Obsidian Alternatives

    Obsidian is described as 'A second brain, for you, forever. The human brain is non-linear: we jump from idea to idea, all the time. Your second brain should work the same' and is a well-known app in the Office & Productivity category. There are more than 50 alternatives to Obsidian for a variety of platforms, including Mac, Windows, Linux, Online / Web-based and iPhone. The best alternative is Joplin. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Standard Notes or Notion. Other great apps like Obsidian are Google Keep (Free), Microsoft OneNote (Freemium), Typora (Free) and Evernote (Freemium).

    This page was last updated Oct 20, 2021
    1. Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, can be copied, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor.
      show more ▾
      Joplin vs Obsidian opinions
      Most users think Joplin is a great alternative to Obsidian.
      andgregorik Joplin has a fracture of the features of Obsidian which is no wonder since Obsidian aims to become a powerful desktop knowledge base, unlike Joplin. For one thing, Joplin focuses on mobile<->desktop syncing and not on effective internal linking. They're similar at first glance only.
      Negative comment • 12 months ago

      8
      Joplin doesn't have the same focus as Obsidian. It's more of an Evernote alternative
      Negative comment • 3 months ago

      1
      sCojQE5 Joplin is taking shots at Evernote, not Obsidian.
      Negative comment • 10 months ago

      3
      yee42069 Joplin is all about hierarchical notes. Obsidian is about graph based organization.
      Negative comment • 3 months ago

      0
    2. Standard Notes is a simple and private notes app. It allows you to write and sync your notes across all your devices, including your iPhone, iPad, Mac, and web browser.
      show more ▾
      Standard Notes vs Obsidian opinions
      pros, cons and recent comments
      hex111 i feel better paying for open source user friendlier projects, wysiwyg is just necessary for people to reasonably shift from the data robbery monopolies.
      Positive comment • 19 days ago

      0
    4. With so many tools, it's hard to keep everyone on the same page. Notion is a new tool that unifies them all. It's like Google Docs, but everything is organized and discoverable by your team. Real collaboration in real-time.
      show more ▾
      Notion vs Obsidian opinions
      Almost everyone thinks Notion is a great alternative to Obsidian.
      passawitkaovilai Because Notion is online only, it can have high latency when pulling databases of pages which Obsidian have no issues with.
      Negative comment • 8 months ago

      3

    5. Google Keep

      • Free • Proprietary
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Linux
      • Online
      • Android
      • iPhone
      • Chrome OS
      • Android Tablet
      • iPad
      • Google Chrome
      • Android Wear
      ▼
      ▼
      Google Keep is a service provided by Google which integrates note-taking and web surfing.
      show more ▾
      Google Keep vs Obsidian opinions
      pros, cons and recent comments
      SimplyTolex Not similar. Google keep is like sticky notes + not private and not secure. Obsidian is about internal links and completely offline.
      Negative comment • 5 months ago

      1
      Light weight, clean, minimalistic and easy to use. Dead simple
      Positive comment • about 1 month ago

      0
    6. Microsoft OneNote, part of the Microsoft Office Suite, is a digital notebook application that gives people one place to gather notes and information.
      show more ▾
    8. Typora will give you a seamless experience as both a reader and a writer. It removes the preview window, mode switcher, syntax symbols of markdown source code, and all other unnecessary distractions.
      show more ▾
      Typora vs Obsidian opinions
      Most users think Typora is a great alternative to Obsidian.
      GeorgeRey not really an alternative to Obsidian. More like a complement.
      Positive comment • over 1 year ago

      12
      it complements Obsidian, but not really a replacement.
      Positive comment • over 1 year ago

      11
      It's a good alternative because it has Hyperlinking (internal/external), that means we can do backlinks (not automatic though) and it supports Zettelkasten method.
      Positive comment • over 1 year ago

      1

    9. Evernote

      • Freemium • Proprietary
      • Mac
      • Windows
      • Online
      • Android
      • iPhone
      • Blackberry
      • Windows S
      • Android Tablet
      • Windows Phone
      • iPad
      • Apple Watch
      • Android Wear
      • Kindle Fire
      • Pebble
      ▼
      ▼
      Evernote is a cross-platform, freemium app designed for note taking, organizing, and archiving.
      show more ▾
      Evernote vs Obsidian opinions
      Some users think Evernote is a great alternative to Obsidian, some don't.
      riveravaldez Obsidian claims to keep your data as .md plain files, locally.
      Negative comment • 11 months ago

      3
      ChrisWayg Evernote has the best web-clipper by far in comparison to any other apps I have used. Formatting can be a mess, as it is a proprietary format and not Markdown. Offline use has gotten worse than a few years ago. The apps have become slower, bloated and overloaded with features. Still using it due to lots of legacy data and the web-clipper, but currently I prefer more lightweight apps like Obsidian and Bear where my data is available in form of Markdown files.
      Comment • 3 months ago

      0
    10. Made by the company behind WordPress, Simplenote enables users to take notes, lists, and ideas. These notes are stored on the cloud and are accessible across multiple devices.
      show more ▾
    11. Zettlr is a supercharged markdown editor that combines many writing editor features and collect them in one application. It aims at speeding up your workflow and help you write without any interruptions.
      show more ▾
      Zettlr vs Obsidian opinions
      Almost everyone thinks Zettlr is a great alternative to Obsidian.
      Good alternative to Obsidian but backlinks are not as magic as in Obsidian. If you rename a file it will not modify links. You cannot link to a specific header. You need to use some ID which is a bit troublesome at first. Also you don't have a graph showing you all the links. But as this is Opensource, this is the best alternative to Obsidian which is closed source.
      Positive comment • 9 months ago

      6
      Sometimesa Offers back-linking just like Obsidian does but it is Open-Source. Obsidian is proprietary software.
      Positive comment • about 1 year ago

      10
    12. A hierarchical note taking application, featuring rich text and syntax highlighting, storing data in a single xml or sqlite file.
      show more ▾
    Showing 10 of 82 alternatives