Is Obsidian Better than Notion — Discover Your Best Note-Taking App for 2023

A possible digital form of a “doomsday prepper.”

I’ve had a year of experience with Obsidian and a few months with Notion to determine which software serves my needs better.

Your use cases differ, and I may have a slight bias in favor of Obsidian, but I hope my justifications and examples will aid you in selecting the best application for your requirements.

So, without further ado, I’d like to introduce you to the first example of task and project management.

Task and Project Management,

Once upon a time, I relied on Obsidian to keep track of my tasks and projects, but after experimenting with Notion and seeing how much better it is, I can’t go back.

First off, I particularly appreciate Notion database views’ functionality and simplicity.

You may organize your chores in any way you like with the help of the idea, whether you prefer Kanban boards, calendar views, or plain lists.

However, while Obsidian includes its tables and kanban plugins, the layout options are more limited than in Notion.

Notion, for instance, allows you to relocate and embed elements so that everything fits on a single page, but Obsidian does not.

Anyway, Notion’s wide property support is another selling aspect. Unfortunately, Obsidian only allows you to define text-based information fields, which is extremely limited compared to Notion’s support for dates, multiple options, and checkboxes.

These features make sorting and filtering your pages much more straightforward than Obsidian. You need to either alter the code or create a new table entirely, unlike Notion for Obsidian, where you can change the views or sorts.

I have separate Kanban boards for things like my monthly objectives, projects, and YouTube videos using the powers of Notion, which then have various viewing options and sorting possibilities.

Having praised Notion, I should now turn my attention to my beloved purple child, Obsidian.

Note -Taking.

This opinion may be a little heated and spicy, but Obsidian is the clear winner for note-taking.

First, the Obsidian zettlekasten methodology has assisted me in developing a more comprehensive note-taking strategy.

Internal links make it simple to establish associations between notes; I can then examine these associations in either a graph or backlinks view, depending on the context.

I can utilize these links to connect my ideas and see things from a higher-order perspective rather than just using folders as a framework.

I’d also like to mention the content ecology of the Obsidian community.

I’ve been using Obsidian for a year, and I still learn new things from sources like Active Discord and Eleanor’s Weekly Roundup that help refine my approach.

Second, I enjoy typing faster and using Obsidian more when taking notes than Notion. Third, unlike Notion, which I used for over a year, Notetaking in Obsidian is far more streamlined and effective due to its many shortcut keys and add-ons.

Tools like the Note Quick Switcher are beneficial for quickly finding and generating notes when used with hotkeys to open or close windows.

Then, I can take notes even more rapidly by using templates and convenient cursor placements. You may assign hotkeys for a lot more actions.

Although learning Markdown’s formatting syntax could take some time, you won’t lose out because it essentially offers the same functionalities as Notion.

Finally, Notion lets you create columns and organize your notes, but doing so requires you to open additional tabs, making it difficult to view multiple notes at once.

The Obsidian sliding panes feature, which allows me to traverse across my many notes easily, is much preferred by me.

The Sidebars and Obsidian views are an additional option.

This will enable me to display an outline or graph of the Note I’m working on, quickly access files I’ve marked as favorites or opened recently, and see connections to other notes, among other uses.

Depending on your current task, you can create a new workspace with customized view configurations. For example, if I want to continue reading from where I left off in a book, I may open the file where I kept my notes.

Daily and Weekly Notes.

Now that I’ve praised each program for its one redeeming quality, can you tell me what they can do in common? Weekly and daily Notes

Daily Notes

You can use either tool to meet your needs if you wish to keep a daily journal or perform weekly reviews. However, the two apps that work best for keeping track of my daily and weekly thoughts are Obsidian and Notion.

I enjoy reflecting when journaling since it can produce exciting ideas I could develop further.

Obsidian allows me to take notes, complete these ideas with prompts, and then link them to other concepts already stored in my vault. Even though I mentioned that Notion’s attributes are superior, I can still easily add inline information to my Note’s various parts to keep track of multiple statistics.

A week’s worth of data on my energy levels can be graphed for easy examination.

Weekly Reviews/Planning

I used Obsidian for weekly reviews, but I’ve recently converted to Notion. I prefer to make plans; thus, it’s more practical to keep them in the exact location as my chores and projects/just for a simple transfer.

Additionally, I enjoy using the various database views to imaginatively organize the various components of my weekly review because they provide me more freedom than a linear heading system like Obsidian.

It would just clutter my vault if I created seven different categories for my weekly evaluation every week in Obsidian.

Now that you know the advantages and disadvantages of each app let me give you an example of how I would use each app to its full advantage in a specific situation.

School

I use Notion exclusively for schoolwork while taking all my notes in Obsidian. But, as I already said, I prefer the easy note-taking experience that Obsidian offers.

Integrating all the individual information and concepts into one overarching picture is more manageable when I can visualize a concept map of my notes. Obsidian allows you to accomplish what Notion users frequently do when creating exam review notes by employing toggle blocks to conceal information.

Even better, create flashcards to enhance the review process more engaging and fruitful.

However, I utilize Notions databases to keep track of things like assignments, study plans, and schedules because they are more about planning than permanent knowledge that I would want to maintain in my notes.

I would utilize Notion’s tables rather than Google Docs or Sheets to keep everything in one place. Obsidian makes collaborating or sharing notes challenging; thus, Notion’s shared links and online editing are beneficial.

Final Thoughts.

I used to be a devoted and steadfast Obsidian user, but after using Notion, I realized each program has its advantages and disadvantages.

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