Notion vs Obsidian: All Features Compared (2024)

Notion and Obsidian can be used as productivity apps or knowledge management tools, but there are notable differences between the two.

Which tool has the best features for your needs? Which offers the best pricing model? And how do they compare to alternatives on the market?

We’ll explore these questions in our Notion vs Obsidian comparison, starting with a quick individual rundown and a more in-depth look into how these tools square up.

Find out more about Productive below, or continue on to our review of Notion.

Notion is a knowledge management base with robust customization features for handling complex data.

Users usually enjoy using Notion as a way to manage their information and process complex data. Since it’s a fairly complex tool, it might not the best pick for basic text editing, as you’ll simply not be getting the most out of the tool:

Source: Notion

On the other hand, while it does provide task management and collaboration tools, it’s not a true agency management option. It lacks core features for serious project end to end management, such as time tracking, budgeting, and resource allocation and capacity planning. Users state that:

Source: Reddit

To learn more about how Notion compares to project management tools, you can check out Monday.com vs Notion and Notion vs Wrike comparisons.

Obsidian is a Markdown-based note-taking app that allows you to create and manage your documentation offline.

Users enjoy Obsidian because it balances the simplicity of note-taking tools with some extra features for visualizing connections (with the knowledge graph structure) and a blank canvas for brainstorming and ideation.

Source: Capterra

Obsidian’s biggest benefit by far is the fact that it stores your information offline, so if you want to handle notes without internet access or safeguard your data, it’s the ideal pick. However, the cloud server option and syncing are additionally paid, which some users are not too fond of:

Source: Obsidian vs Notion review on Reddit

Additionally, consider that Obsidian is Markdown-based, meaning that there’s a specific syntax you’ll need to learn to use the tool effectively — though users report that it’s not too challenging to pick up.

Let’s review the benefits and downsides of Notion or Obsidian category by category, including pricing, documentation, interlinking, collaboration, and user-friendliness or UI/UX design.

Both Notion and Obsidian offer a free version of their platform, but there are some differences.

Obsidian’s free version offers all platform features, but the app is paid-only for commercial use, defined by Obsidian as “work-related activities that generate revenue in an organization with two or more people”.

However, some key features are offered only as add-ons, including:

Notion, on the other hand, limits its free tier when it comes to guests, page history, blocks, and file uploads. There are three more paid plans offering different types of advanced features.

Since it’s a cloud-based collaboration and task management tool, online access and team collaboration are included in all of the plans. Offline access is not available. Notion AI is paid for separately per user.

Both tools can be used as mobile apps.

To summarize, Obsidian’s basic version is the most affordable pick if you don’t need online access or extensive collaboration features, but for anything else, Notion is likely the better option.

Community reviews differ when it comes to which platform is better designed or provides a more seamless experience.

On the one hand, Obsidian’s Markdown system, while overall not too difficult to learn, can feel unnatural to people not used to writing notes in a plain text format. The graph functionality, while an interesting feature, is also a hit-or-miss according to some users.

Source: Obsidian review on Reddit

Notion’s complexity can create some friction, especially with users looking for a simple note-taking tool.

Source: Reddit

There can be a bit of a learning curve there, and Notion users report falling into the pitfalls of overcustomizing their spaces and making them less efficient. However, there’s no denying that Notion can do a lot for your data and knowledge management in the right hands.

For generalized documentation, it’s worth reiterating that Obsidian uses a Markdown system for text editing, which is a specific syntax that can take some getting used to. Files will be stored as Markdown files (.md).

There are different themes that users can choose from to customize how their files look (though most are fairly streamlined, so don’t expect a visual explosion), or develop a personalized one in CSS.

Where Obsidian truly shines is the Obsidian Canvas feature, a whiteboard-like space where users can format their thoughts like sticky notes. It offers the ability to embed multimedia files, such as PDFs, videos, audios, and entire web pages, including materials from your vaults (which you can edit within the Canvas view).

These files are stored in the open JSON Canvas file format, which is made to play nicely with other tools.

A unique feature in Notion is Notion Calendar, which can be connected to your pages to streamline workflows. For example, you can associate an event with a page to streamline note-taking during meetings or manage events from your Notion database in a calendar or timeline view.

With Obsidian, you can create a knowledge network by linking to notes, attachments, and other files. You can also visualize these connections with the graph view (either connections across your entire vault, or your graph network for an active note with the local graph feature). Circles represent different information, while lines depict how this data is linked between different nodes.

While Notion doesn’t have a comparable knowledge graph feature, Notion also provides a way to link various pages together.

You can also link to specific paragraphs within a page in order to simplify knowledge sharing even more. Notion will create backlinks automatically on pages that have been linked elsewhere to help you navigate your workspace. This backlinks section can be customized and even turned off.

Notion has built-in collaboration features. You can work side-by-side with your team members on pages, mention them, and leave feedback. There’s also basic project management, so teams can view their tasks in a timeline, table, or calendar view, create different labels, create custom automations to streamline workstreams, and filter and sort information.

Overall, it’s a very basic productivity tool, but it can be handy for teams that want to add a bit of project management to their documentation.

On the other hand, Obsidian is less suitable for collaborative work, and doesn’t offer any project or task management features that are comparable to Notion. You can work together with other people, but only if you invest in a paid add-on, Obsidian Publish (paid per site).

You can then post your website online, work with your team, optimize your site, and even get optional analytics (by embedding Google Analytics or other similar tools).

For collaborative notes and any sort of management, Notion is the better pick, though there are alternatives that can do this even better, such as:

Productive is the top pick for task-oriented features combined with document management. If you like the collaboration and task management features offered in Notion, Productive has all of this in store, and more.

Starting with Docs, they’re the perfect way to store agency and project information in one place.

The feature doesn’t offer as many bells and whistles as dedicated note-taking tools, but all you need is there: adding multimedia, real-time collaboration, commenting, and versioning. Documents can be exported as PDF files.

The best part of Docs is how they integrate with the rest of the platform: you can associate docs to specific projects, link to tasks, and mention team members in pages to provide more context.

For project and task management, there are various features that make your life easier. First, there are the multiple project views. We’ll underline just two out of seven potential views you can utilize:

For task management, you can easily manage your project hierarchy with subtasks, to-dos, and milestones. Manage deadlines, priority, assignees, and estimated time, or add custom fields to your tasks for additional parameters. There are also platform-wide notifications that can be customized for frequency or where you want to receive them (email, platform, or both).

You can invite clients to your boards free of charge with the Client Portal; they can view, create, and comment on tasks to speed up your feedback loops.

Another great feature is the integrated time tracking — you can track time directly from tasks, which will automatically create entries with links to tasks.

Additional features include:

Productive offers a 14-day free trial (learn more about pricing and plans).

Obsidian and Notion can both be game changers for your knowledge management.

With Obsidian, you can get a straightforward text editor with a canvas for brainstorming and secure offline storage for your data.

With Notion, you’re getting a powerful tool for managing all kinds of data and collaborating with team members.

But with a third alternative like Productive, you can get documentation combined with robust agency management capabilities, from financial management to resourcing.

Book a demo with Productive today to learn what an all-in-one tool can do for your agency operations.