While Notion has long been the favorite productivity app for power users, a strong competitor, Obsidian, has recently come into the spotlight. You shouldn’t mistake Obsidian for another note-taking app. It’s an offline solution that offers a unique approach to knowledge management, uncovers hidden insights, and goes beyond just basic notes and databases. In this article, I'll outline the main reasons why Obsidian could be a superior option to Notion for those looking to enhance their productivity.

7 Offline-first solution

Offline support is one of the biggest reasons for choosing Obsidian over Notion. The latter requires an active internet connection, without which you cannot access or edit your workspace. On the other hand, obsidian lets you create and save your vaults on your device so that they’re always within reach, even without network connectivity.

Offline support also leads to faster performance. With Notion, performance takes a hit when you deal with a large set of databases and blocks. There is no such issue with Obsidian. This seemingly simple difference has profound implications for your productivity.

6 Markdown support

Obsidian has a Markdown-based editor built-in. Markdown is a popular language that uses hashtags (#), asterisks (*), and other special characters to format your notes like a pro. It’s a universal language supported by many popular applications, like Google Docs, iA Writer, Ulysses, Joplin, and more. Although mastering the Markdown language can be challenging at first, it becomes extremely enjoyable to use once you overcome the initial learning curve.

By default, Obsidian saves your files in .md extension. You can also open these files in other applications. Unlike Notion, you aren’t restricted to the company’s workspace only.

5 Cloud storage flexibility

Obsidian also offers flexibility when it comes to cloud syncing. For example, you can store your vault notes offline, carry them on an external storage device of your choice, and pick any cloud storage platform like Google Drive, OneDrive, Dropbox, and more to sync your notes across devices. There is an option to store your notes on a self-hosted platform like Nextcloud. Overall, you have complete freedom, control, and ownership over your vaults.

It's entirely up to the user how they wish to store and sync their Obsidian notes across platforms. You can even pick a Sync add-on for $5 per month and use the company’s servers to store and sync notes across devices (it also comes with a neat advantage that I will discuss later in the post).

4 The sheer amount of customization options

Customization is where Obsidian truly shines over its rivals, including Notion. With Notion, you can only switch between dark and light themes, and pick from a few different font styles. In contrast, Obsidian has a dedicated theme store built-in. You can simply head to Settings > Appearance and open a theme store.

You can glance over a long list of light and dark themes with different accent colors, background shades, and text styles for your Obsidian vault. There is also an option to assign and customize hotkeys (keyboard shortcuts) for your frequently used functions in Obsidian. When you have dozens of core and community plugins installed, you also have the flexibility to disable irrelevant ones to keep your workflow smooth.

3 Robust plugin store

Compared to Notion, Obsidian may feel barebone at first glance. And here is where the plugin store comes into play. Since Obsidian has an active community, third-party developers have chimed in to fill in the gaps in your vault. For example, Obsidian doesn’t support Kanban boards by default. However, you can simply head to the plugin store, download a Kanban board plugin, and enjoy the same in your vault.

Similarly, you can enable advanced tables, calendars, tasks, day planners, and much more with the help of third-party plugins. With Notion, you are stuck with the built-in functionalities only.

2 Built-in Canvas and Graph views

Notion only lets you interlink relevant notes. Obsidian takes the entire experience to the next level with a built-in Canvas and Graph view. They offer unique visual ways to interact with your notes, significantly boosting productivity for visual thinkers and those who thrive on seeing connections.

You can visualize your hidden connections and knowledge network, navigate your vault with ease, and explore flexible notes organization. If you want to learn more, check out our dedicated post on creating and using Graph view in Obsidian.

1 End-to-end encryption for peace of mind

As mentioned, if you choose to go with the Sync add-on ($5 monthly), Obsidian enables end-to-end encryption for your notes. If you frequently store confidential and private notes in your vault, make sure to opt for the paid add-on to unlock peace of mind. Notion doesn’t support E2EE.

Obsidian reigns supreme for productivity

As you can see from the list above, Obsidian surely is a better choice than Notion for personal use. Notion’s strength mostly lies in complex project management, real-time collaboration, and flexibility due to a block editor. Obsidian allows you to control your data with local storage and the flexibility of Markdown support, and also offers a wide range of plugins to extend your vault’s functionality in no time. Check out our dedicated post if you want to use Obsidian to create a PKM system.