Ask HN: Obsidian vs. Logseq?

[benthecoder]

going to start writing notes and building a second brain, but stuck on deciding on which notes app to use. Looking for thoughts on the macos apps, organization, the graph view, flashcards feature, the ability to publish to web (for free), and other feedback you have on them.

[jones1618]

I like them both but Obsidian feels like a richer, more community-supported solution.

Logseq has a daily journaling workflow built in which you can sort of automatically grow into a kind of personal wiki. It also has built-in flashcards. However, the pages are very generic and formatting is limited.

Obsidian, on the other hand, is more of a "blank book" that you can turn into anything that Logseq can do. It has richer formatting and a _huge_ collection of plug-ins and templates are available (including flashcard plugins). It supports math markup, diagrams and inline tables. There's a "Webpage HTML Export" plug-in for publishing to the Web.

Both offer canvas/whiteboard pages and are completely offline, by default.

So, for power & versatility, I'd go with Obsidian. If all you want is a journal and flashcards study tool, Logseq might be simpler.

[benthecoder]

thanks for the thoughtful response! really appreciate it

[tonyhb]

I'll throw a vote for https://reflect.app/. It has everything you need, is well polished, and Alex is a great person.

[benthecoder]

was thinking about this too! But debating if it's worth the 10 bucks a month. I'm still a student. What's your favorite feature for reflect? And one issue you have with it?