Obsidian To Capacities: Three Reasons Why I’m Switching

Both apps are incredible — I’d be happy sticking with either.

I know, I know. It wasn’t so long ago I declared my undying love for Obsidian.

It’s true, I do love it. I love how I can spend hours customising and tweaking my vault until it’s just perfect for me.

Ironically, that’s turned out to be one of the reasons I’ve cancelled my Obsidian Sync payments and am making the switch to Capacities.

OK, I think we need a list before I start rambling.

Disclaimer

Before I begin, you need to know I’m no nerd in either Capacities or Obsidian. Far from it.

If you want to know the nitty-gritty ins and outs of Capacities, you need to be reading stuff by PKM Beth, for example (not that I’m calling you a nerd, Beth!). She’s written extensively on this.

But what I’m writing here is based on my personal preference and how I feel about these two apps.

This article isn’t going to be particularly technical or long; I’m leaning heavily towards being subjective rather than objective.

That said, let’s crack on with the reasons why I’m leaving Obsidian and using Capacities instead.

Obsidian is a blank slate, whereas Capacities provides me with a basic system to work with.

I do love a blank slate.

I love having nothing to work with and creating something from scratch.

But it can be so time consuming, and chances are I’ll never be totally happy with what I’ve created.

With Obsidian, this has proven to be the case.

I have a folder structure set up, but I just can’t settle on it. There are always changes I need to make. It’s just too fluid for me.

However, Capacities gives me stuff to work with: Pages, objects, collections within objects. It gives me the ability to create metadata very easily, and also tags.

I know Obsidian can do this. But the clincher is that Capacities presents it to me ready to use, whereas in Obsidian I have to figure it all out and create it for myself — and that takes time and effort.

Here’s a specific example: In Capacities I’ve created an object named Articles, and within that I have two collections: Drafts and Completed.

You may think, “Why can’t he have a folder in Obsidian named Articles, and then use two sub-folders?”

And that’s a very valid question.

I told you this was going to be subjective, so here we go: I don’t have an answer to that question. There’s just something about the concept of “objects” and “collections” that clicks with me.

That’s the way Capacities rolls — it simply presents it to me:

“This is the way we’re going to work, Dave. You like it? Great. Use it. You don’t like it? No problem. Use Obsidian.”

Obsidian gives me endless aesthetic possibilities, whereas Capacities is what it is.

Oh, that’s right, Capacities lets me switch between dark mode and light mode.

But that, I have discovered, is all I need.

I don’t need font changes; I don’t need colour options; I don’t need themes. All that stuff is nice and pretty and everything, but for me, it’s a distraction I don’t have time for.

Let me remind you, this is just a subjective write-up.

Simply put, for the sake of my productivity levels, it’s best if I’m limited in the ways I can customise a particular app.

And Capacities fits the bill.

Capacities works “out of the box”, whereas Obsidian requires setting up of plug-ins to function as desired.

I love a good plug-in as much as the next geek, but again, I need things to be as simple as possible.

If I want to use daily notes, which I do (they’re really useful!), then in Obsidian I have to install the Periodic Notes plugin.

I also have to design a template from scratch, and make various tweaks to that to get it set up exactly as I want it. Then there’s weekly notes and monthly notes — the same process.

In addition to that, I have to set up the plug-ins on my iPad and my phone, in exactly the same way so I can get a seamless experience across devices.

In Capacities, it’s there for me, ready and waiting to be used. No plug-ins required. And it’s exactly the same on my phone, and using the web-app on my iPad.

(As I’m writing, I’m so aware this whole thing is a massive over-simplification. I hope neither the developers of Capacities or Obsidian reads this. It’s an embarrassment, really. But I did warn you.)

A few words on what I’m going to miss about Obsidian.

I’m going to miss working with plain text. Obsidian runs on markdown files which are stored locally. I do love the simplicity of that.

I’m also going to miss the ability to work without needing an internet connection. Although in reality, there are hardly any times when I don’t have a connection.

You know what, the truth is both apps are amazing.

I just find myself being more excited about using Capacities, and also about what they have in store (integrated task management is going to be a game-changer).

Take your pick. You won’t be disappointed with either.

But I’m going all-in with Capacities.