Software Alternatives & Reviews

Zettlr VS Obsidian.md

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

Zettlr

Write Markdown documents with a comprehensive GUI and many workflow/time management tools.

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.
  • Zettlr Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-30
  • Obsidian.md Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-01

Zettlr

Categories
  • Note Taking
  • Markdown Editor
  • Knowledge Management
  • Todos
Website zettlr.com  
Pricing URL-
Details $

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 $-

Zettlr videos

Meet Zettlr, your all-in-one companion for writing #Markdown

More videos:

  • Review - Zettlr Introduction: Getting Started
  • Review - Citing with Zettlr

Obsidian.md videos

OBSIDIAN: Getting Started, Facts & Pricing

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Zettlr and Obsidian.md)
Note Taking
10 10%
90% 90
Knowledge Management
0 0%
100% 100
Text Editors
100 100%
0% 0
Markdown Editor
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Zettlr and Obsidian.md. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Reviews

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

Zettlr Reviews

Best Next-Level Note Apps for 2021
Zettlr is simply an open-source Markdown editor. The system authorizes various citation formats, includes theme customization and writing statistics, as well as supporting the Zettelkasten method. File and tag management permits user-friendly note organization. Noteworthy of Mem is that the app is available in 14 languages and notes can be exported in 40 different formats.
Source: zenkit.com

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...

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Obsidian.md seems to be a lot more popular than Zettlr. While we know about 1447 links to Obsidian.md, we've tracked only 10 mentions of Zettlr. 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.

Zettlr mentions (10)

  • Zettlr in the fediverse and on matrix?
    Oh! That's nice. :D Is this mentioned on zettlr.com? Seems as if I've missed it... Source: 11 months ago
  • Suggestion for open source note taking app
    I'd strongly recommend trying out Zettlr (https://zettlr.com), which in many ways is close to Obsidian (except Zettlr is open source). A new Zettlr release is close to arriving and implements lots of improvements. Source: about 1 year ago
  • Scrivener alternatives for academic writing and research?
    You might give Zettlr a spin. It's another Markdown-based tool like Obsidian, but it is really focussed on Zettelkasten, and of interest to you, with a stronger focus on long-form academic writing. It supports citations, footnotes and uses Pandoc for document production—so there are lots of ways to get your work out. Source: over 1 year ago
  • Any open source markdown editor having live preview like Typora?
    Is https://zettlr.com an option for you? Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Typora alternative? (or any desktop Markdown editor with export to PDF?)
    Zettlr is open source and has export-to-PDF. Source: about 2 years ago
View more

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

What are some alternatives?

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

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.

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

Typora - A minimal Markdown reading & writing app.

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

Roam Research - A note-taking tool for networked thought

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.