Obsidian is the better app overall, scoring 9.3 to 9.0. Obsidian wins on 3 of the 5 scores, Todoist on 2.
Writers, students and researchers building a long-term personal knowledge base
People and small teams who want a fast, reliable task list on every device
Score by score
The details
| Feature | Obsidian | Todoist |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Productivity & Notes | Productivity & Notes |
| Category rank | #2 of 10 | #3 of 10 |
| Developer | Dynalist Inc. | Doist |
| Pricing | Free + paid plans | Free + paid plans |
| Usable for free | Yes | Yes |
| iPhone & iPad | ✓ | ✓ |
| Android | ✓ | ✓ |
| Mac | ✓ | ✓ |
| Windows | ✓ | ✓ |
| Linux | ✓ | ✓ |
| Web | — | ✓ |
Strengths and weaknesses
Obsidian
- Notes are local files that stay yours forever
- Fast and fully usable offline
- Free for personal and commercial use
- Steep learning curve with many setup choices
- Official sync and publishing are paid add-ons
Obsidian stores your notes as plain Markdown files on your own device, so you own them outright and they work offline. Backlinks, graph view, Canvas and Bases turn a folder of notes into a connected knowledge base, and a large library of community plugins adds almost anything else. It is free for personal and work use. The catch is the learning curve, and syncing between devices costs extra unless you set it up yourself.
Full Obsidian review
Todoist
- Fast, natural language task entry
- Apps for every major platform plus browser add-ons
- Clean design that stays simple as lists grow
- Many useful features require Pro
- No built-in focus timer or habit tracking
Todoist is the to-do app that works everywhere and stays out of your way. Type 'call Sam every Friday at 3pm' and it sets the date and repeat for you. Projects, labels, filters and shared projects scale from a grocery list to team work, and sync across devices is fast and dependable. The free plan covers the basics, but more projects, calendar layouts and longer activity history need Pro.
Full Todoist review
