Well, all started out when I was looking for a way to organize my files properly and more retrievable. In short: I wanted to have my own Data Management System (DMS). So I started looking for free or one-time purchase options to do so. I checked out tools like Nuxeo and looked into a couple of other DMS solutions, yet always ended unsatisfied in pricing or the complex implementation of those systems.

While testing and searching I realized that I also needed a way to store and retrieve other content I like - be it posts on Instagram, videos on YouTube, blogposts and alike. That's when I had the pleasure to get introduced to Notion. Yes, for about 2 Years Notion was a valuable companion. I liked the databases, the formatting and the simple way to visualize texts more beautiful - compared to programs/apps like Word and other text formatting tools. You can attach files, embed images, export to Markdown and PDF alike. There's a web-clipper to send websites to a database in Notion for reference. And it offers a pretty simple way of working with databases (okay, maybe that's because I'm a software developer myself). With the properties the lookup of content that connects to each other - like recipes for deserts - it sounded exciting. And, hell yeah, it was.

After a while, however, I had a couple of issues. The very first one was a privacy issue, since all data is stored online. So I could run into trouble depending on how I would formulate notes I would need to take for my work life. The second problem was a performance problem - two of that kind to be precise. A speed issue with large databases and a roll up depth of like 5 or maybe 8 (I forgot) recursive steps to retrieve data from databases. Using the free version of Notion is limited to 1 graph/plot (as for the time of writing this article) and it's not that customizable, and so on and so forth.

So I kept on searching and finally found Obsidian. Pretty powerful by default and it offers roughly the same functionality as Notion. The only "bitter part" is the markdown syntax - for people not used to using Markdown😉. Compared to Notion the content is stored locally on your own device(s). Both tools are free to use but offer different features in the free version. While Notion is cloud based thus the data is synchronized over all devices, Obsidian charges a fee for a cloud synchronization over devices. However you can use cloud storages to store your data an share them over to obsidian (Dropbox, Google drive, One Drive, OwnCloud, Nextcloud etc.).

For quite some time I used both tools in parallel with a heavy focus on Notion. However, Obsidian won the race, since it is quite customizable. From the font, over the Icons in the File Navigation to the embedded background of the editor itself, not to mention the shear endless amount of community plugins - even a kind of database which I honestly love. And it turns out to have a nice way of publishing some of my weird thoughts as well.

Summary

I'm using Obsidian as a very convenient way to take notes, store any form of information I'm interested in or resonate with, and organize my digital data and overall my whole life. Or at least 99.8%. And I recently discovered that I can share the notes/information I accumulate, if I would like to.