# Benefits of Obsidian Obsidian is a powerful note-taking and knowledge-management app that focuses on local, plain-text files and interconnected ideas. Unlike many other tools, it prioritizes longevity, privacy, and linking your notes together. Obsidian is truly unique: - Free for personal and professional use - Extremely fast - Cross-platform (Windows, Linux, MacOS) - Local plain-text Markdown files make it easy to integrate with AI tools (scripts, LLMs) for processing and generating notes; see [[Use cases for AI and local knowledge bases]] - Mobile support - Gets faster with each update - Widgets and quick capture on iOS (support for Apple Shortcuts) - Data stored locally - You own the data (great for security and privacy) - Works offline - No telemetry (no data collection or analytics — your usage stays on your device) - Powerful features for [[Knowledge Management (KM)]]; capturing, organizing, and connecting information: - Links (clickable cross-references between notes) - Backlinks (see which notes link to the current one) - Tags and nested tags - Global and local graph views (interactive maps of how your notes connect) - Automatic outlines - Embedding, aka [[Transclusion]] (display content from one note inside another) - Support for structured data (properties on notes) - Built-in databases (called [[Obsidian Bases]]) leveraging the note properties (similar to spreadsheet-style tables in your notes) - Support for infinite canvas (open specification: [[JSON Canvas]]) - [[Markdown]] - Plain text - De-facto standard - Open and portable data format - Supported by all text editors - Highly customizable - Huge library of plugins and themes (4000+ and growing fast) - Popular ones - Possible to create your own (easy to do using AI - For instance with the help of [[Obsidian AI Skills by Steph Ango]] and my [[Obsidian Plugin Template (Bun)|Obsidian Plugin Template]]) - Assign hotkeys for anything - Large, active community (a major advantage for plugins, support, and themes) - Various ways to publish and sync notes (e.g., [[Obsidian Publish]], [[Obsidian Sync]], [[Syncthing]], and various additional solutions built by the community) - Can be used for task management ## Related - [[Reasons to use Obsidian]] - [[Obsidian Starter Kit]] - [[Why Obsidian is All You Need - From Simple Notes to Complete Productivity (Article)]]