Software Alternatives & Reviews

Obsidian.md VS Joplin

Compare Obsidian.md VS Joplin and see what are their differences

Obsidian.md

A second brain, for you, forever. Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files.

Joplin

Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor.
  • Obsidian.md Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-01
  • Joplin Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-20

Obsidian.md

Categories
  • Knowledge Management
  • Knowledge Base
  • Markdown Editor
  • Markdown Viewer
  • Personal Notes
  • Note Taking
  • Notes
Website obsidian.md  
Pricing URL Official Obsidian.md Pricing  
Details $-

Joplin

Categories
  • Note Taking
  • Notes
  • Todos
  • Personal Notes
Website joplinapp.org  
Pricing URL Official Joplin Pricing  
Details $free

Obsidian.md videos

OBSIDIAN: Getting Started, Facts & Pricing

Joplin videos

Joplin, a free, open source, self hosted syncing note taking alternative to Evernote and OneNote..

More videos:

  • Review - Joplin Is An Open Source Alternative To Evernote
  • Review - Joplin Desktop: Take Notes With A Rich Markdown Editor

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Obsidian.md and Joplin)
Knowledge Management
100 100%
0% 0
Note Taking
47 47%
53% 53
Todos
0 0%
100% 100
Knowledge Base
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Obsidian.md and Joplin

Obsidian.md Reviews

  1. The kind of software that may change your life

    Perhaps you know someone who swears by Obsidian, it may seem like a cult of overly devoted people for how passionate they are, but it's not without reason

    I've been using Obsidian for over 3 years, at a point in my life when I felt I had to handle too much information and I felt like grasping water not being able to remember everything I wanted, language learning, programming, accounting, university, daily tasks. A friend recommended it to me next to Notion (of which he is a passionate cultist priest) and I reluctantly picked it and fell in love almost immediately.

    Obsidian seems very simple, like a notepad with folder interface, similar to Sublime Text, but the ability to link files together in a Wiki style allows you to organize ideas in any way you want, one file may lead to a dozen or more ideas that are related

    If you want to do something specific, Obsidian has a plethora of community created plugins that expand the functionality, in my case, I use obsidian to organize my classes both as a teacher and as a student, using local databases, calendars, dictionaries, slides, vector graphic drawings, excel-like tables, Anki connection, podcasts, and more

    🏁 Competitors: Notion, Evernote
    👍 Pros:    Awesome community|Custom plugins|Local hosting|Beautiful themes|Highly customizable|Cloud storage|Becomes more useful over time|Markdown support
    👎 Cons:    Seems complicated/complex at first|Takes time to set up your personal workspace|Overwhelming for first time user
  2. My personal knowledge-base of choice

    I've been using Obsidian for more than a year. It's been great. I think it offer a great balance of control, flexibility and extensibility. What is more, you own your own data, that's been a must-have feature for me. I just can't imagine putting all my knowledge into something that I don't have control over.

    I think two of the most popular alternatives that people consider are Logseq and Roam Research. Although Logseq is a bit different, it's considered compatible with Obsidian. Supposedly, you can use them with a shared database (files. Both use simple text files for storage). I tried that once, a few months ago. It worked, yet it messed up a bit my Obsidian files ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

    🏁 Competitors: Logseq, Roam Research

The best encrypted note taking apps
For a consumer coming from Evernote, Notion, OneNote, or a similar product, we would advise trying Obsidian along another product on this list as it has the largest learning curve. However, if you are an expert with markdown, experts, linking, and graph views, Obsidian could be an excellent choice. Like many other configuration options, Obsidian leaves end-to-end encryption...
Source: www.skiff.com
Supercharge Your Productivity: Three Recommended Tools for Thought
One of my AP Productivity: Cohort mentors has a powerful system pairing Obsidian with OmniFocus. In OmniFocus, he builds his project and task structures, and in Obsidian he develops and organizes the project support materials as well as other relevant information. Because it’s easy to link to an Obsidian note or an OmniFocus project, he can seamlessly navigate back and forth...
Source: medium.com
Logseq vs Roam Research vs Obsidian: which one should you choose?
Block Reference and block embeds: Adding block reference and block embeds in Logseq is simple. You use double-open parentheses (( and type to search the block you want to link. In Obsidian, you have to first add the link to the note and then use # to embed headers and ^ to embed blocks.– Obsidian also makes it hard to see the origin of block references, as they are only...
Source: medium.com
Best 5 Obsidian Alternatives
Bi-directional note-taking applications have become more and more popular on the productivity scene this past year. Obsidian is one of the fastest-growing productivity tools right now, based on plain text Markdown files stored in a local folder, it gives your notes the security and longevity they deserve.
Obsidian vs. Roam vs. LogSeq: Which PKM App is Right For You?
Obsidian as an application sits on top of qlocal files stored on your computer. The files themselves are not imported into Obsidian, they are simply opened and viewed there. That means that if you ever decide to stop using Obsidian, what you are left with is a folder full of plain text files and images. While some features in Obsidian may use special formatting, the...

Joplin Reviews

10 Best Open Source Note-Taking Apps for Linux
It also supports alarms (notifications) for to-dos, End-To-End Encryption (E2EE) for security, allows for saving web pages and screenshots as notes using the web clipper extension available in Firefox and Chrome web browsers, and supports synchronization with cloud or file storage services such as services including Joplin Cloud, Dropbox, and OneDrive.
Source: www.tecmint.com
The best encrypted note taking apps
Joplin is open-source, maintains Linux, Android, iOS, macOS, and Windows apps, and also offers built in cloud-sync functionality called “Joplin cloud.” Finally, Joplin scores highly on their use of end-to-end encrypted to keep all user notes private. For more convenience features Joplin offers a web clipper directly integrated into the notes app to allow for cataloging,...
Source: www.skiff.com
Best 5 Obsidian Alternatives
Joplin is an open-source note-taking application that allows you to easily capture your thoughts and securely access them from any device. It supports multimedia notes containing images, videos, audio and PDFs as well as math expressions and diagrams.
16 Best To Do List Apps for Linux Desktop [2021]
Joplin is a free and open-source offline-first note-taking and to-do application with synchronization features in the desktop, mobile, terminal, and web clipper applications.
8 Free Note Taking Software For Windows – Evernote Alternatives
Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, can be copied, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format.

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Obsidian.md should be more popular than Joplin. It has been mentiond 1447 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Obsidian.md mentions (1447)

  • Show HN: Reor – An AI note-taking app that runs models locally
    Great job! I played around with this on a couple of small knowledge bases using an open Hermes model I had downloaded. The “related notes” feature didn't provide much value in my experience, often the link was so weak it was nonsensical. The Q&A mode was surprisingly helpful for querying notes and providing overviews, but asking anything specific typically just resulted in less than helpful or false answers. I'm... - Source: Hacker News / 14 days ago
  • Why use Obsidian for software development?
    I like to use Obsidian as a super notebook that is also quite simple. To get started with Obsidian you need to download the software from their official website. After installation you can start, Obsidian uses the markdown file format. It's similar to a text file, but it has features such as tags where you can organize the texts. I don't know about you, but I think it's really useful to use Markdown because it's... - Source: dev.to / 20 days ago
  • How to improve your GitHub vanity metrics FAST
    In practice I write in Obsidian, the best thing since slice bread for me. And it was obsidian-git, running every 10 minutes or so, who was keeping my GitHub vanity metrics very green. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • DevDocs
    Not a complete answer, but I hope Markdown is or becomes the standard for offline docs and text for local/offline consumption. I only ever write in markdown anyway (usually with http://obsidian.md). The closest thing I know of for a service like RSS to download documents is [Dash for macOS - API Documentation Browser, Snippet Manager - Kapeli](https://kapeli.com/dash). - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Ask HN: Is there a service for uploading Markdown files that render beautifully?
    Have you tried Obsidian? The have a markdown file publishing service. [1]: https://obsidian.md. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
View more

Joplin mentions (350)

  • My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file
    I've had great success with using Joplin for this, with Syncthing as a sync backend. Works well across OSes; I use it on Linux, macOS, Windows and Android. https://joplinapp.org/. - Source: Hacker News / 9 days ago
  • My productivity app is a never-ending .txt file
    I use https://joplinapp.org because it allows for pasting images and files. Has easy sync and also mobile and desktop apps. Free and open source. - Source: Hacker News / 9 days ago
  • Ask HN: What do you use for note-taking or as knowledge base?
    Joplin, an open source, extendable, Markdown-based hierarchical note-taking app: https://joplinapp.org/ It lets you choose a synchronization backend, offers applications for every major desktop and mobile OS (also has a terminal version). You can create notebooks and subnotebooks to organize your notes. You can also add tags for better search experience. I created notebooks for specific domains (work-related, home... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Alternative for document storage/filing cabinet
    I'm not certain, but I believe that Joplin will serve your needs. Source: 3 months ago
  • Ask HN: What software did you purchase that positively impacted your family life
    Joplin (free, but sponsored) in combination with a Storagebox at Hetzner. Joplin allows us to share notes, shopping lists, to do lists, etc via Webdav between our various devices (mobile phones, laptops, desktops). https://joplinapp.org and https://www.hetzner.com/de/storage/storage-box. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Obsidian.md and Joplin, you can also consider the following products

Logseq - Logseq is a local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook for organizing and sharing your personal knowledge base.

Standard Notes - A safe place for your notes, thoughts, and life's work

Notion - All-in-one workspace. One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized.

OneNote - Get the OneNote app for free on your tablet, phone, and computer, so you can capture your ideas and to-do lists in one place wherever you are. Or try OneNote with Office for free.

Roam Research - A note-taking tool for networked thought

Evernote - Bring your life's work together in one digital workspace. Evernote is the place to collect inspirational ideas, write meaningful words, and move your important projects forward.