Logseq vs Obsidian - Which to Choose?

I actually use both. Logseq is my go-to app for my fleeting notes, planning and when I'm in research mode. When I'm ready to put those notes into my own words, that's when I switch to Obsidian... I also use Obsidian for my long-form writing.

I used obsidian for ages and it worked well.... but never really felt seamless. I am a writer by occupation so I need short and long form writing. I tried moving my longform to Obsidian but the cost was a big factor. Finally settled my zettelkasten in Logseq after realising that I am a outliner note-taker by trade. Also - as I am neurodivergent while some plugins are nice, having unlimited customisation made me more focused on customising than note taking. It became overwhelming. I am also someone that uses emojis and colours. Logseq has an easier way to also handle metadata, querying and ways of displaying files. By that I mean even showing the folders at the side was annoying to scroll instead of just a basic search - without showing you all the files. I know features are still in Beta but as someone who primarily takes their laptop with them when they are 'doing writing' I know it serves my purpose. I outline in Logseq but when I am doing my actual article writing - I use Scrivener which is much easier to manage, store and add metadata that is there but not in your face and has so many buttons and whistles that it is distracting.

Really glad that this video was in my recs. Please keep making videos, you're truly good at this! I've just recently switched from notion to obsidian and I'm still getting used to it. I read about logseq but never tried it, maybe I should

I was almost converted to Logseq by the fact that it can do queries and annotate PDFs out of the box. And then I discovered that it doesn't adhere to Markdown standards as much as Obsidian does. That alone was unfortunately a deal breaker for me. Part of the whole point of using a markdown based system was that it's future proof and should Obsidian ever stop being developed, I can move my data to a different app. Even with Logseq having the advantage of being opensource, if the devs stop working on it and no one else picks it up, having non-standard markdown beneath it all is going to screw users over.

Absolutely fantastic video! Really helped me decided which I wanted to use, thank you!

I tried to use Obsidian, adding outliner and journaling plugins but it didn work because Obsidian doesn't work well with block units. In my Logseq's journal, I start a paragraph(a.k.a. block) for each client/team meeting during the day and write the name of the client/meeting on it (it automatically recognize the name and links it to my client's page), then I write indented bullets bellow for each comment or task. Latter on, I can go to the backlinks section in each client's page where I can see not only the journal's paragraphs lines with the links, but also all the child indented comments and tasks, and I can actually edit them there (This is called transclusion, i think). So i have an automated report by client, project, team or whatever just by looking at the backlinks. Obsidian doesn't inherit the paragraphs indented rows and you cannot edite them right there in the backlinks. That's a deal breaker for me. I wish Logseq had the beautiful UI of Obsidian or Roam or Capacities.

Logseq is completely open source. It means that if maintenance is dropped by the current people, other may fork it and my data will still be usable. For personal usage, this is what I need.

I tried Obsidian but I always come back to Logseq. I gravitate towards the time-stamping style of Logseq

The most underrated feature is that you don't need to think where to put notes given the underlying calendar date, blocks and backlinking there is a record and that's really powerful. Don't make me think philosophy just works.

Thanks for this. Interestingly, it convinced me that I’m best off sticking with Obsidian, which underscores your balanced comparison.

Love the work you have done on Logseq, best content on this topic on YouTube. It's a pleasure sitting back and letting you pass your information on. Well done :) As a suggestion, I would really like to see a further in-depth video with examples specifically on how you go about categorising your pages and tags. For instance a way to keep things easily referencable after taking 6 months worth of notes from different meetings and different projects. Just a thought ! Otherwise keep up the great work

Thanks for the recap Alan! As an OG of both apps, I agree. LogSeq's strongest feature is its daily journal. And it fits to write and let the app do the organizing for you. And for those who like to organize everything manually using tags and folders, Obsidian is best for you. What tips the scale for me is friction. There's too much friction to write in Obsidian's daily journal. And for me no matter how awesome Obsidian is (I, do, think it's awesome), I just don't write on it. And when I don't write, I can't organize anything on it 🤷🏻‍♂ I'd love to give Obsidian a second chance. I think it has the potential to be an awesome app for personal project managing app, if it has less friction. I'd like to know for Obsidian power-users (especially project managers) out there. How do you write on its daily journal everyday?

I'd love it if you could make a video comparing obsedian vs capacities? This was great

I like your frank candid and balance summary of these 2 popular solutions logseq is open source, there for for me is the win but like you say, some folks might just prefer obsidian but it is not free for commercial use, so that is a deal breaker for me as I use it for integration into other systems, like CMS for web site and app creation the block edit with 'bullets' for everything took me by surprise when using logseq however I found you can highlight and export blocks as long prose very easily then it all fell into place using blocks like in this 'outliner' pattern starts to make prose like objects you can move about, which finally made it click for me and then use the plugin 'bullet threading' makes this a joy the lack of plugins for me is actually a win over obsidian as I keep these to a bare minimum as privacy and security is key for me

Nailed it! 🔨I liked your viewpoints and takeaways. I am thinking about using a hybrid of the two as well myself. LogSeq seems like a good replacement for burning one's eyeballs out in MS WordPad. 😂 And if it can run from an Obsidian folder (or vice versa who knows) it's a win-win for shifting personal data away from proprietary cloud notes. 💪

Excellent video that takes the time to really highlight the strengths and weaknesses of both. While I'm obviously skewed to Logseq that doesn't mean I would highly recommend Obsidian to a lot of people. For me it's the open source license and outliner feature that are deal breakers. This doesn't mean I don't look with envy to the speed and robustness of Obsidian. I think a large set of questions stem from the fact that they are so close that people can't really make a good on the spot decision. But as long as you don't use linking to blocks too much it's pretty easy to switch between the two.

Subscribed! Great content and very well delivered!

Which Camera do you use?

I have both on my computer to test i choose but logseq seems do laggy and sometimes does not responding for couple od seconds, like frozen. Anybody have this problem?

Adam, I'm so grateful to have come across your channel. Very structured and well explained videos with professional quality. Tried obsidian for a few months but watching your videos helped me understand why it didn't feel natural to me. All about the concept of 'friction' that you speak about. LogSeq aligns much better with how I work and take notes. Atomic blocks that can be referenced from anywhere. I'm a developer so hope to add some plugins myself or contribute to LogSeq in my free time. Once again, I truly appreciate your videos greatly. I wish you all the best for this channel! Please set up buymeacoffe or equivalent as I'd love to support your work.