If your brain is an assortment of pieces, ideas, research and unending projects, then you may require note-taking software. Obsidian is an effective however simple service for organizing the chaos in your head. You can write notes, link notes together to arrange and even build graphs in the application. The software application lets you construct a network of linked notes and then imagine the network you made as a chart. It’s a remarkable choice for conceptual tasks, arranging ideas and research study.
| Beginning price: | $50 per license annually |
| Best for: | Note-taking |
| Several work views: | Yes, through plugins |
| Free trial: | Yes, 2 week |
| Free strategy: | Free for personal usage |
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Obsidian rates
Obsidian’s pricing model isn’t based upon a series of tier subscriptions. Instead, they provide an entirely complimentary downloadable version and an industrial license. Not included in the totally free version are the add-ons that offer performance for syncing and publishing notes. For education and nonprofit institutions, there’s the choice for a 40% discount. You can discover more about eligibility on their application page.
Personal usage
The personal version of Obsidian consists of all functions along with access to plugins, API and styles. You can download it straight off the site and you don’t even require an account. However, it can’t be used commercially for business or earnings. It only has access to community support.
Commercial use
The business license of Obsidian is $50 per user per year. It has a 14-day totally free trial and concern assistance. If you have a bigger team, you can email assistance about bulk discount rates.
Add-ons: Sync and Release
Obsidian Sync permits you to sync throughout devices. It costs $8 each month, billed every year or $10 per month, billed month-to-month. The add-on consists of top priority e-mail support and encryption.
Obsidian Publish lets you publish your notes to the web. It comes with chart and outline views together with concern e-mail support.
Secret functions of Obsidian
The core abilities of Obsidian include Hyperlinks, Graphs, Canvas and Plugins. Both versions of the software featured the very same feature set.
Hyperlinks
You can keep track of text passages by connecting them together (Figure A). Groups will have the ability to review ideas and see other needed information. They will also be able to go back and link concepts they understand fit together later. It resembles reference links in a term paper, however on a larger scale.
Figure A
The Hyperlinks core feature. Image: Obsidian Graph A chart in the note application is a web of connected notes connected together(Figure B). This is fantastic for seeing relationships, organizing and mapping ideas for brainstorming. The maps are interactive and emphasize relationships for each note when you hover with your mouse.
Figure B
The Graph core feature. Image: Obsidian Canvas If you’re looking for a multimedia work space for your notes then the Canvas plugin is for you. Canvas is a core plugin by Obsidian, however you still have the liberty to deal with the file coding in JSON, stored locally on your personal device
. The interface resembles Figma, where you can organize text boxes and images any way you conceive. You can visually arrange and link your notes (Figure C) in any design. Groups can manipulate audio, video, images and PDFs in Canvas and use the workspace as work views for notes, and nest canvas views inside canvas views. For some interactive visuals, see the Canvas page on Obsidian.
Figure C
The Canvas core function. Image: Obsidian Plugins Obsidian promotes a community of designers that make plugins to tailor the software even more. Presently, there are over 1,000 plugins to pick from, and there’s rather a range (Figure D). They have plugins for all sorts of exporting, working with HTML, software integrations, AI assistants, annotating and many more. You must explore the full list of plugins when you have the possibility.
Figure D
The Plugins core function. Image: Obsidian Ease of usage Obsidian is designed to be as simple as possible for composing concepts. The user interface (Figure E) is clean and straightforward, but if you include plugins, themes and charts you’ll have a more customized view. The desktop version and mobile variations are both intuitive to browse and format your material. Mobile variations for both iOS and Android are complimentary to download.
Figure E
Obsidian’s mobile and desktop view. Image: Obsidian
Privacy & security More project management coverage When it concerns the individual download of Obsidian, privacy and security are preserved by you. The business variation uses access to support, however security is still upheld by you since it’s on your PC, locally. Teams that choose the add-on sync will have the ability to connect with other gadgets and are secured with end-to-end encryption.
While Obsidian is not an open-source program, the community is encouraged to make plugins to tailor the software application, and there are risks to downloading those plugins. If you have an overarching admin and IT group, you need to definitely get permission to use the plugins before including them to a company job with company data. When utilizing on your own, it comes down to how comfy you are with third-party plugins. For more information, see Obsidian’s privacy policy.
Obsidian pros
- Easy, intuitive and clutter-free user interface.
- Plugin neighborhood of modifications by users.
- Ability to use it locally, by subscription and on mobile devices.
- Budget-friendly for the majority of groups.
Obsidian cons
- Too simple for data-heavy jobs or teams that need more functions.
- Security is personally kept aside from the sync add-on.
- The plugin community comes with dangers and no support.
Who is Obsidian best for?
Obsidian offers excellent benefits for little groups as well as more recognized organizations. It’s easy and cost effective. If you’re searching for more task management features and plan options then you must take a look at other software. You can take a look at the options section to get going.
Great usage cases for Obsidian consist of:
- Startups and students can take advantage of the free variation.
- Nonprofits can take advantage of the complimentary variation or affordable license.
- Groups on spending plan.
- Designers and amateur coders that want to be part of the neighborhood.
- Bigger teams benefit from the industrial license for just $50.
- Designers and artists that require a principle production workspace.
- Research study groups putting together research study notes for information visualization.
- Simple tasks that don’t need a lot of collaboration or task management alternatives.
Obsidian options
Obsidian might not be the best note-taking option for you or your team. The selections below have very comparable abilities, however they each provide different usage cases, costs and subscription choices.
| Alternative | Free plan | Note taking | Starting rate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Evernote | Yes | Yes | $10.83 per user/month |
| OneNote | Yes | Yes | $6 per user/month |
| Notion | Yes | Yes | $8 per user/month |
Image: Evernote A great individual note option is Evernote, which provides multiple nonbusiness memberships along with group tiers for cooperation. You can share notes, sync throughout devices, handle jobs and assign work. It has the functionality for drawing notes, scanning notes and developing templates for notes. 
Image: Microsoft OneNote Most variations of Microsoft OneNote are totally free, but you can likewise use it with a Microsoft 365 membership. OneNote is mainly fit for jobs that need customizable notes. It permits multimedia, note scanning, recording and drawing. You can find out more in our evaluation of Microsoft OneNote. 
< img src="https://www.techrepublic.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/tr_20231013-obsidian-review-notion.jpg"alt="Concept icon." width="150"height="150"/ > Image: Concept Idea is a fantastic cooperation work area for a range of use cases. Teams can take notes, produce documents and link files with your favored application, such as Google Docs. It also uses an add-on for the Idea AI writing assistant to simplify material. You can compare Concept and Obsidian in our comparison breakdown.
Review approach
The software application was examined from a number of viewpoints, consisting of team size, functions, expenses, usability and security. We seriously considered some of the main advantages and disadvantages of using the software application for various kinds of groups.
For teams that aren’t as satisfied with the Obsidian offering, we include options that have comparable features but still provide more, such as more membership plans, support or project management features.
