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Over the course of the last year I have been working on building a personal zettlekasten. I started in Notion, making several relational databases. However, aft

Over the course of the last year I have been working on building a personal zettlekasten. I started in Notion, making several relational databases. However, after experiencing some down time, I decided to switch to Obsidian (https://obsidian.md/ https://obsidian.md/) it's a much, much better program, does not have slowdown issues on my mac, is fully cross platform (Mac, Windows, Linux) and has a sync system that works pretty seamlessly. Not to mention that the files are all plain markdown and stored locally.

tailspin2019 6y ago
Another vote for Obsidian here. It’s very good and the pace of their development is impressive. I don’t use the sync. Didn’t want a cloud element. All local-only for me!
- skuthus 6y ago
  Totally - you can also easily sync it with your own service, if you don't want to use their sync service. The flexibility is definitely a huge selling point.
jeanlucas 6y ago
Another Obsidian here, not because I hate Notion, but I really don't trust depending on it being online.
bobbylarrybobby 6y ago
> fully cross platform Does it have a mobile app? This is what’s keeping me on Notion for the time being.
- joshstrange 6y ago
  No it doesn't which is what is keeping me from moving from Notion to it. It's really clean and fast but all the hacks to get access to your notes on mobile (other apps that sort of work with the obsidian data structure) are a turn-off right now. When they do get mobile apps out then I really want to try to move to it.
ReaganFJones 6y ago
+1 to the idea of locally stored Markdown files as a database. Obsidian is a very neat tool but I'd generally preferred using VS Code. I've used roughly the same flow here: https://kortina.nyc/essays/suping-up-vs-code-as-a-markdown-notebook/ https://kortina.nyc/essays/suping-up-vs-code-as-a-markdown-n... The backlinks functionality is a little more hacked on than the built-in Obsidian tooling but I find most of the other editing tools and extensions to be superior. Having my knowledge database be edited in my normal text editor is easier and more powerful for me.

tailspin2019 6y ago

Another vote for Obsidian here. It’s very good and the pace of their development is impressive. I don’t use the sync. Didn’t want a cloud element. All local-only for me!

skuthus 6y ago
Totally - you can also easily sync it with your own service, if you don't want to use their sync service. The flexibility is definitely a huge selling point.

jeanlucas 6y ago

Another Obsidian here, not because I hate Notion, but I really don't trust depending on it being online.

bobbylarrybobby 6y ago

> fully cross platform Does it have a mobile app? This is what’s keeping me on Notion for the time being.

joshstrange 6y ago
No it doesn't which is what is keeping me from moving from Notion to it. It's really clean and fast but all the hacks to get access to your notes on mobile (other apps that sort of work with the obsidian data structure) are a turn-off right now. When they do get mobile apps out then I really want to try to move to it.

ReaganFJones 6y ago

+1 to the idea of locally stored Markdown files as a database. Obsidian is a very neat tool but I'd generally preferred using VS Code. I've used roughly the same flow here: https://kortina.nyc/essays/suping-up-vs-code-as-a-markdown-notebook/ https://kortina.nyc/essays/suping-up-vs-code-as-a-markdown-n... The backlinks functionality is a little more hacked on than the built-in Obsidian tooling but I find most of the other editing tools and extensions to be superior. Having my knowledge database be edited in my normal text editor is easier and more powerful for me.