Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

ZEN VS Obsidian.md

Compare ZEN VS Obsidian.md and see what are their differences

ZEN logo ZEN

Put your finances in order with ZEN – integrated tool which will introduce stability to your budget.

Obsidian.md logo Obsidian.md

A second brain, for you, forever. Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files.
  • ZEN Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-20
  • Obsidian.md Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-01

ZEN videos

Zen by 900 Global | Full Uncut Review with JR Raymond

More videos:

  • Review - The Cronus Zen Good, Bad, and Ugly. An honest product review after 1 full year of use.
  • Review - Which is the Best Strike pack or Cronus Zen | 2021 product Review

Obsidian.md videos

OBSIDIAN: Getting Started, Facts & Pricing

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ZEN and Obsidian.md)
Health And Fitness
100 100%
0% 0
Knowledge Management
0 0%
100% 100
Fintech
100 100%
0% 0
Note Taking
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using ZEN and Obsidian.md. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare ZEN and Obsidian.md

ZEN Reviews

8 Best Payoneer Alternatives – Which Payoneer Competitors You Can Use?
Chargeback claims aren’t anything that ZEN business and individual customers need to be concerned about. ZEN’s care package lets clients follow the necessary steps to report the issue to ZEN which will then work to resolve the problem on behalf of the client.
8 Best Wise Alternatives – Which Wise Competitors Should You Try?
Chargebacks are another thing that ZEN business and individual customers shouldn’t have to concern themselves with. The ZEN care package allows account holders to contact ZEN directly to resolve those issues for them.

Obsidian.md Reviews

  1. The kind of software that may change your life

    Perhaps you know someone who swears by Obsidian, it may seem like a cult of overly devoted people for how passionate they are, but it's not without reason

    I've been using Obsidian for over 3 years, at a point in my life when I felt I had to handle too much information and I felt like grasping water not being able to remember everything I wanted, language learning, programming, accounting, university, daily tasks. A friend recommended it to me next to Notion (of which he is a passionate cultist priest) and I reluctantly picked it and fell in love almost immediately.

    Obsidian seems very simple, like a notepad with folder interface, similar to Sublime Text, but the ability to link files together in a Wiki style allows you to organize ideas in any way you want, one file may lead to a dozen or more ideas that are related

    If you want to do something specific, Obsidian has a plethora of community created plugins that expand the functionality, in my case, I use obsidian to organize my classes both as a teacher and as a student, using local databases, calendars, dictionaries, slides, vector graphic drawings, excel-like tables, Anki connection, podcasts, and more

    🏁 Competitors: Notion, Evernote
    👍 Pros:    Awesome community|Custom plugins|Local hosting|Beautiful themes|Highly customizable|Cloud storage|Becomes more useful over time|Markdown support
    👎 Cons:    Seems complicated/complex at first|Takes time to set up your personal workspace|Overwhelming for first time user
  2. My personal knowledge-base of choice

    I've been using Obsidian for more than a year. It's been great. I think it offer a great balance of control, flexibility and extensibility. What is more, you own your own data, that's been a must-have feature for me. I just can't imagine putting all my knowledge into something that I don't have control over.

    I think two of the most popular alternatives that people consider are Logseq and Roam Research. Although Logseq is a bit different, it's considered compatible with Obsidian. Supposedly, you can use them with a shared database (files. Both use simple text files for storage). I tried that once, a few months ago. It worked, yet it messed up a bit my Obsidian files ¯_(ツ)_/¯.

    🏁 Competitors: Logseq, Roam Research

The 6 best note-taking apps in 2024
One thing to note: Notion bills itself as an Evernote competitor for personal users. It can be—but it's too much for most people, and its offline functionality isn't the best. If you love the idea of Notion, go right ahead and try the free Personal Plan, but for me, it's really best as a team notes app or an AI-powered notes app. Something like Obsidian (which we'll look at...
Source: zapier.com
The best note-taking apps for collecting your thoughts and data
This app is the kind of thing that, if you’re into it, will have you exploring its various ins, outs, and add-ons for days and weeks on end. Obsidian uses the Markdown format for its notes (which means they can be used on a variety of other apps). Your notes and other media are kept locally in a Vault (in other words, a main folder). There are ways to sync between devices...
The best encrypted note taking apps
For a consumer coming from Evernote, Notion, OneNote, or a similar product, we would advise trying Obsidian along another product on this list as it has the largest learning curve. However, if you are an expert with markdown, experts, linking, and graph views, Obsidian could be an excellent choice. Like many other configuration options, Obsidian leaves end-to-end encryption...
Source: www.skiff.com
Supercharge Your Productivity: Three Recommended Tools for Thought
One of my AP Productivity: Cohort mentors has a powerful system pairing Obsidian with OmniFocus. In OmniFocus, he builds his project and task structures, and in Obsidian he develops and organizes the project support materials as well as other relevant information. Because it’s easy to link to an Obsidian note or an OmniFocus project, he can seamlessly navigate back and forth...
Source: medium.com
Logseq vs Roam Research vs Obsidian: which one should you choose?
Block Reference and block embeds: Adding block reference and block embeds in Logseq is simple. You use double-open parentheses (( and type to search the block you want to link. In Obsidian, you have to first add the link to the note and then use # to embed headers and ^ to embed blocks.– Obsidian also makes it hard to see the origin of block references, as they are only...
Source: medium.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Obsidian.md seems to be a lot more popular than ZEN. While we know about 1459 links to Obsidian.md, we've tracked only 5 mentions of ZEN. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

ZEN mentions (5)

  • Found the Revolut Alternative?
    A few days ago I got rejected in the verification process. After that some of you advised me to take a look at Wise, but after using it the cost for currency exchange getting higher and higher. Now I have found another app, which its cold zen.com . Top up is free if you transfer the money to the IBAN who is given to you, and also currency exchange is less expensive (in my app stands even it is free, whithout a... Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Unrecognized order in my account: what to do to get support?
    Every support option in G2A site only forwards me either to the seller (it's not a sellers' problem), or to zen.com (their payment gateway, that again, don't have anything to do with it, since the order originated from g2a site). But I need support for a issue inside g2a platform...it's an order I didn't place. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • G2A does not want my money - bad bad customer journey.
    Fair enough. I proceed as instructed, few days later someone from zen.com asks me to provide the transaction details and then I explain that there was no transaction. I provide evidence as needed. Source: about 2 years ago
  • This site is ripping people off
    I got an email stating that I'll be charged an inactivity fee, so I logged in (multiple times) to reset the timer. I got charged an inactivity fee. Twice. I raised a support ticket to clear things up, and they directed me to send an email to [hello@zen.com](mailto:hello@zen.com), which I'm assuming is their vendor for payments. I have nothing to do with zen.com so it's ridiculous to expect me to handle this... Source: about 2 years ago
  • Please Help Us Choose The Logo
    Also zen.com Mastercard payment gateway, but if you will search the word Zen - it's the official sign of the word itself :) So I'm not sure if you can call it a copyright since the Ensō of Zen (circular form) is about 2000 years old. Source: over 2 years ago

Obsidian.md mentions (1459)

  • My 111-Day Experience with The Odin Project
    What do I use to document everything? Obsidian notes. - Source: dev.to / 6 days ago
  • How can I upload images through the API?
    I have written an Obsidian plugin that can publish notes from Obsidian as articles on DEV.to, which also deals with some Obsidian specific stuff, e.g. Converting Obsidian medialinks to markdown links, separating title from content, and convert MathJax syntax to proper {% katex %} expressions; and it can handle subsequent updates, by storing the article id as metadata after the article is created. - Source: dev.to / 6 days ago
  • From Chaos to Clarity: My Journey with Obsidian
    The article definitely assumes you know that 'Obsidian' is a reference to the text editor found at https://obsidian.md/. - Source: Hacker News / 26 days ago
  • How to remember everything for standup
    I've encountered a lot of engineers who keep a journal and pen around, but you could also use a note-taking app like Notes, Obsidian, or Notion. - Source: dev.to / 25 days ago
  • HTTP request from Obsidian notes
    Are you an Obsidian user looking to elevate your note-taking experience with dynamic data integration? Look no further than APIR (api-request) – an Obsidian plugin designed to streamline HTTP requests directly into your notes. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing ZEN and Obsidian.md, you can also consider the following products

SitApp - Desktop app to monitor posture and remind you to sit up!

Joplin - Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor.

Hand Mirror for Mac - A one-click camera check, right from the menu bar

Notion - All-in-one workspace. One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized.

Curie - Your personal posture trainer at work

Logseq - Logseq is a local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook for organizing and sharing your personal knowledge base.