Obsidian, a local-first app for notes and knowledge
Obsidian is a writing and knowledge-management application for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, and Android. What separates Obsidian from most of its competitors is deliberately unglamorous: it reads and writes ordinary Markdown files in a folder you choose, and it needs no account, no server, and no proprietary database to open them.
That folder is called a vault. When you point Obsidian at a vault, every Markdown file inside becomes a note, every image or PDF you drop in becomes an attachment, and whatever folder structure you already use becomes the note hierarchy. Obsidian adds one hidden configuration subfolder for settings, themes, and plugins, and otherwise leaves your files untouched. Uninstall Obsidian tomorrow and the notes stay exactly where they were, readable in any text editor.
The second half of the idea is linking. Obsidian treats double-bracket wikilinks as first-class connections between notes, then shows you the reverse of every link, so any note can tell you what else in the vault refers to it. Add a plugin system that lets the community extend nearly every surface of the app, and you get the reason Obsidian became a default recommendation for researchers, writers, students, and engineers who wanted their notes to outlive the tool that displays them.
Obsidian is best understood as an editor for a folder you own, not a place your notes live. Everything else it does, from backlinks to the plugin API, is built on top of that plain-text foundation.
How Obsidian came about
Obsidian was made by Shida Li and Erica Xu, the pair behind the outliner Dynalist, and reached the public as a beta in 2020. It arrived during a wave of interest in linked note-taking, but took the opposite architectural bet from the cloud tools around it: keep the files local and open, and let the app be replaceable.
Version 1.0 of Obsidian landed in 2022 after mobile apps in 2021, and development since then has been steady rather than dramatic. Canvas, an infinite whiteboard for arranging notes and cards, shipped as a core feature in late 2022, and its file format was later published as an open specification so other tools could read the same files. That pattern is typical of Obsidian: features tend to be added in ways that keep the data readable outside the app. A short factual summary is also maintained on Wikipedia.
Vaults, files, and file formats
A vault is just a directory. You can keep one large vault for everything, or several smaller ones for work, personal projects, and archives, and Obsidian will open any of them without importing or converting anything. Because there is no import step, moving an existing pile of Markdown files into Obsidian usually takes as long as it takes to copy a folder.
Notes are Markdown, the same lightweight syntax used across static site generators and documentation systems, described in more detail on Wikipedia. Obsidian adds a few conventions on top: wikilinks, embeds that pull one note into another, callout blocks, and YAML frontmatter at the top of a file for structured properties like status, author, or date.
Settings live inside the vault too, in that hidden configuration folder, so two vaults opened by the same copy of Obsidian can run completely different plugins, themes, and hotkeys. Copy the folder to another machine and the setup travels with it.
The practical consequence is portability. Version control with Git, command-line search, scripts, backups, and other editors all work on an Obsidian vault because there is nothing unusual to work around. It also means Obsidian never holds your notes hostage: there is no export to run before you leave, because the export is the storage format.
Links, backlinks, tags, and the graph
Typing two square brackets in Obsidian opens an autocomplete list of every note in the vault, so linking is faster than filing. You can link to a note that does not exist yet, which leaves a placeholder you can fill in later, and you can link to a specific heading or block inside a note rather than the whole file. Renaming a note can update the links pointing at it, which Obsidian handles for you when that option is enabled.
Every link produces a backlink. Open a note and Obsidian will list the other notes that point at it, along with unlinked mentions of its title elsewhere in the vault. For most people this is the feature that changes how they write: instead of deciding in advance which folder a thought belongs to, you connect it to what it relates to and let structure accumulate.
Tags, folders, and search cover the rest. Obsidian indexes the whole vault for full-text search with operators for paths, tags, and properties, and the graph view draws the vault as nodes and edges, either globally or as a local map around the note you are reading. The graph is often described as the signature of Obsidian, though in daily use backlinks and search do far more work.
Writing, panes, and Canvas
Obsidian gives you three ways to look at a note: a raw source mode that shows the Markdown as typed, a live preview that renders formatting while you write, and a reading view for finished text. Switching is instant, which matters when you are editing a table by hand one minute and reading a long draft the next.
The Obsidian workspace itself is a tiling layout of panes and tabs. You can split the window, pin a reference note beside a draft, stack tabs, and pull sidebars in and out. Nearly every action in Obsidian is reachable from a command palette and can be bound to a keyboard shortcut, so heavy users rarely touch the mouse.
Canvas adds a spatial mode for the times a document is the wrong shape for your thinking. On an infinite board you can place cards, images, embedded notes, and connecting arrows, which suits planning, teaching diagrams, and early research. Obsidian stores each canvas as a single readable file rather than as opaque binary data.
Core plugins, community plugins, themes
Much of what Obsidian does is shipped as toggleable core plugins: daily notes, templates, the graph view, backlinks, outline, bookmarks, word count, and more. Turning off what you do not need is part of the design, and a minimal Obsidian setup is a legitimate way to use the app.
Beyond that sits a community plugin directory with well over a thousand extensions written against a documented JavaScript and TypeScript API. Widely used examples include Dataview for querying notes as if the vault were a database, Templater for scripted templates, Kanban for board views, and Excalidraw for hand-drawn diagrams. Themes and CSS snippets change the look of Obsidian just as thoroughly.
Community plugins are third-party code running on your machine, so Obsidian ships with them disabled behind a restricted mode you have to switch off yourself. Sensible practice is to add plugins one at a time for a specific problem, keep the list short, and remember that a vault which depends on a dozen plugins is less portable than one built on plain Markdown.
Syncing and publishing
The app itself is free to download and use, and Obsidian funds development through two optional subscription services plus supporter licenses, rather than by putting core editing behind a paywall. Neither service is required, and Obsidian works fully offline without them.
Obsidian Sync keeps a vault consistent across devices with end-to-end encryption, per-device selective sync, and version history you can roll back. Obsidian Publish takes selected notes from a vault and hosts them as a website, links, graph, search and all, which is how many people run a public digital garden or documentation site out of the same files they write in.
Because a vault is only a folder, you can also sync it yourself with iCloud Drive, Dropbox, Syncthing, or a Git repository, and plenty of people do. The tradeoff is that generic file sync knows nothing about note conflicts or mobile quirks, whereas the first-party service is built for the way Obsidian writes files. Whichever route you pick, keep a real backup: sync is not a backup.
Technical profile
A quick reference for the practical questions people ask before installing Obsidian. Everything here follows from the local-file model rather than from a hosting plan.
| Attribute | Detail |
|---|---|
| Desktop | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Mobile | iOS, iPadOS, Android |
| Note format | Markdown (.md) with wikilinks and YAML frontmatter |
| Attachments | Ordinary files stored in the vault folder |
| Account required | No, only for paid services |
| Offline use | Full, by default |
| Source code | Closed source app, open plugin API and open file formats |
| Extension language | JavaScript / TypeScript, plus CSS for themes |
Obsidian next to the alternatives
The honest way to compare is by architecture, not feature count. Obsidian optimizes for ownership, offline speed, and a single-author thinking space. Cloud workspaces optimize for shared databases and real-time collaboration. Neither choice is wrong, but they lead to different daily experiences.
| Criterion | Obsidian | Cloud workspace (e.g. Notion) | Plain folder + text editor |
|---|---|---|---|
| Where content lives | Local folder you choose | Vendor servers | Local folder |
| File format | Open Markdown | Proprietary blocks, export required | Open Markdown or txt |
| Offline work | Native, always | Limited, connection-oriented | Native |
| Backlinks & graph | Built in | Partial, database-oriented | None |
| Extensibility | Large plugin and theme ecosystem | API and integrations | Whatever your editor offers |
| Real-time co-editing | Not the model | Core strength | No |
Against a bare folder of text files, Obsidian adds the linking, preview, and search layer without changing what sits on disk, which is why people migrating from a plain editor rarely lose anything in the move. Against a hosted workspace the calculation is different: if several people need to edit the same page at once, a cloud tool will feel better. If you want notes that open in twenty years, respond instantly on a plane, and can be scripted, Obsidian is the stronger fit. Some teams run both and use Obsidian for individual thinking while shared documents stay in the collaborative tool.
Common ways people work
Most Obsidian setups fall into a few recognizable patterns. A daily note as a catch-all journal and task list. Literature notes for books, papers, and articles, each linked to the ideas it supports. Project notes that gather decisions and open questions in one file. Reference notes written once and linked many times.
Obsidian does not impose a method. Named systems such as Zettelkasten or PARA are often layered on top, but they are conventions, not requirements. The advice most experienced users give is to start with the smallest structure that works and only add rules and plugins when the vault actually hurts. Obsidian rewards writing regularly far more than it rewards elaborate systems.
A vault gets useful when notes start answering each other. Structure can come later; the linking habit is what compounds.
How to get started
A first session with Obsidian takes about ten minutes, and the order below keeps you out of the trap of configuring the app instead of using it.
- STEP 01Install Obsidian on your main computer and create a new vault in a folder you back up, such as your documents directory.
- STEP 02Write three real notes on something you are actually working on, and link them to each other with double brackets.
- STEP 03Turn on the daily note core plugin that ships with Obsidian and use it for a week before touching the community plugin directory.
- STEP 04Decide how the vault reaches your phone, either with Obsidian Sync or with a file-sync service you already trust, and confirm a note edited on mobile appears on the desktop.
- STEP 05Set up an automatic backup of the vault folder, then add plugins to Obsidian only when a concrete need appears.
Limitations worth knowing
Obsidian is not the right tool for every job. There is no real-time multiplayer editing, so teams that live in shared documents will find the model awkward. The application itself is closed source, which matters to people who require auditable software, even though the notes it produces are open text. And vault files are stored unencrypted on disk, so device-level encryption is your responsibility.
The flexibility also cuts both ways. A vault heavy with community plugins can break when one of them stops being maintained, and features that depend on plugin-specific syntax are less portable than plain Markdown. Very large vaults with thousands of notes and images can slow search and the graph view in Obsidian, particularly on mobile, and syncing many small files through a generic cloud drive is a known source of conflicts.
None of this undercuts the core proposition, but it does define who Obsidian suits: individuals who want durable, fast, private notes and are comfortable making a few decisions the software will not make for them.
Frequently asked questions
Is Obsidian free to use?
Yes. Downloading and using the Obsidian app costs nothing, and the full editing experience, plugins, and themes are included. Money only enters the picture if you subscribe to Obsidian Sync or Obsidian Publish, or buy a supporter license to fund development and get early access builds.
Does it work without internet?
Completely. Obsidian reads files from your own disk, so writing, searching, linking, and the graph all work offline. A connection is only needed to install plugins, check for updates, or run the sync and publishing services.
Where are my notes actually stored?
In the vault folder you picked when you set up Obsidian, as individual Markdown files with your attachments alongside them. You can open, move, copy, or search those files with any other program on your computer, with or without Obsidian running.
Is Obsidian open source?
The application is closed source. Its plugin API, documentation, and file formats are open, and thousands of community plugins and themes are published under open licenses, so the ecosystem around Obsidian is far more open than the app binary itself.
Can a team share a vault?
A vault can be shared through a Git repository or a shared drive, and many small teams do exactly that for documentation. Just be aware that Obsidian has no live co-editing, so two people writing in the same file at the same moment will produce a conflict rather than a merged paragraph.
What if the app is discontinued?
Your notes survive. Because Obsidian stores them as standard Markdown in a normal folder, they would still open in any editor, and other Markdown tools can read the same files. That resilience is the main reason people choose Obsidian over a hosted workspace.
Do I need plugins to get value from Obsidian?
No. A plain Obsidian install with links, backlinks, search, and daily notes already covers most note-taking needs, and many long-term users run only a handful of extensions. Plugins are best treated as answers to problems you have hit in practice, not as a starting checklist.