Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Foam VS Obsidian.md

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

Foam logo Foam

Personal knowledge management and sharing on VSCode & GitHub

Obsidian.md logo 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.
  • Foam Landing page
    Landing page //
    2020-06-28
  • Obsidian.md Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-01

Foam videos

These panels DESTROYED my STUDIO....REVERB? - ArrowZoom Foam Review

More videos:

  • Review - Arrowzoom Foam Review
  • Review - Ryobi Foam Blaster VS. Amazon Foam Cannon | Review

Obsidian.md videos

OBSIDIAN: Getting Started, Facts & Pricing

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Foam and Obsidian.md)
Note Taking
9 9%
91% 91
Knowledge Management
5 5%
95% 95
Knowledge Base
12 12%
88% 88
Task Management
100 100%
0% 0

User comments

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Reviews

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

Foam Reviews

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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 6 best note-taking apps in 2024
One thing to note: Notion bills itself as an Evernote competitor for personal users. It can be—but it's too much for most people, and its offline functionality isn't the best. If you love the idea of Notion, go right ahead and try the free Personal Plan, but for me, it's really best as a team notes app or an AI-powered notes app. Something like Obsidian (which we'll look at...
Source: zapier.com
The best note-taking apps for collecting your thoughts and data
This app is the kind of thing that, if you’re into it, will have you exploring its various ins, outs, and add-ons for days and weeks on end. Obsidian uses the Markdown format for its notes (which means they can be used on a variety of other apps). Your notes and other media are kept locally in a Vault (in other words, a main folder). There are ways to sync between devices...
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

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Obsidian.md seems to be a lot more popular than Foam. While we know about 1457 links to Obsidian.md, we've tracked only 45 mentions of Foam. 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.

Foam mentions (45)

  • Vscode setup with Foam and Logseq for Digital Note Taking
    Source: (1) A personal knowledge management and sharing system for VSCode - Foam. https://foambubble.github.io/foam/. (2) A personal knowledge management and sharing system for VSCode. https://github.com/foambubble/foam. (3) Loam - Visual Studio Marketplace. https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/items?itemName=ciceroisback.loam. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
  • Request: VSCode extension that allows users to edit .cavas files
    Foam[0], memo[1], Markdown Memo[2], md-graph[3] file/directory display plugin [4] ----- misc related links: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-vscode-editor-elevate-your-code-editing-experience-in-obsidian/69057/2 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/vs-code-plugin-the-best-of-both-worlds/6358 https://jukkaniiranen.com/2022/01/canvas-app-source-code-editing-with-vs-code-in-your-browser/... - Source: Hacker News / 3 months ago
  • Why I Like Obsidian
    You can also use Foam, a FOSS VSCode extension that is compatible with the basic markdown files from Obsidian. You can just open your vault in it and it will probably work if you're not using the fancy features in Obsidian. https://foambubble.github.io/foam/. - Source: Hacker News / 5 months ago
  • Obsidian 1.5 Desktop (Public)
    No mention of Foam? https://foambubble.github.io/foam/ Fine, I uhh, I'll speak for it. Foam is to VSCode, what Org (and Org-Roam) are to Emacs. As a former org-roam user, I ended up preferring it because my end goal was to convert my notes to HTML and blog posts, and org is poor at that as HTML is not valid org code whereas it is in Markdown. There's just a whole host of markdown-it plugins [1] out there to add... - Source: Hacker News / 6 months ago
  • Does Obsidian note taking work for you?
    You don't have to use Obsidian btw, I think Foam does most of the same stuff inside Visual Studio Code. Source: 11 months ago
View more

Obsidian.md mentions (1457)

  • From Chaos to Clarity: My Journey with Obsidian
    The article definitely assumes you know that 'Obsidian' is a reference to the text editor found at https://obsidian.md/. - Source: Hacker News / 4 days ago
  • How to remember everything for standup
    I've encountered a lot of engineers who keep a journal and pen around, but you could also use a note-taking app like Notes, Obsidian, or Notion. - Source: dev.to / 3 days ago
  • HTTP request from Obsidian notes
    Are you an Obsidian user looking to elevate your note-taking experience with dynamic data integration? Look no further than APIR (api-request) – an Obsidian plugin designed to streamline HTTP requests directly into your notes. - Source: dev.to / 13 days ago
  • UX Case Study: Markdown Heading
    The closest editor that follows our first principle is Obsidian editor:. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • I switched from Notion to Obsidian
    The solution was already installed on both my computer and my phone: Obsidian. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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

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.

Roam Research - A note-taking tool for networked thought

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

TiddlyWiki - a non-linear personal web notebook

Nuclino - Nuclino works like a collective brain, helping teams bring all their knowledge, docs, and projects together in one place. It's a modern, simple, and blazingly fast way to collaborate.