Notion vs Obsidian: what their users struggle with

UI & usability is where they differ most: 13 of the 32 Notion reports on file (all years) against 8 of the 32 Obsidian reports, each linked to where it was said. The table below counts only the recent reports.

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Every count in this table is of open reports in the recent window (Notion since 2023-11, Obsidian since 2023-11); older and fixed reports are not counted. The counts measure how much public discussion exists for each product, not which is better: a popular tool collects more reports.

Problems mostly raised about Notion

• Slow performance makes editing feel cumbersome · Performance · Annoyance
• Account suspension permanently deletes data without export · Data export & migration · Blocks work
• Updates feel more focused on corporate users than solopreneurs · Other · Annoyance
• Notion calendar table is too feature-rich for daily planning · UI & usability · Blocks work
• Losing track of information as a model grows · UI & usability · Annoyance

Problems mostly raised about Obsidian

• Paid Sync is difficult to avoid on iOS · Pricing & plans · Annoyance
• Obsidian Sync fails to sync reliably · Reliability & bugs · Annoyance
• Running an Obsidian vault in a jail can break paths and lose state · Reliability & bugs · Annoyance
• Git plugin has erased history and notes · Reliability & bugs · Blocks work
• Cannot manually sort notes · UI & usability · Annoyance

Go further

Open Notion and Obsidian in the compare tool to filter by area and severity, Notion alternatives, Obsidian alternatives, or the state of workspace and files.

How the data is built. A theme is a group of reports about the same problem; unique means not matched to a theme on the other product.