Shida Li and Erica Xu, the two eventual co-founders of Obsidian, met while studying at the University of Waterloo.[7] They both collaborated on several development projects prior to creating Obsidian, including outliner tool Dynalist.io[7][8]:17
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.[9][7]
Obsidian's first beta release came not long after on March 30, 2020,[10] and released its 1.0.0 version on October 13, 2022.[11][12]
On February 6, 2023, Steph Ango joined Obsidian as CEO after his contributions to Obsidian version 1.0.0 and involvement in the community. Previously, he'd been working at the startup Lumi before it was acquired in 2021.[9][13]
A community forum and Discord server are hosted by the developers.[9][7] Both allow users to ask for help, share tips & workflows, and discuss knowledge management. The forum can additionally be used for submitting feature requests and bug reports.[15]
Usage
Obsidian is particularly suitable as a knowledge database for personal knowledge management and as software for creating notes that works with Markdown files.[16][17] It is designed to help users organize and structure their thoughts and knowledge in a flexible, non-linear way.[14]
Obsidian has also been described as a tool that facilitates a digital method of Zettelkasten, a note-taking methodology which heavily involves connecting related notes together, due to its internal linking and graph visualization features, which can reveal connections between notes.[18][16]
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.[8][19] Some use-cases include writing,[20]task management,[3] and learning.[18]
Features
Obsidian operates on a folder of text documents named a "vault";[21] each new note in Obsidian generates a new text document, and all documents can be searched from within the app.[14][3] Text formatting in Obsidian is achieved through markdown, with the ability to switch between a raw text (Source Mode) and a pre-rendered (Live Preview) mode while editing.[14]
Obsidian allows internal linking between notes, formatted either as Wikilinks or traditional markdown links, with links contributing to the interactive graph view that visualizes the relationships between notes.[14][7][3]
Plugins
Users may customize their Obsidian vaults by using plugins and themes, which extend the software's functionality with additional features or integration with other tools and customize the appearance of the app respectively.[14]
Obsidian differentiates between core plugins, which are released and maintained by the Obsidian team, and Community plugins are primarily developed by members of the Obsidian community under open source licenses and hosted on GitHub (although the Obsidian team does develop the "Importer" and "Maps" plugins as community plugins).[22]
Obsidian isn't prescriptive about how users organize their notes. Bases is a core plugin enables users create database-like views of their notes, which can be customized to look like dynamic tables or even maps.[14] Canvas, another core plugin, provides a freeform, infinite 2D space where users can arrange and connect notes, attachments, and web pages.[9]
Graph
An Obsidian graph view with lots of brightly colored nodes and many connections between them.
The graph view is a visualization of notes in the vault and the connections between them. It is composed of nodes representing files (typically markdowndocuments) and edges between nodes representing the internal links that connect notes together.[23]
Access to a broad overview of a vault and the connections between notes facilitates discovery of new connections that may not have been obvious when looking at just a single note in isolation.[18]:298[16]
Obsidian Publish is a subscription-based web hosting service that allows users to publish their notes onto the Web. Users can alternatively make use of external tools and community plugins to publish vault content as well.[9]
Reception
Obsidian has been praised by reviewers 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.[14] 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.[9]
Sharing Obsidian notes across devices for free is seen as more difficult, but still possible. Reviewers note that Obsidian's local-first approach to storing notes has enabled the use of free alternatives to Obsidian Sync.[9][14] Other reviewers note that alternatives to the subscription-based Obsidian Sync are more difficult to use, and that other note-taking apps offer cross-device syncing for free.[18][7]
Obsidian has been criticized for its learning curve and unfriendliness to beginners. Reviewers argue that markdown's minimalist formatting can be challenging to adopt for users who are unfamiliar with the markup language and/or desire more precise formatting options.[18][7] Others highlight that many features users want are only available as community plugins,[9] which means tailoring the application to suit one's needs will take time.[18]
↑"Community". Obsidian. Archived from the original on 9 October 2025. Retrieved 2 December 2025.
123Pyne, 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. eISSN1478-5242. ISSN0960-1643. OCLC55135715. PMC8884432. PMID35210247. Today, we are familiar with interlinked pockets of information in the form of hyperlinks on webpages such as Wikipedia. However, in the context of personal knowledge systems, the last year has seen an explosion of 'Personal Knowledge Graph (PKG)' tools such as 'Roam Research', 'Obsidian', and 'Notion', which digitise and personalise this powerful concept. Using bidirectional links, these tools connect notes in ways that sit between traditional word processors and more advanced databases with graphical functions. PKGs represent an evolution in knowledge aggregation and assimilation through the ability to 'visualise' personal learning in graphical form. Rather than our hard-won notes being lost in personal silos of projects, folders, and just the passing of time, such graphs allow researchers to literally pan out and visualise their knowledge as a network, revealing nascent and serendipitous connections between percolating notes of ideas, insights, concepts, quotes, and questions.
↑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.
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