Obsidian — User Review Analysis
AI analysis of Obsidian reviews from power users and note-taking enthusiasts. What they love, what frustrates them.
Overall Verdict
Obsidian
🍎 2 App Store·🤖 500 Google Play·reviews analysed
Obsidian users deeply love its flexibility, local storage, and customization but are extremely frustrated by broken copy/paste, app freezes, slow performance, and the requirement to pay for basic sync functionality. The mobile experience has significant bugs that make basic text editing painful, while the paid sync barrier drives users away despite loving the desktop version.
What Users Love
Highly customizable with plugins and themes, extreme flexibility
“Without doubt THE best note-taking app. Customization and features unmatched.”
Local-first storage with markdown files, data ownership and privacy
“Big Tech sucks, Obsidian is the remedy. Full control, files save locally.”
Powerful linking system for building knowledge base and second brain
“The linking feature is useful, making it easy to connect ideas.”
No ads, completely free core features without forced upgrades
“Completely free, not a hint of premium. Only paid sync. No ads anywhere.”
Cross-platform desktop and mobile with markdown portability
“Files are just .md files, small and easy to transfer to other programs.”
Top Feature Requests
Free or native Google Drive sync instead of paid subscription
“No way to sync without subscription. Not clear when setting up on PC.”
Better widgets that display note content, not just shortcuts
“Widgets don't display content of a note. Makes them useless.”
Ability to pin/organize notes on homepage for quick access
“Lacks ability to pin notes on homepage for to-dos and task management.”
Table of contents or better navigation for large notes
“How should I navigate a large note? No Table of Contents or scrollbar?”
Official local encryption feature for privacy
“Great app but needs a local encryption feature.”
Biggest Concerns
Copy/paste functionality is broken or extremely buggy
“Copy paste is optimized to torture you as long as possible”
App freezes when long-pressing folders/files in menu
“App freezes every time you long press folder. Just stays frozen purple.”
Sync is paid subscription causing data loss or requiring manual work
“Can't sync without paying. I regret wasting time taking notes on this.”
Slow startup time and laggy performance on mobile
“Startup time is awful, wait 10 seconds staring at blank document.”
Text selection is unreliable, deselects randomly during editing
“Selecting text to copy is horrible. Gets deselected randomly.”
Recent UI updates made app slower and less intuitive
“New update made everything slow, clunky and unappealing. No low motion mode.”
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