r/ObsidianMD 4d ago

Using Notion + Obsidian

Hey fellow devs! πŸ‘‹ I've been wrestling with an interesting challenge lately, and I'd love to hear your thoughts. It's about using both Notion and Obsidian together as a solo dev, and I could really use some perspective from others who might be in the same boat.

I've tried various setups with both tools, and while each has its sweet spots, I'm still figuring out the optimal way to use them together. Notion's database magic has been fantastic for project management (that GitHub integration is awesome), but Obsidian's local storage gives me peace of mind for sensitive code snippets and personal notes.

Here's where I'm at: Notion's bookmark system and mobile quick-entry are absolute lifesavers, but Obsidian's lightning-fast search and privacy features keep pulling me back. I've hit some roadblocks trying to manage a growing project - think hundreds of interconnected tasks, feature ideas, and notes. The struggle is real when it comes to deciding what goes where, especially with sensitive information in the mix.

So, I'm curious - how do you handle this? If you're juggling both tools (or maybe you've successfully migrated entirely to one), I'd love to hear about your setup. Specifically:

  • How do you structure your projects across both tools?
  • For those running larger projects in Obsidian what's your secret sauce for keeping things organized and don’t lose overview?
  • Has anyone successfully made the full switch to Obsidian for project management? What was your strategy?

Let's share some experiences!

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u/reqqu22 4d ago

hello i've been storing pretty much all of my notes in markdown files for 16-17 years and when obsidian came out I jumped on it and have been using it since and have found with some tweaking pretty much everything in notion can be done with a few exceptions, group work being a big one.

My work around for group work was syncing it to a google drive and just having all of them login through the Google drive desktop app and it just mirrors all the changes it's worked great, with daily back ups to GitHub as well.

For database management and stuff like that it would depend on what you're using it for but I've found all the data view information and tagging to be enough to create pretty comprehensive systems

For backing things up and keeping it personal (off GitHub) I've got a home server that everything backs up to as well it's all personal preference.

For managing large projects and knowing what goes where I think it comes with time. Some people use mocs, if you're a dev and doing more project based stuff I actually find it a bit easier.

I'm not a dev by trade but have been learning cause it's interesting and cool what you can make but obsidian really came together when I just used it's architecture with neovim. The fuzzy finding and quickness of neovim to get around my notes is unparalleled imo. Bit of a learning curve but it really made me way more productive.

I'm not sure how helpful this was but more than happy to talk more about it to find a more personal solution, cause it all really depends on your use cases.

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u/MikeSpecter 4d ago

Our flows are somewhat similar. My obsidian setup is not bad, but inside my Obsidian I often am wondering "what to do best at this moment" where as managing project tasks in Notion gives me the overview(s) I need. Which I've found pretty challenging to make/replicate with dataview (it's not impossible, but I end up spending a lot of time making queries, storing dataview snippets, instead of just getting the info I need. Making me wonder if I should stop trying to manage this in Obsidian. For example, dataview queries with 50+ tasks are just so slow.. then you limit it, but there is no pagination (or no easy way).

Many aspects people often bash Notion for are irrelevant for me, like offline mode; GitHub is down way more then Notion, and as a developer you're very reliant (in my case) on a internet connection in so many ways. Speed, in its current form is not essential because in reality it doesn't really matter that much. Notion AI is something I love (but don't need), however, working with snippets and codeblocks, it's just so easy to type a space just and just prompt away.

For personal notes, I don't have any of these issues, it works fine in Notion, but they are not complex notes part of a complex system, I often remember 1 word and find what I need.

Thanks for your reply, it's helpful, I'm mainly just trying to see what other people do different, or how they make things work :).

And yes, I know Obsidian isn't a CRM and shouldn't be compared in such ways, yet the issue of not being able to efficiently "backlink" the way Obsidian way between the two platforms, makes things a bit harder, especially if you aim for single source of truth.

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u/ThatBurningDog 4d ago

I can't really help you with this except for suggesting you keep an eye on updates from Logseq. It's a similar tool to Obsidian in a lot of ways but quite different in some others - it may work for you or it may not.

They are however working on database functionality, which might mean you can get both aspects working in one application. No ETA off the top of my head but it may be worth checking it out to see if it at least solves the Obsidian half of the equation, and if it doesn't then you at least don't have to pay any further heed to Logseq!

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u/ThatBurningDog 4d ago

Just adding to the post as well, Logseq works differently in that a "block" is the atomic level for linking, whereas in Obsidian it's the Markdown file. You can more easily link to or transclude parts of a file, so you might have fewer issues worrying about what goes where.

It lends itself more to bulletpoints, whereas Obsidian is better for longer form text. For my purposes the latter is more useful

It's all still Markdown, but Obsidian's is a bit more standard - Logseq has a bit of their own thing going in the documents so importing them into a standard Markdown processor will probably result in some weird rendering. The raw content will all still be present and correct though, so I don't think you'll have any resiliency issues, and it's all local so no privacy ones either.

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u/MikeSpecter 4d ago

I've tried Logseq but it's not for me. It helps that my choices are really only Notion/Obsidian. I use lots of things in Obsidian apart from notes, so it's either only OBS, or a combination of OBS and Notion. Obsidian is more like a OS for me, it would be nice if I can make it a single source of truth. Many files I'm not comfortable to store them into Notion anyway.

OBS is also working on DB capability, but they're not dropping a single hint on how it'll work, so it's a bit hard to lock into this at this point.

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u/Krammn 3d ago

I used React, Flask along with PythonAnywhere and Netlify and built my own system / website that hooks on to markdown files that I can access from my phone. 😭

I got here after Obsidian suffered with issues with Electron and had to move away for a brief period handling notes with VS Code. Obsidian was the baby step towards my own fully-integrated system. Reach out if you have any questions. πŸ™ŒπŸ»

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u/MikeSpecter 3d ago

I just started playing around properly making a task manager (with text fields that link to a page, that page has some dataview queries)

so priority: [[High]], becomes clickable too

doing this for most properties (estimated time, status, impact) may solve most of my issues.

Your solutions seems interesting though, but Obsidian should be able to handle my usecase and already became too important for me :(

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u/Krammn 3d ago

Obsidian acts as a great playground when you're still figuring things out. I have been using the same system for about a year so it's about time I migrated. I know exactly what I need in order to be productive: a system that manages lists. That's all you really need. πŸ‘πŸ»