Best Notes app for 2025 is Obsidian (FREE Vault Template download)

I think obsidian is the best note taking app going into 2025 especially for me it helps me run my business it helps me run the YouTube channels that I do it helps me work on all of the other personal things that I ever take notes on plus I use it for work purposes as well now there are some arguments against using obsidian which I want to cover in this video but I do want to mention that this channel was built on talking about software and the reason I've stopped doing so many obsidian videos is because

it is so simple which might sound a bit odd because there are YouTube channels talking about how to use obsidian because it can be complicated but note can be if I look at obsidian at what it really is it's a file which lets me put headings in and text in just like any other text editor word it's got a left side bar which word also has it's got stuff at the top which again word also has and then an outline on the right which is slightly different but I don't think is complex I've been talking

about this in my course for about 2 years I don't use the graph View and most of the community plugin aren't necessary there are main features that I use obsidian for over things like Microsoft Word such as the split view so I can drag it from the right to the left or left to the right make a third split or drag it down but once you've understood or grasped or learned that you can left click and drag things around inside of obsidian then that's it that's one feature the second feature that I use is the

quick switcher so when I push control o which is a hotkey you don't have to use the hotkey you can push a button you can quickly switch between files which is just like a document search on your computer whether you're on Windows or Mac is just inside of obsidian on the other hand you could just go through the folders and files which many people already do it's a typical folder structure and then when it comes to plugins core plugins in obsidian that it already has is the outline plugin again available in most word editors a

saved favorites or bookmark panel which I have in the top left again you can move it where you want but again this is nothing complex you click the three dots and click bookmark and it will add it to the bookmarks and the last feature in obsidian which is really the only new feature that comes from traditional word editors is linking bracket bracket and then you link to a file but that the majority of note taking tools and word processes have which I don't think adds any more complexity than any other note taking app being discussed

so when I hear arguments saying the graph VI is too complicated or useless or linking is too confusing don't use the graph VI I personally don't I've been using obsidian for over 3 years and still haven't found a use for it and linking only link where you find appropriate for example I link a source to a project that's it because I want to quickly go between the project to the source file or the source file to the project I don't use the back Links panel or the outgoing Links panel they're there they're nice but I

don't use them I just use them as links like you would an external Link in a normal Word document or text processor and I think that the complexity argument is because of this the 2,000 plus plugins that you could use but again I'm going to emphasize could you don't really need plugins and even though you can see I have a couple installed um data view I have one query and that's for one specific use case Morgan Tas is because I use Morgan calendar app which if you don't use you wouldn't need Pam do I only

use to export from obsidian to Microsoft Word which if you're not doing manuscript writing or need to share something with someone else in a word doc format you wouldn't need paste URL into selection is just a quality of life feature that I personally like but again you don't need it plugin update tracker is because I have Community plugins but if you don't use any you don't need it a quick ad plugin I have two quick ads for one to quickly create a project file in a folder which I could rightclick create new file and then

use the default template so I don't need this again it's a small quality of life feature and the other one is just a different version of a project task plugin is related to the Morgan task because I use the format of the obsidian task plugin to bring task into Morgan so again if you're not using obsidian as a task app or project app you wouldn't need either of these plugins templator has one specific use case relating to again Morgan tasks so project management inside of obsidian and then the zoto integration is only useful if you

use zoto and bring highlighted sources from zoto into obsidian from my experience academics may use the pandoc to export and zoto to import but apart from that they don't need any other plugins those using obsidian for more task and project management maybe you want just the obsidian tasks maybe you want data view as well and quick ad as well but this is like maxed out I can't find another use for other community plugins in my personal workflow and most of those Community plugins I don't actually need they are small quality of life improvements which I

could easily do without I'm not saying obsidian isn't technical because it can be CSS JavaScript code it can look scary it looks scary to me at first but you don't need any of it the only thing you really need would be understanding that if you put a hashtag in a space it turns into a heading which if you use notion or other note taking tools that are out there it's very very similar I'm not going to go through my entire Vault or how I set it up I talk about that in the course which I

have a link in the description for but you can see this is a project file it's in my projects folder it's got the title it's got a task because it goes into Morgan and then it's got a couple of headings to get me started from the template when I make a project file it goes into the folder which as you can see is up there and what this data view query does is as you can see here it just looks for the file and on the left you can see I've got a file research projects

which is just a file with links to the other projects so ecological Dynamics online by yby you can see it's there I made a new project so it's linked at the top and that's all the state of view query looks for is the file Linked In this file if it is don't show it if it isn't show it to make sure that it's linked there why do I have this file cuz if I open up the folder you can see it's quite big I think I've got about 600 files in here yeah 678 but when

I open up research projects you can see I've got headings so I can categorize them slightly easier inside of this file rather than looking through the folder system but speaking of my folder system I have project files source files template files which I've got a couple in there which I have various zotter templates as examples I have a skit template which I use zotter template which I use project template which I use and then Source template which I use occasionally but it's very rare you'll also notice I have eastborne plane now this is a folder

inside of my obsidian vault which could be another obsidian Vault you can see it's an option down here in My Vault switcher so I have a vault inside of a vault that means if I just want to focus on eor trampoline stuff I.E business work I can just open up that Vault and forget all of this other stuff that I have in here for YouTube and research and the rest of it and the main reason I can use obsidian for managing businesses is I can use exteral documents I have my docx file I have Excel

files in here as well for finances so you can see my money Finance Excel document is inside my bookmarks I have markdown files course information in here but then I also have another Excel file I've got a Word document file and then I have the option to link to PowerPoints or PDFs that I may need for various reasons maybe that's certificates or qualifications or things that I need to present at conferences or whatever it is I can do all that from or manage all of that from obsidian so for me Obsidian is my fleeting Notes

app it is my main research tool it is also my business organization tool and it's my project manager for everything that I'm doing which also includes like meeting up with friends and family and flight plans and travel destinations and the rest of it that's all inside of obsidian that's why for me Obsidian is the best app in 2025 but also why I haven't been making loads of obsidian videos because obsidian is simple at the face of it you don't have to make it complicated or complex so I don't really want to do videos on how

to add a file in a folder multiple times hopefully that's understandable but if you do have any questions or queries let me know in the comments section below and I will try and get back to them as best as I can