Obsidian reviews
What users love and hate · 500 reviews analyzed · ★ 3.8
A local-first markdown engine for building a «second brain» that wins enthusiasts through file ownership and plugins, but loses the mass mobile user to a steep learning curve and a desktop-first mobile shell.
What users love
«Your notes are just .md files» turns data ownership into the core loyalty hook
The promise that notes live locally as plain markdown with no proprietary lock-in binds users harder than any feature: they stay not because leaving is hard, but because there's no reason to leave — the files are already theirs. It inverts the usual lock-in logic and draws people burned by cloud notebooks.
note taking to the next level while allowing you to actually work with files outside of a proprietary app and format
I love that the files are just .md files so they are small and easy to transfer to other programs or devices!
Not only is the data uniquely yours
Forward and back-links between notes are the «second brain» that pulls in writers and tabletop players
Note linking and the graph view turn the app from a notebook into a thinking tool: users build wikis of their own stories, DnD campaigns, character lore — things that would collapse in a linear notebook. It's the linking mechanic, not the editor, that makes it indispensable for creative and research workflows.
easy to organise everything from notes to chapters of an actual story. you could even make a wiki for yourself if you'd like!
Wonderful for keeping track of my dnd campaign! and the graph makes it even easier!
I found the whole idea of forward and back-links to be real game changer.
Free local base + paid-only sync — a monetization model fans defend with voluntary donations
Charging only for cross-device sync while keeping the entire core free turns payment into an act of gratitude rather than a toll: people subscribe to sync «to give them money» and donate on top. It's a rare case where pricing itself builds loyalty among the core audience.
free and only charging for things you could do yourself with plugins is almost by the by
I purposely pay for the optional sync service just to give this company money.
really nice app doesn't force anything down you hope it stays free
The graph view and «make structure out of chaos» draw the segment that loves ordering its own mind
The link graph and unstructured input give a particular kind of user — the one who enjoys imposing order on disorder — a playground that linear notebooks lack. It's not a feature so much as a psychological hook: the product sells the very process of ordering one's mind, and these people become its loudest advocates.
Good for unstructured note-taking for people who like creating structure out of disorder.
This is how my brain works. If you're reading this: try this. Mapping our own brain.
It's becoming my second brain, quite literally.
«Move the folder and it just works»: seamless vault portability builds trust in longevity
Because the entire vault is just a folder of files, users discover that migrating to a new device is a plain copy-paste of the folder — no subscription, no cloud. That «it just picked it up» moment removes the biggest fear — getting stuck or losing years of notes — and turns a skeptic into a long-term advocate.
found out that i can move my entire vault folder to a new device by simply moving and paste and the app recognized it. no sync subscription needed.
Unmatched flexibility and data portability make me never want to leave this gem
it's just creating text files and allocating them
«Left OneNote after 23 years» — Obsidian wins refugees from proprietary notebooks on the promise of control
The product steadily pulls users off Notion, OneNote, Keep, Evernote — and the deciding factor, again and again, isn't a feature but control: local files, no cloud lock-in, privacy. It exposes the vulnerability of every proprietary notebook: their users will tolerate a steep onboarding for the feeling that the data is theirs.
I left OneNote after 23 years! Obsidian, clean, simple and powerful!
I tried a lot of note taking apps because I wanted to replace keep notes This app is on a whole new plane of existence compared to any other ones I found
basically it notion on steroids cause here you have full control as the notes save as simple markdown files locally on your device.
What users hate
The learning curve acts as a filter: those who invest become evangelists, those who «need it now» bounce in the first hour
The product delivers no value at the start — it demands weeks of setup before it «clicks». That cuts off a huge segment that just needs to jot a note right now: they arrive on a «best notes app» recommendation, hit Vaults, plugins and markdown, and leave for native notes never having seen what the praise is about.
for new users who really need to get something done, and everybody is recommending this app, it was really unintuitive and hard to use right away. People say if you put time into it, it's great, but I don't have time. Too hard to get started.
what's this "Vault" bs just let me create notes...
so powerful.. you need a degree to work it..
The plugin ecosystem is both the engine of delight and the crutch that basic features got dumped onto
The community extends the app for free to fit any workflow — and that's a draw. But the flip side: the developer outsourced even the basics (voice notes, file handling, reminders) to plugins, so without them the mobile app is bare, and with them it lags. Users pay for «modularity» with a fragile core.
But the cons are major annoyances: abysmal voice recorder, bare bones file handling (images, pdf, etc), no system reminders etc. Devs are outsourcing even the basics to community plugins
Downloading plugins (which is the whole point of this app) makes your app so laggy. Also as the vault size grows so the lag.
Community plugins are often flakey, but the app is rather limited without them.
The editor defaults to formatting everything as code — quietly repelling ordinary writers
The markdown engine forces syntax where a person just wants plain text: characters turn into formatting, an asterisk italicizes a space, the source view can't be turned off. For prose writers and storytellers — whom the marketing invites as a «writing platform» — the «everything is code» behavior makes the editor hostile, and they look for alternatives.
its editor is built for code and code alone. if you want to use this for notes for story writing then look elsewhere. it auto formats your writing for code base and it cannot be disabled.
Generally if I type an asterisk, hit enter and then type another, I'm not trying to italicise the in-between space
when editing, I want #heading and **bold** to appear as normal text. I only want it to render formatted in the reader mode.
The desktop-first DNA leaves the mobile version forever «second-class» in its own fans' eyes
Even those who adore the desktop describe the mobile app as a stripped-down shadow: document editing is limited, the UX falls short. The product was built for the big screen, and on a phone it shows in every action — the mobile user gets «good enough as a supplement», not a standalone tool.
Desktop is where this product shines and is the key reason to use the product. The mobile app is about as much as one could expect for a mobile markdown and document editor.
Not mobile friendly. Basic tabs missing, there are 10 ways to accomplish the same useless action but then no graph view? The desktop app is awesome but this is terrible.
Great app for note taking, but the UI is confusing. The PC version is far easier to use.
No native Google Drive sync keeps the mobile user in constant anxiety over note safety
Local storage is the desktop's pride, but on mobile, without official Google Drive sync (which exists for iCloud), the user is left with manual and third-party crutches they don't trust. The core fear — losing notes when switching phones — turns «file ownership» from an advantage into a source of anxiety.
please add official Google Drive sync/backup support for Android. Current manual or third-party sync methods feel unreliable for long-term note safety.
nice app, too bad there's no Google Drive Sync as there's for iCloud
Give us Notes folder categorize option & Add Google account sync option
Demanding access to all device files on launch reads as «data mining» and undercuts the privacy pitch
An app selling privacy and local-first storage demands permission to «read, modify and delete all files on this device» — and some users read it as exactly the opposite: surveillance and data harvesting. The mismatch between the privacy promise and the blunt legacy permission breeds distrust in the very segment the product exists for.
I was hoping for a good simple mark down notes app, not a data overlord!!! lol
Very Suspicious. I don't like the idea of this app accessing ALL the files that exist previously of mine. Hacker???
STILL required to grant permission to manipulate all files on device. This is the permission that is required for old apps that have not been updated for the advanced functionality of new androids
Widgets that don't show note text kill the quick-task and To-Do use case on the phone
Users want to see their task list right on the home screen, like Samsung Notes — but Obsidian's widgets don't display note content, making them useless. Without a live widget and native reminders, the app drops out of the daily task-management use case, and people leave for tools where the note lives on the screen, not behind a tap.
Wont be able to fully switching to Obsidian until we get widgets that actually show the text (like in samsung notes). Need to be able to see task list without tapping the widget and opening app
the widgets it offers don't display the content of a note. This effectively makes the widgets useless
a feature it certainly lacks on phones is the ability to pin notes on the homepage. This would be incredibly useful for to-dos and task management.
Growing vaults and Electron graphics turn the «lightweight notebook» into a heavy, sluggish app
The app is positioned as fast and lightweight, but the more notes, links and plugins, the worse the lag: long documents, tables and attachments demand a powerful GPU, startup takes seconds, typing stutters. The product's very value — a large connected knowledge base — is the load that chokes it, and power users feel it first.
App runs terribly with more elements requiring mid range GPUS to work. Horrendous loading and live sessions in a A6 galaxy tablet.
best I have found so far for pkm stuff, but has it's challenges especially with larger vaults and lots of connections.
the starting time of 1-2 seconds is just way too long. If I quickly want to write something down I could open telegram or whatever other app and it opens almost instantly.
Broken non-English scripts and LaTeX rendering cut off the academic and multilingual segment
For anyone writing formulas or in Bangla, the product breaks at the exact point they need it: LaTeX renders poorly and forces a restart, Bangla isn't supported at all. An app claiming to be a researcher's knowledge base loses precisely the technical and multilingual segment — the audience for whom linked notes are most valuable.
does not support bangla and does not support only preview raw with more editing options like syntax etc off and manual toggle for low end device
Often it bugs out for LaTeX and renders poorly, had to restart the app then.
for those of us that use some symbols like mathematical ones we'll like a feature that can help with that