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Which is more popular?
Based on our record, Obsidian
seems to be a lot more popular than MacVim.
While we know about 1532 links to Obsidian,
we've tracked only 3 mentions of MacVim.
social mentions
1,532 vs 3
Note Taking popularity
100% vs 0%
alternatives listed
240+ vs 44
Base details
Website, pricing, platforms and company facts side by side.
Local-first Obsidian stores your notes locally on your device, giving you full control over your data and enhancing privacy.
Markdown Support Obsidian uses Markdown, making it easy to format text and compatible with many other text editors and tools.
Bidirectional Linking You can create bidirectional links between notes, which helps in building a knowledge graph and navigating related information more easily.
Customizability Obsidian is highly customizable with community plugins, themes, and various settings to fit different workflows.
Graph View Provides a visual graph view of your notes and their connections, aiding in understanding relationships and discovering insights.
Offline Access Since the notes are stored locally, you can access and edit them without an internet connection.
Possible disadvantages
Learning Curve Obsidian can be complex and overwhelming for beginners due to its extensive features and customizable nature.
Sync Limitations While local-first is great for privacy, it requires additional steps or third-party solutions for syncing across devices.
No True Real-time Collaboration Obsidian lacks native real-time collaboration features, making it less suitable for collaborative work compared to cloud-based solutions.
Limited Mobile Features The mobile version of Obsidian, while functional, is not as robust as the desktop application, potentially hindering productivity on the go.
Dependence on Plugins Many advanced features require the use of third-party plugins, which could lead to compatibility issues and reliance on community support.
Performance on Large Vaults Performance might degrade with a very large number of notes or complex graphs, impacting usability.
Familiar Vim Interface MacVim provides the same powerful and familiar editing interface as Vim, making it a great choice for users who are already accustomed to Vim's keybindings and commands.
Native macOS Integration MacVim is specifically designed for macOS, offering better system integration, including support for native macOS features like full-screen mode, a menu bar, and better keyboard shortcut customization.
GUI Enhancements While retaining Vim's command-line capabilities, MacVim offers a graphical user interface (GUI) which makes it more accessible to users who prefer a more visual interaction with their text editor.
Plugin Support MacVim supports Vim's extensive plugin system, allowing users to customize and extend its functionality with thousands of available plugins.
Active Development Being open-source and maintained by a community of developers means MacVim benefits from regular updates, bug fixes, and new features.
Possible disadvantages
Steep Learning Curve Like Vim, MacVim can be challenging for beginners due to its unique mode-based editing paradigm and the need to remember extensive keybindings.
Resource Intensive Though optimized for macOS, MacVim with a GUI can be more resource-intensive compared to traditional Vim, which may be a concern for those with older or less powerful machines.
Not for Non-Vim Users For users unfamiliar with Vim, MacVim can be intimidating and less intuitive compared to other modern text editors or IDEs.
Occasional macOS-Specific Bugs Being a macOS-specific application, some users encounter macOS-related bugs or compatibility issues that might not be present in the original Vim.
Requires Additional Configuration To fully leverage MacVim's capabilities, users often need to spend time configuring their environment, including installing and setting up plugins.
Analysis
An editorial look at what each product does well and who it suits.
ObsidianMacVim
Overall verdict
Overall, Obsidian.md is an excellent tool for users looking for a versatile and powerful note-taking application. Its unique features such as backlinking, markdown support, and robust customization options make it a favorite among knowledge management enthusiasts.
Why this product is good
Obsidian.md is considered good by many users because it is a powerful knowledge management and note-taking application that leverages Markdown for document formatting. It allows for bi-directional linking between notes, which helps in creating a network of interconnected ideas, often described as a 'second brain.' Its ability to support plugins, themes, and robust graph visualization also adds to its appeal. Additionally, it stores notes locally, ensuring privacy and data ownership, while being cross-platform compatible across Windows, macOS, and Linux.
Recommended for
Knowledge workers who need a powerful tool to organize and connect their thoughts.
Students who are looking to create a structured and visually interconnected note system.
Writers and researchers who benefit from linking related ideas and maintaining detailed notes.
Tech-savvy users or developers who appreciate the local storage and open ecosystem for plugins and customization.
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...
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...
However, it's important to note that Obsidian's whiteboard functionality is not as robust as dedicated collaboration tools. While it lacks real-time basic collaboration features, Obsidian compensates with its vibrant...
The reasons live somewhere else: in practice notes in an Obsidian vault, one note per convention, with the repos it has held in. A note starts as an idea, moves to trialing, and only becomes enforced once I've applied it again in a few...
- Source: dev.to
/
about 2 hours ago
It's the team version of the second brain you build with Obsidian and Claude.
- Source: dev.to
/
4 days ago
Mine and yours first Obsidian plugin
The first time I downloaded Obsidian was about two years ago and I really liked the concept of storing everything locally in simple markdown files without unnecessary clutter.
- Source: dev.to
/
3 days ago
gVim (only on windows/linux) with a minimal config is my preferred. Fast but a few powerful built-in vim features like search, replace, syntax highlighting, spellchecking, auto-indent etc. It loads in about 1.5s on my machine and renders...
- Source: Hacker News
/
over 4 years ago
Vim (aka Vi IMproved) is a highly efficient text editor that has inspired other editors like it, most notably MacVim (which I will refer to as vim from here on) and gVim.
- Source: dev.to
/
over 5 years ago
Vim 9 - Update
If you want to try out Vim9, you can download the latest Win32 binaries from: https://github.com/vim/vim-win32-installer/releases.
For MacOS, you can use https://github.com/macvim-dev/macvim/.
Source:
over 5 years ago
Alternatives to Obsidian and MacVim
When comparing Obsidian and MacVim, you can also consider the following products.
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.
Sublime Text is a sophisticated text editor for code, html and prose - any kind of text file. You'll love the slick user interface and extraordinary features. Fully customizable with macros, and syntax highlighting for most major languages.
Notion
Logseq
Joplin
Evernote
Roam Research
Bear
Typora
Vim
VS Code
Sublime Text
Kakoune
Kate
Neovim
Light Table
