabling the Slides plugin and adding the --- separator.
Pro Markdown rather than outline/blocks
Pro Keyboard shortcuts, Vim key bindings
Hotkeys can be customized in settings.
Can switch on or off Vim key bindings in the editor settings.
Pro Great onboarding experience
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.
Pro Community of developers building themes and plug-ins
Due to the tool being very developer-friendly, there are tons of cool developments being made to it by 3rd party devs.
Pro Page previews on hover
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.
Pro Intuitive and easy to use with an excellent help system built-in
The app doesn't frustrate the user - the built-in help is excellent.
Pro Embedding attachments, such as PDF
Variety of file formats are directly embedded in the markdown preview, e.g. markdown, image, audio, video and PDF files.
Pro Exporting as PDF
Allows exporting your markdown files as PDFs rendered with all of your plugins.
Pro Calendar
Daily and Weekly notes with Calendar Plugin.
Pro Graph view
A pretty, alternative way to represent links between your notes.
Pro Multiple cursors
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."
Pro Can copy search results and paste as lists and/or links in a new or existing note
Pro Advanced search
Supports extended searching by default. Community plugin called "Vantage" allows to make more advanced queries.
Pro Git integration
Version Control for your vault with Obsidian Git plugin.
Pro Aliases
Allows to refer to a note with multiple names.
Pro Big and helpful community
There's a Discord server and a forum. Join the community!
Pro Not locked to a provider
No lock-in to a certain company - just markdown files on disk.
Pro Mindmaps
Available as a plugin.
Pro Math
Uses MathJax.
Pro Templates
Allows to create templates with built-in plugin. There's also powerful community plugin called "Templater".
Pro Diagrams
Uses Mermaid.
Pro Linking to blocks
You can link to a block - e.g.: paragraph, blockquote, heading.
Pro Metadata
Add a custom metadata to a note with YAML front matter.
Pro Sketching
With Excalidraw.
Pro Academic citations
Supports Citations and provides inserting from Zotero.
Pro SQL-like queries
Advanced queries for the data-obsessed with Dataview Plugin.
Pro Workspaces
Saving and loading workspaces.
Pro Built-in Audio Recorder
Pro Folders and file level storage which is open to manage, does not lock navigation
With other options like notion, we can not see how the data is actually stored.
Pro HTML Support
Use HTML in a note.
Pro Incredible tool for PKM (Personal Knowledge Management) which allows anyone who has a computer and an internet connection to think better and create new insights
Pro Helps with planning and organization.
Variety of planning and organization plugins, such as Kanban boards or Day Planner.
Pro Supports importing from other tools
Supports importing from tools such as Notion, Evernote, OneNote, Apple Notes, Bear, Zkn3, TiddlyWiki 5, and Roam Research. Refer to Obsidian Help for more info.
Pro Supports several languages
Translations are made by the community at GitHub repository.
Pro Discord rich presence
Update your Discord status to show your friends what are you working on with Discord Rich Presence plugin.
Pro Syntax highlighting for code blocks
Pro Snapshots, file recovery, trash folder
Pro Copy and paste images easily
When taking notes, you can just grab a print screen from your clipboard and paste into the notes without having to do any file management
Cons
Con No mobile (Android/iOS) apps
Con In beta
Typora is still in beta and may be prone to changes or bugs.
Con Unusable image management
Con The immediate rendering of Markdown is hard on the eyes
Having Markdown immediately render causes text to jump into formatted text, which is distracting and hard on the eyes.
Con No portable version (Windows)
You need admin rights on a managed Windows computer to install it. There currently is no portable version available.
Con Closed Source
Con Needs to be better at block level references, searches, tagging
For example, if you want a tag a block of text, for obsidian, its the whole page that will get tagged.
Con Proprietary software lock-in
Creates dependence on the application with the promise that the content is yours but that cannot be entirely true without the application being free and open source software. You will end up altering the way you create the content to take advantage of Obsidian features and your processes will evolve for its workflows. This replicates the lock-in pain that people experience moving their highly personal information from one proprietary platform to the next when that initial platform stops serving them well, goes out of business, or becomes a bad actor.
Con Does not export to MS Word
Can export only as a PDF file.
Con Requires .md files
Can't read .txt or other plaintext file formats. Can't read asciidoc files.
(Available with a plugin.)
Con No ability to add dates that link to a daily note, when that day/note may not yet exist
You can create a backlink which doesn't yet exist; it just doesn't auto-fill for you. (Available as a plugin)
Con Too many plugins
Con iOS version works only with icloud
Does not work with other cloud folders.
Con Needs to be polished
They still need time to fix some bugs.
Con V1.0 release is terrible
Don't download unless you can't find pre 1.0 version.
