[chaseha]

Would appreciate any folks here who have tried both Obsidian and Joplin to summarize the key differentiators for them and which one they ended up on.

(on x platform, Windows/iOS use case here, but just post your needs)

I tried to move to Obsidian from Evernote after they raised the subscription price but wasn't able to onboard successfully - Obsidian seemed powerful but was too customizable for me, had to get back to more pressing day job needs before I could figure out a setup that would work for me, ended up just paying the Evernote fee another year.

[tmoravec]

I was suffering with Joplin for years and finally found the time to migrate to Obsidian a few months back. So far I'm much happier and more importantly, more productive.

The biggest points are about the UX. My workflow requires switching between multiple notes rapidly (e.g., TODO list, Project 1, Project 2, Employee 1, Employee 2, Meeting Notes 1, and so on) and Joplin doesn't have native tabs. The plugin is only so so but it works only on desktop (I'm on Mac).

On mobile it's a disaster. Doubly so on iPad which is just stretched phone version - working productively on iPad (which is otherwise just fine for my job) is impossible with Joplin. Plus the mobile app has awful design and awful navigation. Who on Earth would put the most used button to the top left corner? Swipe from the left doesn't work of course because the following:

Neither desktop of mobile app follow the system patterns. Keyboard shortucts, if they exist, are different. Navigation is different. Everything is sort of clunky.

I used Dropbox for sync and while it does work, it's very slow and there's no background sync. On a regular day I have to sync about 50 items (some of them are history I guess) which can take a minute or two, which is the time I don't have when I open my phone and want to quickly add an item to the TODO list. Couple that with no conflict resolution and a recipe for data loss is born :-) .

Initial sync on a new phone took me eight fucking hours when I had to keep the phone open and the app in the foreground.

What I do appreciate is the native encryption. Now I do all my work in Obsidian but keep Joplin for the secrets.

So this is the main problems I had with Joplin. Rant over (but you asked) :-)

[dstorm1]

The mobile design does leave a lot to be desired. It does fit my needs however because usually I am just jotting down a quick idea or reference for later. I can see how switching between multiple notes quickly can be difficult.

Not related to the parent comment but I have been using the math plugin and I love it. It does unit conversion and lots of other things!

[theshrike79]

I tried both, my Joplin experience is a few years ago so grain of salt and all.

Joplin is open source, doesn't really have a plugin ecosystem, has a custom storage format for its data and is _really_ easy and reliable to sync with WebDav (I had mine set up with Fastmail's webdav while sipping my morning coffee)

Obsidian (my current system for going on 2 years) on the other hand is the closest I've gotten to org-mode with a modern tool, with all the pluses and minuses.

The plugin ecosystem is completely crazy, you can find a plugin for pretty much everything. And you'll lose days of actual work progress bikeshedding the plugin system =)

Data is stored as regular standard files (Canvases are the exception, but there really isn't a standard for stuff like that).

Syncing with third party tools is ... workable if you don't switch platforms quickly - basically if you make a note on your phone and immediately switch to desktop, the note might appear or might not, depends on the phase of the moon. iCloud takes a while to sync and sometimes just freezes, works fine if you let it work. Dropbox, OneDrive etc aren't officially supported and tend to have conflicts.

I actually ended up paying for their sync service and it Just Works - even though it's not the cheapest option, but _for_me_ it's worth it because I regularly use multiple devices in short succession on the same notes.