Introduction
Notion has been my go-to tool for organizing my life since last year. I’ve been using it for everything from note-taking to task management to project management to writing.
At least those are the things I’ve tried doing with it. I’ve struggled with Notion. I’ve tried to make it work for me, but it just doesn’t.
I thought it was just me not being able to figure out how to make use of it - Yeah! Maybe that was the reason, but ever since I’ve encountered Obsidian, I’ve realized that it was just one of the reasons, and probably a combined consequence of other reasons.
Notion
Notion is one of the most famous (if not the most famous) note-taking and productivity app out there. It is a freemium tool, which provides you with overwhelming plethora of features, which can assist you with with almost any organizing tasks, ranging from simple note-taking to complex project management.
It provides you with various tools such is a modified Markdown support, wiki support, page linking, databases, kanban boards, calendar, and many more. You could create your own dashboards or pages to organize things or even use one of the many pre-made templates available from both Notion and the community.
It is a well-established tool and can be used for personal use, and be a really effective tool, but it shows it’s real capabilities in a collaborative environment. It provides it’s premium features for free to students and educators, and charges a nominal price for individual.
Obsidian
Obsidian is an up and coming free to use, knowledge management and note-taking tool, but it is so much more than that. It provides you with a simple, yet powerful interface to create and manage your notes and knowledge base.
It is a local-first tool, which means that all your data is stored locally on your machine, and you can choose to sync it with your cloud storage provider of choice, or use a perfectly fine sync facility provided by Obsidian makers themselves (Obsidian Sync).
Along with it’s rich assortments of core and community plugins, as well as high degree of self-customizability, it provides you with infinite possibilities regarding how you wish to use it. It is a tool which can be used by anyone, for any purpose, and can be customized to suit your needs. Though, this aspect of it can be a bit overwhelming.
Why I’m switching
After a year of using Notion as my primary tool for organizing my life, there are a number of issues I have faced which, along with the my subjective advantages of Obsidian, have led me to switch to Obsidian.
1. Lack of offline support
Notion being a web-based tool, needs a constant internet access to be able to use it. This often becomes an issue for me, as there are times when I don’t have an access to stable internet.
Obsidian being a local-first tool, doesn’t have this issue. It can be used offline, and can be synced later on, and you have access to your data at all times.
2. Lack of customisability
Though Notion itself is a highly customizable tool, it is not customizable enough for me. I like to have a lot of control over how my tool looks and behaves, and Notion doesn’t provide me with that.
3. How data is structured
In Notion the data you have is stored in a folder structure and thus to be able to access things or organize things, you have to be completely clear from the get go, and also be aware of where you have stored what in the times to come.
Obsidian provides you with a variety of ways to organize and locate information, with tools such as Graph View, Back-links, Tags, DataView and many more. This makes it easier to organize and locate information.
4. Data Security
Notion is a web-based tool, and thus all your data is stored on their servers. Though Notion still allows you to export your data, but it is still at the mercy of Notion.
Obsidian as discussed is completely local, and stores all of your pages and files locally, providing you with a sense of control and security of your own data.
Note
These are some of the reasons Notion didn’t work for me, but it was also the features which Obsidian provided which propmted me to switcht o it. I’ll be discussing those in a future post.
These are my subjective views, others can have different perspectives, and each of these tools have their own advantages which can suit different people with different needs and organizing approaches.