Obsidian’s philosophy, files over app, prioritizes control over data, a rare stance in modern app development. The app’s main purpose is to create and organize Markdown-based notes stored locally, which consequentially suits knowledge management.
Obsidian includes powerful core plugins for organizing content, along with community themes and plugins that are quick to install, making customization easy.
With affordable file-syncing options, users can access their notes across devices while maintaining data privacy—a unique blend of flexibility, security, and functionality.
My reasons for choosing Obsidian to a my primary tool:
I need complete control of my notes and how they appear to me.
Notes has to be accessible on any platform as I use many operating systems. No other note-taking options can offer this along with other features that I need.
I am OCD about fonts and colors. Thus usual UI/editor fonts of choice such as Android Roboto, Noto Sans, Open Sans, some Slab Serif drives me insane because of how they render poorly on devices with low DPI. Also, sometimes the font used by those apps, does not support Unicode characters.
Obsidian’s layout resembles a file explorer but optimized for browsing with tabs and components that can be disabled if the user doesn’t need them.
Community plugins and themes help me to navigate around and get things done faster, with an UI that is agreeable with my eyes.
Last but not least, Obsidian vaults can be published online as static pages with Obsidian Publish, Digital Garden, or as this site - Quartz.