Obsidian has been very successful gaining "vocal" users who recommend and share their use of the software at "every opportunity. I'm not sure how they did it, but it must be incredibly valuable
I use Obsidian without necessarily being a vocal advocate of it but if asked I would certainly recommend it.
It’s a nice piece of software not because it’s exceptional in a very noticeable fashion but because it gets out of your way. It’s a markdown note taking app using text files in a folder of your choosing, supporting internal links, tags, and flexible metadata when you need them, with a fairly light UI, good plugins support and ecosystem, and which works on mobile and desktop.
Did it fundamentally change the way I work? Of course no, it’s a note taking app. But it does what I need so I’m happy.
I used to wonder why Obsidian had all that hype if it just seemed like yet another note-taking app. I was happy with Joplin and when I asked, no one could point to something concrete that I would need and that was possible in Obsidian and not in Joplin.
But at some point I tried it out of curiosity, and I became hooked.
Does it do anything I wouldn't be able to do in Joplin? For my usage, no (disclaimer: I don't use fancy plugins. I don't even ever look at the graph view, or make any diagrams or things like that). But it's just very good software, neatly executed. Boots up faster than 90% of programs I use, the UI has zero noticeable lag, it's simple and intuitive and has everything I need. I also like the fact that it stores Markdown in plain files without a database (contrary to e.g. Joplin) and that even though I use very few and basic plugins, if I have some complex need in the future, there will surely be one that covers it.
In an era where almost all software feels too bloated, it's a breath of fresh air. Honestly, just not having visible UI lag is something that can easily make me switch from one product to another on its own. It's so rare nowadays in any software more complex than Notepad or Calculator. Add the rest of things I mentioned, and it's a no-brainer.
For me I'm not particularly vocal, but I like Obsidian because the files are just regular markdown files in the filesystem, so can just edit them using vim, port them out etc. I like it way more than other notetaking systems for that reason.
And the authors embrace that idea so it's very happy if you make edits to the underlying files - it doesn't conflict or anything it smoothly reloads to reflect the new state and always feels snappy and easy to use.
I use notion at work and it's ok but for one it's dog slow and secondly they've put too much fancypants autocomplete stuff into it meaning it's actually quite annoying when you're just trying to type a note and it's popping up dropdowns and stuff all the time.
ymmv of course, different people like different things.
I would say notion has leaned more into the collaboration thing whereas obsidian has really tried to make a great note taking tool for individual use.
Most of their evangelists came from cloud-only tools like Roam Research and Notion that could be sluggish at times. Obsidian being free, fast flat file-based and local-first solved a bunch of problems at once.
Yes, perhaps, but I think the timing (the hype around Roam Research), their profile (local, privacy, no lock-in) and getting a specific user group early were important factors as well
