Obsidian

History

Founding and early development

Shida Li and Erica Xu, the two eventual co-founders of Obsidian, met while studying at the University of Waterloo. They both collaborated on several development projects prior to creating Obsidian, including the outliner tool Dynalist.

When the COVID-19 pandemic struck and they were left quarantining, they started working on Obsidian. Its development was motivated by shortcomings in other tools like MediaWiki, TiddlyWiki, and other note-taking apps. The idea was to build an app that was extensible in a similar manner to code editors and IDEs.

Obsidian's first beta release came not long after on March 30, 2020, and released its 1.0.0 version on October 13, 2022.

Business

On February 6, 2023, Steph Ango joined Obsidian as CEO after his contributions to Obsidian version 1.0.0 and his involvement in the community. Previously, he'd been working at the startup Lumi before it was acquired in 2021.

Major milestones

Major changes were made to how Obsidian plugins work on May 12, 2026 with the introduction of the Community Directory—a new official website for browsing plugins. With this release, the company announced that all plugin updates would be scanned automatically to flag issues relating to code quality and security. This allowed the team to quickly clear their plugin submission backlog, bringing the app's total community plugin count from around 2,700 to nearly 4,000. These changes aimed to address longstanding concerns over plugin security, particularly the one-time manual review before being published, at which point a bad actor could simply publish a new release with malicious code.

Availability

Obsidian is available on all major operating systems, including Windows, Linux, macOS, iOS, and Android—though it is not available as a web app. It is free for both personal and commercial use; though they offer subscription-based premium services, an optional commercial license, and a one-time payment to access beta versions of Obsidian.

Usage

Obsidian has been used for a wide variety of use-cases, in large part due to the extensibility of the app through plugins, which allow users to tailor Obsidian to their needs by keeping it as simple or advanced as needed. Some use-cases include writing, researching, learning, and task management.

According to a 2023 Fast Company article, Obsidian estimates that it has approximately one million users based on GitHub download counts. The article also reports that the app's Discord server has more than 110,000 members and its Reddit community has about 94,600 members, which ranks it in the top 5% of Reddit communities.

Features

Editing and organization

Files in Obsidian are stored in a local folder on a user's device called a "vault." Most notes make use of Markdown for formatting, though Obsidian can be used for spatial note-taking using its Canvas feature.

Notes can be organized through a variety of tools and metadata, including folders, tags, file properties, and bookmarks. Additionally, notes can be queried based on metadata to create a dynamic list, table, or other view using Obsidian Bases.

Bidirectional linking

Obsidian allows linking between notes, which can be formatted either as Wikilinks or traditional Markdown links. The "linked mentions" panel will show all links to the currently open note (backlinks); additionally links can be visualized using the graph view. The graph view is composed of nodes representing files and edges between nodes representing the internal links that connect notes together.

Plugins and customization

Users may customize Obsidian by using community-developed, open-source plugins and themes, which extend the software's functionality or customize the appearance of the app. Obsidian's plugin ecosystem is large, with plugins that support a variety of workflows.

External tools and integration

Obsidian Importer is a community plugin maintained by the developers to aid users in migrating from other note-taking apps to Obsidian. Obsidian Web Clipper is a browser extension that captures web content for use in Obsidian; it is available for Firefox, Safari, Chrome, and more. Obsidian CLI is a terminal program which is primarily useful for automations.

Premium services

Obsidian offers two subscription-based services: Obsidian Sync and Obsidian Publish. Sync is an encrypted file-synchronization services that syncs notes across devices. Alternatively, a file-hosting service (like Google Drive or Dropbox) or a peer-to-peer file sharing tool can be used for cross-device sync, though it is less convenient and something other note-taking apps offer for free. Publish is a web-hosting service that allows users to upload their notes to a dedicated website. Users can also publish vault content to the web using community plugins.

Reception

Reviewers praise Obsidian for its flexibility and many customization options. A reviewer at PCMag wrote about community plugins and themes enabling a wide variety of use-cases and workflows in Obsidian. Another reviewer at Fast Company said that Obsidian is not prescriptive about how users organize their notes, giving them a variety of options and formats for doing so.

Obsidian has been criticized for its learning curve and unfriendliness to beginners. Reviewers argue that Markdown can be challenging for users who are unfamiliar with it or desire advanced formatting. Others highlight that features users want are only available as community plugins, requiring time to understand and tailor the app to one's needs.

References

  1. Ionescu, Stefan (4 August 2022). "Obsidian". TechRadar. Future plc. Archived from the original on 10 October 2025. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
  2. Dix, Alan (25 June 2024). "The future of PIM: pragmatics and potential" (PDF). Human–Computer Interaction. Taylor & Francis: 1–20. doi:10.1080/07370024.2024.2356155. eISSN 1532-7051. ISSN 0737-0024. Retrieved 19 December 2025.
  3. Newman, Jared (13 October 2023). "The cult of Obsidian: Why people are obsessed with the note-taking app". Fast Company. ISSN 1085-9241. OCLC 33444063.
  4. Newton, Casey (18 August 2025). "Obsidian's CEO on why productivity tools need community more than AI". The Verge. Retrieved 29 November 2025.
  5. Pot, Justin (7 December 2025). "Obsidian Review". PCMag. Archived from the original on 22 December 2025. Retrieved 22 December 2025.
  6. Pyne, Yvette; Stewart, Stuart (March 2022). "Meta-work: how we research is as important as what we research". British Journal of General Practice. 72 (716): 130–131. doi:10.3399/bjgp22X718757. eISSN 1478-5242. ISSN 0960-1643. OCLC 55135715. PMC 8884432. PMID 35210247.
  7. Hastings, Robin (September 2022). "Linked data tools to help users create webs of personal knowledge". Computers in Libraries. 42 (7): 19–22. "However, there are some recent entries into the PKM space that might just fit the full bill. Both Obsidian and Roam, which will be discussed later, are relatively new applications that get us a little closer to that perfect PKM solution, and they add a new wrinkle. They are both conversant in linked data and can be used as networks of linked information that live on your computer or, with a few tweaks, on a shared server or other shareable drive."
  8. Pierce, David (29 March 2023). "My impossible search for the best, most powerful, most private journaling app ever". The Verge. OCLC 867048487. Retrieved 30 November 2025. Pot, Justin (28 November 2023). "How to Use Obsidian for Writing and Productivity". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 6 September 2024.
  9. Walker, Michael (2022). Shaffer, David (ed.). More Than Words: Teaching for a Better World – Proceedings of the 29th Korea TESOL International Conference (PDF). Korea TESOL. pp. 293–304.
  10. Wischner, Stefan (24 August 2025). "Obsidian now with database function". heise online. Archived from the original on 29 August 2025. Retrieved 18 April 2026.