Obsidian and Logseq are the two leading local-first, Markdown-based note-taking apps. Both store your notes as plain text files you own forever. Both support backlinks, graph views, and community plugins. But they model knowledge differently, and the choice between them depends on how your brain organizes information.
Obsidian is document-centric. You write notes as full pages. Backlinks connect pages bi-directionally. The graph view visualizes connections. Plugins add features like Kanban boards, spaced repetition, and daily notes. The workflow feels like building a personal Wikipedia: pages that grow over time and link to each other naturally. If you think in prose and want your notes to read like a knowledge base, Obsidian is your tool.
Logseq is outline-centric. Every note is a bulleted outline. Blocks — individual bullet points — are the atomic unit, and they can be referenced, embedded, and linked just like pages. The daily journal is the default entry point. The block-based approach makes Logseq feel more like a thinking tool than a writing tool. If you think in hierarchies and bullet points and want to compose ideas from fragments, Logseq matches your brain.
Both are free for personal use. Both sync via iCloud, Git, or their paid sync services. Both have active plugin ecosystems. The choice is not about features — it is about whether you think in documents or outlines.