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
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)_/¯.
Based on our record, Obsidian.md seems to be a lot more popular than Zettlr. While we know about 1453 links to Obsidian.md, we've tracked only 10 mentions of Zettlr. 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.
Oh! That's nice. :D Is this mentioned on zettlr.com? Seems as if I've missed it... Source: about 1 year ago
I'd strongly recommend trying out Zettlr (https://zettlr.com), which in many ways is close to Obsidian (except Zettlr is open source). A new Zettlr release is close to arriving and implements lots of improvements. Source: about 1 year ago
You might give Zettlr a spin. It's another Markdown-based tool like Obsidian, but it is really focussed on Zettelkasten, and of interest to you, with a stronger focus on long-form academic writing. It supports citations, footnotes and uses Pandoc for document production—so there are lots of ways to get your work out. Source: almost 2 years ago
Is https://zettlr.com an option for you? Source: about 2 years ago
Zettlr is open source and has export-to-PDF. Source: about 2 years ago
The solution was already installed on both my computer and my phone: Obsidian. - Source: dev.to / 1 day ago
> why does open source need to "win" Open source does not need to win. But your ability to be in control of your computer needs to be preserved. A proprietary fridge cannot control your diet, while a proprietary App Store can control what software you install on YOUR phone (unless you live in EU, hello DMA!). The tail wags the dog, so to speak. Proprietary software has also been shown to break user workflows or... - Source: Hacker News / 5 days ago
So I've had my fair share of personal websites and blogs. I have built them on stacks ranging from the most basic HTML and CSS, to hosted frameworks like Wordpress and Laravel, to the more modern single page applications built in Vue and React. For a simple content blog I think you can't go wrong with a Static Site Generator though. These days I am almost exclusively writing everything in Obsidian. Which is great... - Source: dev.to / 22 days ago
Consider making an Obsidian[^1] plugin, or writing to Obsidian-compatible Markdown files :) [^1]: https://obsidian.md/. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 month ago
Obsidian is a writing application created to allow for offline / private note taking in markdown format, in an interface that looks a lot like our regular programming IDE. It is very flexible, with a good collection of community plugins that you can use to customize Obsidian to your heart contents. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
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.
Logseq - Logseq is a local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook for organizing and sharing your personal knowledge base.
Notion - All-in-one workspace. One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized.
Typora - A minimal Markdown reading & writing app.
Roam Research - A note-taking tool for networked thought
OneNote - Get the OneNote app for free on your tablet, phone, and computer, so you can capture your ideas and to-do lists in one place wherever you are. Or try OneNote with Office for free.