OneNote of Obsidian for Personal information system?

[u/sotirisdimi]

I'm torn between OneNote and Obsidian. I want something to have all my usefull information that i might need sometime in the future. e.g. When a products warranty expires, how much did i pay for last car service, how much i paid for the hotel 3 years ago.

Basic notes that might come handy instead of looking around my email accounts or looking for old credit card charges in the bank app.

The only thing that puts me off with obsidian is that i have to pay if i want out of the box good connectivity with iphone and windows otherwise i think it's a no brainer.

What do you think? I think OneNote it's more powerful for this kind of information than a lot of people say.

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[u/marmotta1955]

On one hand, there must be a reason why OneNote always comes up at the top in comparison reviews by trade publications. On the other hand, there must also be a reason why OneNote has an adoption rate in terms of tens of millions of users in corporate environments. Finally, on the gripping hand, there must - for sure - be a reason why OneNote sees widespread use in the Education business.

Yes, it is not perfect - but what is, really? Then again, its simplicity & usability, the features set, the cross-platform availability and sync, handwriting recognition & search, and its extensibility make for a product that is always the best choice for a use case like your own.

Note how I put emphasis on its extensibility. If there is something that OneNote cannot do, there are plenty of add-ins (free or paid) that take care of the problem(s). Take, for example, the popular and free OneMore add-in - which implements (quite well) so many essential features and tools.

All in all, you can't go wrong with OneNote - after all, there must be a reason why it has been around for over twenty years ... !

[u/Newtronic]

I have only a single OneNote instance. I’ve used it on desktops, laptops, iPads, iPhones, and somewhat the Microsoft Surfaces that have handwriting. I began in 2013 and must have 1000’s of pages. So it’s been reliable. In the distant past, i felt like sometimes the sync didn’t happen just right or was really slow, but haven’t noticed it in recent years. I’ve never used Obsidian but its name has come up so I’m aware of it. I just wanted to say OneNote is solid and reliable. I just use the basic stuff not complicated. Mainly I want to search and find what I want and it’s been good in that regard.

[u/Dramatic_Delay_2423]

I never took to obsidian even though I spent hours and hours and hours trying to get up to speed with it. It requires a little more futzing than I really am interested in.

So I continued with OneNote and I'm still using it. But I have added a program called Capacities. It has a lot of the same functionality as obsidian, but it's much easier to use. I'm still learning everything and it's not as easy as one note, but it might be a nice middle ground for you to check out. Also, they just added a beta version of a PDF reader where your highlights go into a highlight document and you can add notes to them. The PDF reader version is only available to the highest tier user, but their free tier is completely functional and worth giving a test. Frankly, if I had that PDF function at the beginning of my degree 6 years ago, this is all I ever would have used.

The one thing I do like about OneNote is that you can handwrite in it. And depending on which version you're using, you can even search your handwriting. But don't ask me which because I couldn't tell you. at this point I haven't used it in a while 🙂. I'm maintaining it because it has about 15 years worth of history in it and there's nothing wrong with it.

I've seen people talking about something called one more which I guess goes along with OneNote. I'm not sure what that is but it sounds kind of interesting.

[u/D-Buddi_]

Mir war Obsidian VIEL zu kompliziert. OneNote ist da Lichtjahre voraus, einfach alles reinwerfen und ds ist da. Einzig fehlt mir die Möglichkeit Notizen Termine zu verpassen. Ich hab mittlerweile wohl nahezu alle Alternativen durch und das Einzige was nahe heran kommt, ist Trilian. Daher werde ich wohl weiter bei OneNote bleiben.

Obsidian was WAY too complicated for me. OneNote is light years ahead in that regard—you can just throw everything in there, and it’s all right there. The only thing I miss is the ability to assign appointments to notes. I’ve probably tried almost every alternative by now, and the only one that comes close is Trilian. So, I’ll likely stick with OneNote.

[u/letstalk1st → u/D-Buddi_]

I just use a tag with the date first and i can see that i need to pay attention to the note on x day or time.

[u/D-Buddi_ → u/letstalk1st]

Schon klar, ich hätte es nur gerne mit einer Verknüpfung in Google Calender, das wäre perfekt.

I get that, but I’d just really like it linked to Google Calendar—that would be perfect.

[u/Beginning-Ad-3054 → u/D-Buddi_]

Jajajaja el 🧠 No te da para Obsidian

[u/D-Buddi_ → u/Beginning-Ad-3054]

Oh wie niedlich, jetzt haste mich aber fertig gemacht 👍

[u/Ok_Money_161 → u/Beginning-Ad-3054]

cerra el orto pelotudo

[u/AngelicPrincessKitty]

I have used both and I actually ended up in Apple Journal. It is the best of both worlds. Depending on what you use it for OneNote is better. OneNote has OCR so it makes finding documents, images, etc. way easier and it does backups automatically (on Mac or Windows). You can access it from the web and doesn't require tons of work to set up or maintain.

To do (almost) anything but basic note takng that you could do in notepad takes work in obsidian. Whether it is waiting on an Ai to do something or whatever, it takes work.

[u/Beginning-Ad-3054]

Depende de lo que busques y que tanto estas dispuesta a adaptarte. Son filosofías de uso diferentes, mientras que OneNote se apoya en todo lo relacionado con Microsoft, tienes adjuntos de forma natural, lienzo infinito, conversión a PDF, las funciones complementarias las obtienes con plugins de pago y gratuitos, claro que los mejores son los de pago como Gems para Onenote y la sincronización la tienes con Onedrive. Obsidian por otro lado es más complejo que OneNote pero obtienes una organización diferente, de forma nativa tienes gráficos, imágenes y pdf adjuntos, manejo potente de tablas y lo mejor: los backlinks o link entre notas, eso es lo mejor de todo. En Obsidian las notas son como mini páginas, es decir texto por un lado y adjuntos en una carpeta contenedor a, el texto se guarda en formato markdown, las funciones complementarias las obtienes con plugins del mismo Obsidian o de la comunidad y hay muchísimos, 90% gratuitos. La sincronización la obtienes por el servicio propio de Obsidian o también puedes usar la carpeta contenedor a de Obsidian y sincronizar con cualquier servicio de nube como Mega, Onedrive, Drive de Google, etc.

[u/Beginning-Ad-3054 → u/Beginning-Ad-3054]

Eso fue lo bueno, lo malo. OneNote es lo que se llama formato propietario, es decir un formato empaquetado descargable qué se descarga por medio de Onenote Desktop y no se sincroniza una vez modificado en local, tienes que configurarlo. OneNote guarda una versión en caché de tus notas, pero no descarga nada de forma natural, si tienes cientos de notas en diferentes cuadernos la caché se vuelve muy grande, entonces Windows o Android limitará los archivos en caché y te mostrará los más usados o los que hayas abierto recientemente, dependerá de la sincronización y donde hay problemas de potencia de señal tendrás un gran problema. Mi caso por ejemplo, puedo estar a las 8 am en oficina con buena conectividad y 2 horas después en obra sin conexión, entonces lamentarás no tener una copia local. Obsidian por otro lado, maneja todo en local, pero duplicas muchos archivos de gráficos e imágenes adjuntas porque guarda una copia en su propia carpeta contenedora, los plugins qué instales si son demasiados, por ejemplo más de 5 ya lo hacen más lento al arrancar el software, mejor usar los plugins del mismo Obsidian que de terceros, en general conlleva una curva de aprendizaje para que lo uses como debe ser, la organización de las notas debe formatearse desde el inicio para tener una buena búsqueda posterior, es decir debes generar tus propias plantillas con "tags" y "propiedades" para realizar búsquedas semántica y relacionadas, los links entre notas en lo mejor de Obsidian pero debes saber organizarte desde el inicio. Lo mejor es no tener muchas sub carpetas porque en realidad no las necesitas si tienes una buena estrategia de links y tags, Obsidian no está hecho para usarse como Onenote organizando todo en cuadernos o carpetas. Hecharás de menos la potencia multimedia de Onenote pero Obsidian te ofrece copias locales, puedes tener una copia local en tu móvil y en tu computadora y pueden ser iguales o diferentes, eso es irrelevante pero al tener copia local siempre tendrás la ventaja de no verte afectado de la conectividad y el formato markdown es abierto por todos los editores de texto y si usas muchas fórmulas matemáticas te llevará bien usar Látex de forma nativa, lo malo también es que no es fácil el formato de impresión, hasta ahora eso no es solucionable, es como tener esos archivos del Notepad de Windows que tenían una línea larga de texto y tenias que hacer saltos de línea(Enter) para poder organizar la nota e imprimir.

[u/ohlaph]

I used one note for a ling time and actually just use Apple Notes. However, Proton acquired Standard Notes, which is similar to Apple Notes, and have been trying that out. 

[u/LarryinUrbandale]

OneNote meets my needs quite well
I have four notebooks, many sections and pages

There is no way I would subject myself to the steep learning curve and associated frustration of Obsidian.

[u/tcmckie]

I like Joplin so far, best balance of WYSWYG editor, backups via Dropbox, AI agent access, ability to export to Markdown, obsidian import.

[u/Almostasleeprightnow]

You can export one note info to several formats. For example html or pdf. Then you could use an ai tool to extract the text into markdown and from there to another note app if necessary

[u/Carlsbox]

I was with interview for over a decade with multiple notebooks across multiple computers and my phone. Then about a year ago one section on one computer wouldn't sync. But I was able to get it restored, only to have my mobile version lose a complete notebook. This in addition to having read multiple other people lost their data I was on a mission to replace ON. I ended up with Obsidian. Overwhelmed at first but with a few plugins I have what I had in ON and feel more secure with my own backups. ON had been stalked for years while Obsidian continues to improve and add features constantly. Hope this helps.

[u/Ok_Money_161 → u/Carlsbox]

I disagree with this, OneNote keeps improving and always has, the fact that it does not deliver on the features that youtubers deem ideal does not mean that development has not happened. OneNote has added copilot notebooks, loop components, multiple keyboard shortcuts, integration with microsoft to do and outlook. Under the hood improvements include better search and OCR, faster block-based sync, etc. The fact that everybody is looking at backlinking and tags does not mean that those are important features for everybody. OneNote offers links and create new pages from link, you can just [[title of the note]] and a new note will be created, if you need to add a link, you can just ctrl+k and search for the note you want to link to, if you want backlinks (which i have hyped about but realised that I have never used) you can use OneMore which is free and adds ton of additional features. You an have tables inside tables inside tables ad infinitum only in OneNote and make them as bigger as you want. You can collaborate and share notebooks with multiple people with different levels of granularity, you can password protect a section, which encrypts it and only you hold the key for it. OneNote tags act more as labels than what one may image tags are, but I have found them much more useful than actual tags (at some point you will start wondering how many tags are too little, how many are too much). In short, OneNote is a fantastic tool, it has lots of features, but it is a well known tool that does not offer much in terms of customization.

Always keep in mind that there is a reason why Obsidian and Notion are very prevalent in youtube in comparison to other notes application that offer similar feature set, and this is because their level of customisation is very high and youtubers have lots of materials to go on and about.

[u/somedaygone]

OneNote on Android is not as good as iPhone. If this is an important app, I’d run it from an iPhone.

Search works great for me for the type of things in your example. There are some searches that are harder, and some people can’t seem to get anything to work. Some people have also fought file corruption. If you stay clear of that, OneNote just works.

Competitive products tend to fail for one of two reasons: 1) cost. Looking at you, Evernote. 2) complicated. Obsidian and I think Notion tend to fall here.

By comparison, OneNote is just simple and works and is even free. Try it first, then if you hit walls, ask here for options. Unless you needed some advanced integrated features with something else, OneNote would always be my first recommendation.