Obsidian and Notion are two of the best note-taking and knowledge management software solutions. Thanks to their unique approach to productivity and flexibility, both platforms have gained a loyal following. While Obsidian is entirely focused on providing a personal and connected knowledge base, Notion takes a different approach with powerful and customizable collaborative workspaces.
In this post, we'll compare Obsidian and Notion based on interface, features, philosophies, note-taking style, organization, and price, and discuss their specific strengths and drawbacks to help you choose the ideal tool for your workflow.
user interface
Both Obsidian and Notion use a unique user interface. If you're switching from traditional note-taking software like OneNote or Evernote, it may take some time to get used to. Neither app offers a standard toolbar. Obsidian is based on the Markdown language, while Notion has a block editor with '/' commands.
As far as the theme engine goes, Notion lets you switch between dark and light themes. Obsidian is simply miles ahead. It has a robust theme manager where you can change the accent color of your choice. Obsidian takes the whole experience to the next level with a dedicated theme manager menu where you can find themes created by community members and change the entire look of the app with a single click.
Notion allows you to create aesthetic pages with icons and banners. In comparison, Obsidian Notes may look simple to some.
Markdown vs. Blocks: Notes Editor
Obsidian and Notion take a different approach here. As mentioned, Obsidian uses a Markdown editor where you can edit text with hashtags, asterisks, and other characters. You can use a special plugin (more on that later) if you want to enable a toolbar.
Notion uses a '/' command to activate all relevant text editing tools. It is more user-friendly than Obsidian's Markdown approach. The latter requires a bit of a learning curve and may put off early adopters.
Note organization
Notion allows you to create different workspaces and add pages and subpages to them. You also have the option to connect relevant pages together. Many Notion users create a central homepage and pin their important pages into different columns for easy access per category.
Obsidian lets you create different vaults and add folders, subfolders and notes. Like Notion, it also supports backlinks to link relevant notes. However, I would give the edge to Obsidian here. It supports tags where you can just type #bill, #personal and more and find the related notes in a jiffy using the search menu. It's quite similar to Evernote's class-leading tagging system and works as expected.
Obsidian vs Notion: Features
We will now go through some of the key features of Obsidian and Notion. Let's start with Obsidian.
Knowledge graphs
It is one of the best features of Obsidian. You can link your related notes and check their relationships through a dedicated diagram view menu. It is a must-have feature for researchers, power users, and even students. Read our dedicated guide to learn how to visualize your notes in diagram view.
canvas
Obsidian offers a dedicated Canvas add-on with several tools to help you capture your thoughts on a blank slate. You can launch a canvas to brainstorm and use arrows, boxes, text, sticky notes, and more to create the ultimate mind map.
Plug-ins
Plugins are the heart and soul of the Obsidian experience. They take your Obsidian setup to the next level. Whether you want to add a calendar view, enable a toolbar, write daily notes, unlock advanced tables, or create Kanban boards, you have enough plugins to get the job done in a jiffy. Another handy add-on that Obsidian offers over Notion is split view for displaying multiple windows. Many may find it useful when working with multiple notes on a large monitor. Multi-tab support remains the same across both softwares.
Now let’s move on to Notion and see what productivity nerds say makes it so special.
Extensive databases
Notion lets you create advanced databases in a snap. Whether you want to track your favorite books, business contacts, prospects, or candidates, you have plenty of options to create an ideal database with various column properties and customization options.
Notion Calendar
Notion recently acquired Cron, a popular cross-platform calendar app, and integrated its functionality directly into the software. Now you can check your Google Calendar events and manage appointments right from your workstation. No more switching to another calendar app to check the week's agenda.
Templates
Notion has nailed the template library with an extensive collection. In addition to hundreds of corporate templates, you'll also find feature-rich and aesthetic templates from the community. There's a template for virtually every use case and you never have to worry about starting from scratch.
Project management tools
Table columns in Notion
With Kanban boards, calendar view, Gantt view, and multiple databases, Notion has perfected project management. It can be a great project management tool for home users and small businesses. You can even invite your team members and start collaborating in real time.
Term AI
Obsidian doesn't do so well in the AI ​​category. Notion has a handy AI tool that helps summarize a page, translate paragraphs, generate text, change the tone, and more. You can even ask Notion AI specific questions about the current page. That alone is a huge productivity boost for power users who frequently work with large pages. In my experience, Notion AI was a gamble. It's an optional add-on that costs $10 per month (more on that later).
There are also a few other Notion features worth mentioning. The first of these is synchronized databases. As the name suggests, you can create a synchronized database and use it on other pages in a particular workspace. When you make a change in the database, the system will edit the same content on the other pages where it is located. Microsoft has copied the same thing with Loop components.
The second important add-on is web publishing. While Obsidian also supports web publishing, Notion simply offers more flexibility with decorative pages. With a paid plan, you can even use a custom address for your websites. I've seen many companies and startups use it for press releases, job postings, and other important updates.
Notion widgets
As mentioned earlier, Notion lets you create visually appealing pages in a jiffy. Besides built-in options like quotes, highlighters, banners, various blocks, and more, you can also use third-party widgets on your pages. For example, you can easily integrate weather, clock, quote, life tracker, and more widgets from unofficial sources. Check out our dedicated post on creating beautiful Notion pages.
Overall, Notion easily beats Obsidian in terms of features.
Obsidian vs. Notion: Privacy
This is where it gets interesting. Since Obsidian is based on Markdown and has an offline approach, it remains the first choice for privacy-conscious individuals. You can save your notes locally or on the cloud storage of your choice and have complete control over your data. Since they are Markdown (.md) files, you can also open them with other software.
In contrast, Notion does not have an offline mode. This is a major drawback of Notion. If you have internet connection issues, you will not be able to view or edit your workspace. Also, all your data is only on the company's servers. Notion recently announced that it will close all Russia-based workspaces due to a US government restriction. On the other hand, you have the option to export your data in CSV, PDF, and Markdown.
Obsidian vs. Notion: Pricing
Obsidian offers an excellent free plan with unlimited vaults, notes, plugins, and more. You only have to pay $4 per month for the sync add-on, which you can avoid by storing your vaults on OneDrive or Google Drive.
Notion's free plan is also quite powerful. The Plus plan starts at $10 per month and offers unlimited blocks for teams, unlimited file uploads, 30-day page history, custom sites, synced databases, and more.
Connected vs. curated
Choosing between Obsidian and Notion is not rocket science. Obsidian focuses on privacy with its local setup, offers connected diagrams, an infinite canvas, and numerous plugins. Notion offers more flexibility, a comprehensive template library, collaboration features, and versatility. The choice comes down to which platform best suits your intellectual needs.
If you want to explore more options, check out our separate list of the best personal knowledge management system tools.