Obsidian (software)

Shida Li and Erica Xu, the two eventual co-founders of Obsidian, met while studying at the University of Waterloo.^[8] They both collaborated on several development projects prior to creating Obsidian, including the outliner tool Dynalist.io^[8][9]: 17

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and they were left quarantining, they started working on Obsidian. Its development was motivated by shortcomings in other tools like MediaWiki, TiddlyWiki, and other note-taking apps. The idea was to build an app that was extensible in a similar manner to code editors and IDEs.^[10][8]

Obsidian's first beta release came not long after on March 30, 2020,^[11] and released its 1.0.0 version on October 13, 2022.^[12][13]

On February 6, 2023, Steph Ango joined Obsidian as CEO after his contributions to Obsidian version 1.0.0 and involvement in the community. Previously, he'd been working at the startup Lumi before it was acquired in 2021.^[10][14]

Obsidian is available on all major operating systems, including Windows, Linux, MacOS, iOS, and Android. It is not available as a web app. Obsidian is free for both personal and commercial use; though they offer subscription-based premium services, an optional commercial license, and one-time payment to access beta versions of Obsidian.^[15][8]

Obsidian is particularly suitable as a knowledge database for personal knowledge management and as software for creating notes that works with Markdown files.^[16][17] It is designed to help users organize and structure their thoughts and knowledge in a flexible, non-linear way.^[15]

Obsidian has been used for a wide variety of use-cases, in large part due to the extensibility of the app through plugins, which allow users to tailor Obsidian to their needs by keeping it as simple or advanced as needed.^{[9]: 145 [18]} Some use-cases include writing,^[19] task management,^[4] and learning.^[20]

Obsidian operates on a folder of text documents named a "vault";^[21] each new note in Obsidian generates a new text document, and all documents can be searched from within the app.^[15][4] Text formatting in Obsidian is achieved through markdown, with the ability to switch between a raw text (Source Mode) and a pre-rendered (Live Preview) mode while editing.^[15]

Obsidian isn't prescriptive about how users organize their notes. Bases is a core plugin that enables users to create database-like views of their notes, which can be customized to look like dynamic tables or even maps.^[15] Canvas, another core plugin, provides a freeform, infinite 2D space where users can arrange and connect notes, attachments, and web pages.^[10]

Linking and graph view

Obsidian allows internal linking between notes, formatted either as Wikilinks or traditional markdown links. Links appear in Obsidian's interactive graph view.^[15][8][4]

The graph view is a visualization of notes in the vault and the connections between them. It is composed of nodes representing files (typically markdown documents) and edges between nodes representing the internal links that connect notes together.^[22]

Obsidian has been described as a tool that facilitates a digital form of the Zettelkasten method, a note-taking methodology based on interlinked knowledge, due to its linking features.^{[16][20]: 296} Access to a broad overview of a vault and to the connections among notes enables the discovery of relationships that may not be apparent when a single note is examined in isolation.^{[20]: 298 [16]}

Obsidian has been praised by reviewers for its flexibility and many customization options. A reviewer at PCMag wrote about community plugins and themes enabling a wide variety of use-cases and workflows in Obsidian.^[15] Another reviewer at Fast Company said that Obsidian is not prescriptive about how users organize their notes, giving them a variety of options and formats for doing so.^[10]

Obsidian has been criticized for its learning curve and unfriendliness to beginners. Reviewers argue that Markdown can be challenging for users who are unfamiliar with it^[20]: 298 or desire advanced formatting.^[8] Others highlight that features users want are only available as community plugins,^[10] requiring time to understand and tailor it to one's needs.^[20]: 298

• Comparison of note-taking software – Comparison of computer software designed for taking notes
• Comparison of wiki software – Software to run a collaborative wiki compared
• Personal wiki
  • List of wiki software § Personal wiki software