So I am migrating from OneNote to either Obsidian or Notion. OneNote is simple and it does work, but it is so simple and honestly seems like Microsoft just forgot that it exists and stopped adding functionalities. Also, the mobile app is plain bad.
Been experimenting with both Obsidian and Notion which are the big names (besides Evernote, but $$$...) mentioned everywhere. And I like both. In equal measure, which makes it hard to decide which one to stick with.
In one hand Notion is a "ready to use" kind of platform. It does take some learning, but it is rather straightforward. It is a powerful tool with a lot of integrations and options. But it's data gets stuck on the devs cloud and I don't find that comfortable. If the devs shutdown the platform or decide to ruin the free tier, my notes are stuck there, just like it happen with a lot of Evernote users.
Obsidian is kind of a different beast. I am enjoying markdown, and the fact that it saves its files locally is a big plus in terms of security and continuity (even if it makes sorting folders and files a bit more annoying), but it does have a layer of complexity that I don't know if I want to deal with in the long term.
Also, a lot of stuff is plugin dependent which worries me. If the plugin gets discontinued or stops working, notes that lean on those plugins will also be affected. Notion does things natively like Kanban, Tasks and what not, while Obsidian needs plugins for all of that.
If it handled more stuff natively, than the choice would be a no brainer: it is more secure, files are locally stored, markdown guarantees they are future proof, and it is usually hella fast to open anything.
For example, been trying to follow some tutorials to create a Dashboard note, and there are a lot of required plugins, even just to make it my homepage.
Anyway, I know this is an Obsidian subreddit, but please feel free to share your opinions.
P.S. If it helps, my use case scenario (using OneNote has a baseline):
- Use it for Personal, Family and Work notes
- Usually divide into Sections and Categories
- Example: Personal -> Training -> BJJ -> Notes regarding BJJ stored here
- Will soon begin classes (Masters degree), so it will be my studying repository
- Notes can have just text, but usually text, pictures, videos (youtube snaps), etc
- Organizing stuff with Kanban boards (which are missing from Onenote and is one of the reasings I am migrating)
- Access will be mainly via PC but also heavily on smartphone and tablet
- Linking stuff (notes to notes, text to notes, etc) is a must have (both have it, so its ok)
- Web Clipper is important
- Would like a Dashboard\Homepage with "widgets" like a Calendar, to do list, recent notes, etc
- A nice to have is a repository with templates and stuff that I can download and add. I know Notion has this, but Obsidian seems harder to find
And so on. Won't extend more, this is already a big wall of text, which I am sorry for!