Neutral

Canvas

For the complex topic learning or managing personal projects, an infinite canvas or whiteboard is crucial for me, as they enable efficient non-linear information processing.

In Obsidian, this feature is called canvas. Similar to notes, each canvas will be stored as a single file, using Obsidian’s own open source file format, JSON canvas.

Pros

Supported object types

On Canvas, we can place markdown notes, images, PDF files, YouTube videos, web pages, and even unsupported file types. I can easily group them together and connect them with arrow links to provide visual organization.

Card

When using a tool like Canvas, sometimes we don’t want to create a brand new notes, which in Obsidian are individual files. Instead, there are times we want to create a note that resides locally within the Canvas file itself to avoid cluttering the Vault. Obsidian supports this well by entity called cards. A card can be formatted, tagged, link or embed other contents. If you want to tag the Canvas itself, this is a way to do so.

Inter-Canvas link

Canvas allows you to link to other canvases, which can be incredibly useful! One scenario to consider is thinking of a canvas as an interactive folder, enabling you to create a hierarchy of canvases. This is similar to what some whiteboard-centric personal knowledge management systems offer.

Cons

No backlink

Canvas do not support backlink. This means adding a note to a Canvas does not produce any backlink to the Canvas file.

No mindmap, diagram

While diagram drawing and mind mapping are supported through a text-based diagram drawing open-source technology called [[Mermaid]], Obsidian does not support direct visual creation of them within the Canvas.

No freehand drawing

Freehand drawing is not natively supported in Obsidian.

Summary

Obsidian’s canvas is straightforward yet functional, supporting a core nonlinear workflow. However, it doesn’t quite reach the level of some other whiteboard-centric PKMs.

Markdown Live Editor

Even though Common Mark exists, GitHub added its own markdown syntax on top of it, and Obsidian expanded on GitHub’s version even further. While this creates a proprietary markdown syntax that goes beyond the standard, the additional syntax is designed to enhance our note-taking experience.

For example, the latest version of Common Mark lacks table, highlight and strikeout, which are relatively commonly used features in note-taking apps. Obsidian added specific markdown syntax for these.

HTML version of highlight
        <mark>Test</mark>
Obsidian Markdown version of higlight
        ==Test==

Also, the core of the knowledge management app is its ability to link and embed notes. Since these features are not included in Common Mark, Obsidian has added them as well.

Live Markdown editor ≠ WYSIWYG

Obsidian’s live Markdown editor isn’t entirely WYSIWYG because when you put a focus on a block that uses Markdown formatting, it displays the Markdown source code for that section. This might feel a bit awkward for users who are new to Markdown editors.

Fortunately, you don’t need to know the Markdown syntax to write in Obsidian. All OFM supported syntax can be inserted or cleared though mouse clicks.

Table Editing Tool

Table editing is unique. The Markdown syntax for tables can slow everyone down, even experienced users. That’s why Obsidian’s live editor employs a WYSIWYG approach for table editing. While it writes Markdown syntax in the background, we can edit the table entirely in a visual way.

Callout

One extended Markdown feature that I enjoy in Obsidian is the callout. If you’ve used an application like Notion, you might already be familiar with this. It’s a fantastic way to group blocks of text, which are automatically displayed in their own background color section with a title and a small icon. This design makes the section stand out right away. To create new one simply right-click and select “Insert Callout.” Once it’s in place, you can right-click on the callout to change its type.

Although you can create a new callout without knowing Markdown syntax, when you edit the callout section, part of its content appear as Markdown source code, which is inconsistent to the rest of live editor.

For instance, highlight and bold formatting are applied immediately when we move the focus away from the block. However, bullet points and headers won’t appear until we exit the callout section, which can be a bit confusing. I had hoped the developer would provide the same functionality for callouts as they do for tables, making the callout section WYSIWYG. This way, we could simply edit its content using the live editor, just like we do elsewhere in the live editor.

Raw HTML – Double edge sword

Obsidian’s visual editing support is limited to what’s supported in Obsidian flavored Markdown. For instance, we can’t change color of text or highlight, merge cells in table etc.

In the Common Mark specification, if specific markdown style syntax is missing, we can utilize raw HTML. However, raw HTML is not as friendly for plain text reading, which is precisely why Markdown was created in the first place. So if you want to achieve things like change text color, you need to use raw html.

This can be seen as either a limitation or a flexibility.

For instance, several PKM apps I’ve tried don’t allow us to change the font, but in Obsidian, using HTML syntax, we can change just a portion of our note to a specific font.

The above is special text formatting using HTML code in Obsidian.

For example, for font change, I typed in <span style="font-family: Brush Script MT, cursive">Obsidian</span>

But why don’t Obsidian support these as part of their core visual editor tool?

I think this serves as a reminder that these features fall outside of Markdown syntax. As a result, they may not render properly in other applications and might not appear well in plain text format. In fact, we can see this as a distinction between a text editor and a word processor. The latter provides richer text formatting, but achieving this involves a background source code with cryptic-looking syntax.

PDF Support

Overall, Obsidian’s PDF support is decent, showcasing some standout features while also having a few areas that could improve compared to other PKMS I’ve experienced.

Pros

The standout feature is that, unlike other PKMs, Obsidian enables us to create links to native PDF annotations. This allows us to annotate PDFs outside of Obsidian and later link to those annotations within Obsidian.

Cons

Currently, Obsidian lacks support for native PDF file annotation within the app. This means that to annotate, we first have to open the PDF file in an external application. However, to link the annotation to a note, I need to use Obsidian’s internal viewer. As a result, I end up having two instances of the same PDF open simultaneously while doing this.

Obsidian’s roadmap includes PDF annotation as a planned feature. However, it depends on the PDF.js module. From what I’ve learned, it seems that the PDF.js module might not have plans to support area highlighting. Therefore, I’m unsure if Obsidian will only support text highlighting and not area highlighting.

Another practical issue I’ve observed is that the area highlight embedding is not scaled to the highlight itself; instead, it displays at full-page scale. This often makes the highlighted content challenging to read.

Transclusion

Transclusion is a fantastic feature that allows you to embed the content of one note into another by reference, much like including an image or video in your note. The source exists in a single location, but you can utilize it in multiple places. This means that if you edit the source, all notes that tranclude it will immediately show the most current content! This promotes a modular design of notes, facilitating the workflow of creating long-form documents by combining existing notes. In Obsidian, transcluding other notes uses the same straightforward Wikilink-inspired syntax as embedding images, PDFs, or other files.

Section and block reference/transclusion

Obsidian even allows header section and block link and transclusion. These allow even more granular control.

One word of caution: if you change the header or block reference ID name manually without using the right mouse click and rename option first, it will break the existing link. Unlike note links, these link ID occurrences won’t update automatically.

This has been a popular feature request since the original post in 2021. However, according to one of the developers, implementing this could lead to performance issues. So, the likelihood of this feature being implemented may be slim at this time.

Customization

Pros

Obsidian provides an unparalleled level of customization options for its users with a wide array of settings. I’ve come across many of these settings as feature requests in other PKM systems.

Examples include options for:

• fonts
• text size
• app zoom level
• hide or display normally hidden unsupported file extensions
• default location for new note
• default location for attachment file
• set custom CSS either globally for individual note
• setting various custom hotkeys
• and much more.

Obsidian also offers a theme library that lets us transform the entire appearance of the app. These themes are crafted by community members, and there are more than 300 options available to choose from.

Cons

I generally prefer to begin with the default settings, as I believe this is how the developer intended us to experience the app initially. However, Obsidian’s default setup seemed different from the usual practices I’ve encountered in other PKMS.

I expect that many users would like to customize the default settings. However, with so many options available, it can sometimes feel a bit overwhelming. Some users might even mistakenly believe that their first experience with Obsidian lacks certain features because of the app’s limitations, when in reality, it might just be a matter of adjusting the preference settings.

For example, you might be accustomed to using the forward slash for various in-note formatting shortcuts, but this feature isn’t enabled by default in Obsidian. So, you’ll need to go into the settings to turn it on.

Search Tool

Independent of how you organize your notes, having a search functionality is essential for quickly accessing the content of your second brain. This is one of the major advantages of digital notes over physical ones.

Instantly accessible global search

Obsidian offers a powerful search tool with numerous options. You can easily access the global search tool from the left navigation pane or by using the simple CMD+Shift+F keyboard shortcut.

Rich search options

It allows for combinations of exact word matches, along with “not,” “and,” and “or” keyword searches.

Plus, there are filter options to define your search targets. In addition to typical contexts like tags, tasks, or properties, you can also search for notes that include a combination of keywords within the same line.

Obsidian also supports regular expressions, allowing for pattern match searches.

Embed Search in a note

The search query result can even be embedded within your notes. The search syntax is identical to what you use in global search bar. Just place it under code block named with query.

line: (supports powerful)

Syntax driven

While it’s wonderful to have so many options, I believe many users might struggle to tap into most of its capabilities and could find it a little confusing initially.

[!tip] Searching paths and filenames
By default, you can only search the paths and filenames of notes and canvases. To search for a path or filename of any file in the vault, use the path or file operator.

For example, I had assumed that searching for a PDF file name in my Vault would immediately display it as a query result. However, that wasn’t the case. It turns out that by default, the search only examines the paths and filenames of notes and canvases. Therefore, to locate a PDF file, I needed to use the file or path operator.

https://help.obsidian.md/plugins/search

Journal

While I personally use journal notes mainly for inbox purposes, I understand that for many, this is an essential part of your workflow. Obsidian provides several key features to enhance your journal note-taking experience.

However, this is another case where many users will likely need to change the default settings if they plan to do daily journaling.

Automatic subfolder organization

The default setup for where new notes are placed in Obsidian is the root folder in the Vault. This may not be the ideal location for most people who plan to create daily notes frequently; instead, I would guess many prefer to have their notes organized by year and month.

For this purpose, Obsidian offers automatic subfolder organization for journal notes. To set this up, we need to go into the settings and select the Core plugins section for daily notes. Then, under the Date format section, we simply specify the format, including the folder path.

For instance, the setup illustrated will generate a folder for each year, containing subfolders for each month. Ultimately, within each month subfolder, we will have the specific daily notes.

Template

We can setup a default template for our daily notes. This way, every time we create a new daily note, the template will be automatically applied!

Date type property link

When you assign a date type property to a note, that property value turns into a link to the daily note for that date. It’s worth mentioning that this does not generate a backlink in the daily note itself.

No calendar view

One notable omission in Obsidian’s core is that it currently lacks a built-in calendar view, which I believe most users would find to be an intuitive way to access their daily notes.

https://help.obsidian.md/plugins/daily-notes

Task Management

It’s quite common for people to use PKM apps as straightforward task managers. Obsidian core offers simple task management workflow.

Creating task

In Obsidian, you can easily create a task list using Markdown or by simply right-clicking with your mouse to add them.

https://help.obsidian.md/syntax#Task+lists

Getting task list

To retrieve the list of tasks from anywhere in the Vault, we will utilize Obsidian’s powerful search tool. They have developed three specific search operators for this purpose: task, task-todo, and task-done.

By using one of these operators, the search context focuses specifically on the status of these tasks. The rest is simply a text search.

For instance, if you’d like to view the list of all incomplete tasks with due dates, and you’ve included the word “due” for each of those tasks, you can simply search for “due.” (task-todo: due)

Need Regular expression?

If you’re looking for all completed tasks, just use task-done. However, there’s a small catch. If you don’t enter anything after the operator, it won’t return any results. To retrieve any text, you’ll need to use a regular expression \w, which means it will match with anything i.e. (task-done: /\w/)

This can get quite complex fairly quickly. For example, if I want all the results with a due date in April 2025, and assuming I follow American English standards, I need to create a regular expression that captures them (task-todo: /4\/\d{1,2}\/\d{4}/).

https://help.obsidian.md/plugins/search

Support and Communication

When it comes Obsidian’s support and communication, I would rate it as overall good, although there are some areas where I wish it could be better.

Pros

Top notch help document

The Obsidians help document is outstanding. It’s clear, well-organized, and the examples and tips provided are incredibly useful. If you have the chance to read them, I believe they are definitely worth your time over any other YouTube video or website.

Ample support source

Due to the large number of user base, you can often find assistance from either community members or Obsidian staff.

Cons

Developer’s future plan is ambiguous

In terms of the app design, future planning, and bug fix status, the communication from Obsidian’s developers often feels a bit reserved.

For example, even concerning items on the roadmap that are currently active or planned, there isn’t a rough estimated timeline provided.

Extensibility

While the many customization options of Obsidian offer incredible flexibility, the true limitless potential of Obsidian comes from its community plugins. The well-crafted ones can completely transform the system’s functionality. We will need a separate video to explore their pros and cons, as that topic goes beyond today’s discussion. However, here are a few brief general points about them.

Pros

As mentioned earlier, most, if not all, of the limitations I am discussing in this video should have some sort of workaround with community plugins. Some of these plugins can even outperform corresponding features found in other PKM apps.

Cons

However, community plugins can be a double-edged sword. They can add significant amount complexity, and users may find themselves in a never-ending quest for better community plugins. Furthermore, community plugins are not always reliable and come with their own set of risks. Even those that are highly rated and well-built can bring about their own challenges.

💡TIP
My personal suggestion for new Obsidian users is to wait at least a week before diving into community plugins. After that , only install one if you truly need it. Keeping things simple is the way to go! If you feel a friction or a missing feature, take a moment to check the official help resources and see if there are any core plugin settings, or Obsidian way of doing it. Core Obsidian is quite powerful in many ways, and even without community plugins, it offers several advantages over many other PKMS available in the market.

Mermaid

timeline
    title Obsidian History
    2020 : March - Release 
         : September - Obsidian Publish
         : Runner up Golden Kitty Award in Producvity
    2021 : July - Mobile version release
         : Won Goden Kitty Award in Mobile App Category
    2022 : December - Released Infinite Canvas Plugin
         : Runner up Golden Kitty Award
    2023 : PDF viewer & Deeplinking
         : Table editor
    2024 : Released JSON Canvas open file format
         : November - Released Web Clipper
    2025 : Feb - Commercial license became optional 
    2026 : Jan

Obsidian natively supports Mermaid. We can insert them within our notes, or even on Canvas card. Obsidian doesn’t come with a built-in visual editor for Mermaid, so you’ll need to use text coding. While creating a new one is as easy as copying and pasting a template and changing the text, it might still feel like a bit of a learning curve for users who aren’t familiar with the idea of drawing through text.

My recommend workflow with Mermaid is opening the same note side by side in split view mode. This way, as you edit the Mermaid code on one pane, you can see the actual diagram preview on the other.

Another option is to use the free online visual tool editor, Mermaid live editor. Once you are done, you can copy the code back. However, free user have limited set of diagram types on this tool.

Web Clipper

While this is technically a separate from Obsidian core app, Obsidian provides a web clipper, which is a browser extension that allows us to capture web pages and import them into Obsidian. It was introduced in November 2024.

Pros

Although it’s relatively new to the Obsidian family, it’s quite powerful. It supports all major types of browsers. It allows us to highlight web pages, copy the page to the clipboard, download them as markdown files, or import them directly into the currently active Obsidian Vault. These pages include rich metadata stored as note properties. You can even create your own template for these.

This browser extension even works on mobile devices.

Cons

While overall, it is one of the most powerful web clipper I’ve used, there are some limitations in current version.

On certain sites, the behavior of highlights can be inconsistent. For instance, when I highlighted text on the Obsidian help page, the highlight didn’t stay with the text but instead scrolled with the page.

On another site, the highlight was not visible unless I kept the Obsidian clipper highlight on, even though I had set my options to always show it.

I also observed that the selection to always show highlights only takes effect after reloading the page.

Currently, there’s no way to sync highlights across multiple devices. This means I can’t make a web page highlight on my work computer, where the Obsidian app isn’t installed, and later import that page on my personal computer.

I also find it hard to see highlighted images since they cover the actual image. I wish the highlight were a square area like in PDFs.

Lastly, while it’s not very common, one of the images from a website I often use unfortunately can’t be loaded with Web Clipper. This appears to be due to server-side restrictions on embedding external images. However, for some reason, other apps like Readwise Reader can actually display these images.

Obsidian Publish

Obsidian Publish is an optional paid subscription service. For just $8 per month, we can share our Obsidian notes online. I use this feature so I can access my Obsidian content on my work computer, where I can’t install any third-party apps.

Pros

You don’t need to know anything about programming or server setting. It’s basically mouse click away to get started.

I really appreciate that we can choose what to publish on a note-by-note basis instead of having to publish an entire Vault or even a whole folder. This flexibility lets us focus on sharing the content we truly want without the hassle of creating a special Vault for it.

Obsidian Publish also provides a variety of customization options, including the ability to make the site password protected. I find the default appearance of the Obsidian Publish site to be clean and user-friendly, but if you have a different preference, there are plenty of visual tweak options available as well.

Cons

There are a few limitations that are recognized by Obsidian team.

Source: https://help.obsidian.md/publish/limitations

A couple of these have affected my usual workflow.

No canvas

They currently do not support publishing of Canvas. Since I regularly use Canvas-type workflows, this feels like a significant issue. The good news is that it’s on the roadmap! However, the bad news is that it’s still in the planning phase, and we don’t know when it will actually be implemented.

Mobile PDF embedding issue

On mobile devices, tablets, and computers with small screens, you may encounter issues where an embedded PDF won’t load or only the first page is displayed. This is due to limitations with the PDF Renderer on mobile devices.

If we open the published note from an iOS device, the highlighted content in the PDF area cannot be viewed.

Collaboration

Since collaboration isn’t a part of my PKM workflow, I haven’t tested this myself. However, based on the information I’ve gathered, I believe Obsidian currently provides a partial collaboration workflow.

Even though Obsidian saves each note separately and supports various methods for multi-device synchronization, you can’t simply share your Vault through a cloud drive like iCloud. This is because the Vault keeps track of the working pane setup. So, if another user modifies the currently open note and closes the app, the next time you open your app, you’ll see that setup instead of where you left off.

Collaboration with Obsidian Sync

Obsidian sync allows users to share a Vault; however Obsidian does not yet support collaborative live editing on the same file. You will not see the other user’s cursor, and their edits will only appear once the changes are synced. If multiple users are editing the same file at the same time, changes will be merged during the syncing process. In an event the merging or syncing process result in loss of data, they supposedly offer Version history to allow restoration of the lost data if necessary.

Source: https://help.obsidian.md/sync/collaborate

Collaboration on Obsidian Publish

While Obsidian Publish allows multiple users to collaborate on a single site, the official recommendation is to ensure that changes are synchronized among collaborators before publishing. This implies that Publish might also face challenges in effectively managing simultaneous site editing.

Multiplayer on the roadmap

The live editing feature is actively being developed and is part of the roadmap.

Collaboration by third party service

If you need live editing right now, there are third-party services like Peerdraft and Relay that offer their own subscription plans to support this feature.

Closed Source

Obsidian is not open source nor source available project. Yet I actually don’t mind about this fact in the case of Obsidian.

Open source offers transparency, which many users consider to be a lower risk for data privacy. Moreover, some users perceive open source as an indication that the project is future-proof. Finally, open source, unlike open core or source-available projects, suggests “free.” Regardless of how accurate these interpretations may be, most non-programmer users who support open source would agree that these are the reasons why some believe it is beneficial for users.

However, as we’ve already mentioned, Obsidian offers the highest level of data privacy and is future-proof by its core design, all while being completely free. Therefore, with Obsidian, we don’t need interpretation; the key elements are established facts.

If you’re especially curious about why the team chose not to make it open source, you can take a look at the official forum post by one of the co-founders from 2020.

Reference: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/open-sourcing-of-obsidian/1515/11