Obsidian

Obsidian is a note-taking app that keeps notes as Markdown files on your own device, with linking, a graph view and thousands of community plugins.

Obsidian is a note-taking app that stores every note as a plain Markdown file in a folder on your own computer, which it calls a vault. It is built for people who want their writing to outlast any single app, and who would rather own the files than rent access to a database. The app comes from Obsidian, founded in 2020, which stays independent and is supported by the people who use it rather than by investors. It runs on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. Notes connect to each other through double-bracket links, and every link leaves a backlink on the note it points to. Graph view draws those connections as an interactive map, so patterns across a vault become visible. Canvas opens an infinite surface for arranging notes, images and web pages side by side. The Web Clipper extension saves pages and selections from a browser straight into a vault, and community plugins and themes reshape the editor through an open API. Obsidian Sync carries a vault between devices with end-to-end encryption and version history, and Obsidian Publish turns chosen notes into a public site. Obsidian suits researchers, students, writers and engineers who accumulate notes over years and need them searchable and portable long afterwards. It fits people who are comfortable assembling their own setup, because the core app stays deliberately small and the community plugin library supplies the rest. Small teams use it for shared documentation and internal wikis, working from a synced shared vault. The app itself is free to download and use, with Sync, Publish, a Catalyst supporter license and a commercial license bought separately. People reach for Obsidian to keep daily journals, meeting notes, literature reviews, project plans and long-form drafts, with to-do items written as checkboxes inside the notes themselves. Because a vault is only a folder of text files, it sits comfortably beside Git, Dropbox, iCloud Drive and any editor that reads Markdown, and finished notes move into other tools without conversion. Teams publish help sites and documentation from the same vault they write in. Obsidian's own help site is built that way, on Obsidian Publish.