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I run my entire life out of Obsidian. It's not only my favorite app, but I personally believe it's the best note-taking app on the planet. And today, I'm grading every aspect of Obsidian, and unfortunately, not everything gets an A.

In this newsletter, I break down my ratings of every Obsidian category and share my personal ratings. But if you want to full review, check out my blog post (~4000 words, far too long for an email).

Here's how I graded Obsidian in 2026.

🖥️ Desktop ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

The desktop version is where Obsidian really shines. I have 53,000+ files in my vault, 48 active Community plugins, and the app handles everything without breaking a sweat. Yes, it’s an Electron app, but it's easy to forget that based on how snappy it is. The occasional slowness in the big Graph View is expected at my vault size, but that’s my only complaint, and it’s easy to work around. The performance improvements over the past year or two have been substantial.

📱 Mobile ⭐⭐⭐

Mobile has made real progress, but it's still got a ways to go. Version 1.11 added Lock Screen and Home Screen widgets, Control Center integration, and native Shortcuts and Siri support on iOS. But there’s a fundamental problem that none of these additions solve: the app still has to fully load your vault before you can do anything. There's just too much friction for it to really be useful for quick capture. I use Drafts for this instead, and apps like Actions for Obsidian and Widgets for Obsidian fill in the gaps better than the native options do.

🔌 Core Plugins ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The core plugin system in Obsidian is brilliant. You get a rich set of built-in features, but you can keep the app simple by toggling off anything you don’t need. The list of Core plugins keeps growing, and the quality is generally high. My one ongoing frustration: some Core plugins are in serious need of some TLC. For example, the Daily Notes core plugin and the Calendar plugin should really be combined, and the developer of the Calendar community plugin is literally on the Obsidian team. I’d love to see things like Calendar and Periodic Notes baked into the core app to make it more useful out of the box.

⚙️ Community Plugins ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Community plugins are Obsidian’s killer feature. The extension ecosystem lets you transform the app and build a custom workflow for whatever you might possibly need. The plugin directory is pretty robust, and the breadth and quality of what’s available is remarkable. The one real concern I have is sustainability, and there’s no guarantee your favorite community-maintained plugin stays active. That’s a real risk worth being aware of, even if the community has historically been good about picking up abandoned projects.

🤖 Automation ⭐⭐⭐⭐

The automation story in Obsidian is genuinely powerful but hard to access. Callback URL support enables real two-way integrations with external apps. You can accomplish almost anything if you’re willing to put in the work. The recent addition of official Command Line support is powerful, but a bit complicated and has a high learning curve. The built-in Shortcuts support is a step in the right direction, but in practice is too limited to cover most real workflows without third-party tools like Actions for Obsidian.

🖼 Themes & Customization ⭐⭐⭐

I love the idea of custom themes more than I love using them. Obsidian updates frequently break theme compatibility, and since most themes are free without an incentive to keep them updated by the developers, many end up abandoned. A significant chunk of the troubleshooting emails I get can be traced back to using a third-party theme. My recommendation: stick with the default theme and customize with CSS snippets instead. The default theme has improved a lot, and snippets give you targeted control without the maintenance headache.

🎨 Canvas ⭐⭐⭐

Canvas is complicated. The ability to build rich dashboards inside your vault is incredible, letting you mix notes, code snippets, and visual layouts on an infinite canvas. I’ve used it to build some pretty powerful dashboards, as I walk through in this video. But Canvas still has quite a few rough edges and missing features that should’ve been added by now. For example, Publish support has been “on the roadmap” for a very long time. It needs a meaningful update.

🗃 Bases ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Bases is the most exciting thing added to Obsidian in years. It gives you multiple views — list, table, card — into your notes based on their properties, and suddenly, the whole Properties system that confused people when it launched makes complete sense. I’m already rethinking workflows I’ve had in place for years. It’s still early, and a few key views like Kanban and Calendar are still coming, but the foundation is exceptional.

🔄 Sync ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Obsidian Sync does exactly what it promises — end-to-end encrypted syncing across Mac, Windows, iOS, Android, and Linux, with version history included. It had a rough start years ago, but at this point, it’s rock solid. At $4–8/month depending on the plan, it’s one of the better values in the Obsidian ecosystem. If you want simple, secure, reliable sync, this is the answer.

🌐 Publish ⭐⭐⭐⭐

Publish isn’t for everyone, but if you need a public wiki-style site built directly from your vault, it’s a surprisingly capable option. You get a local graph, password protection, and a clean reading experience for $8/month. It needs work in a few areas — no native RSS feed, and Bases and Canvas support are still absent — but for the right use case, the ability to publish straight from your notes without a separate CMS is genuinely valuable.

Want to go deeper? I break all of this down (including community survey scores) in the blog post & YouTube video.

​

— Mike

P.S. On Wednesday, I'm presenting a webinar with my friend Thom Gibson, who runs a newsletter for WFH Dads. He was recently a guest on the Focused podcast, and afterwards, we decided we wanted to co-host a webinar together to help busy knowledge workers stay productive without sacrificing what matters most. The webinar is free, and you can sign up here.