As for Obsidian, I’ve tested both as a standalone App (without DT), and as a companion App (indexing the vault inside DT).
I already had tested Obsidian about 2 years ago, but it never clicked.
So after many months I went back full to DT.
I realised all the features I needed to keep my PKM were already in DT.
Obsidian, on the other side, forced me to some workaround in order to replace the way I used DT.
Ok Obsidian is open…but how open is it?
It has plugins, and they are very powerful, but there is no warranty they will be there from here to some time: when I went back to Obsidian I discovered many plugins I used 2 years ago hadn’t been updated since then.
Furthermore, plugins in Obsidian may be something that will lock you in.
I mean: I use Obsidian because the notes are text files, is it?
Then I start to use plugins such as Data View and similar, very powerful, but…have you ever checked those files with another text editor?
So what would happen if you wanted to move your PKM from Obsidian to another text editor, after using so many and pervasive plugins?
We often look at these things from a technical point of view, but we forget the sink costs.
If you make a heavy use of the plugins in Obsidian, then you’ll not be able to move somewhere else anymore, and it’s where Obsidian risks to lock you in.
That said, I really liked how I was able to manage the notes in Obsidian: very friendly interface and great themes (for the pleasure and relax of my eyes).
I wish DT had something like this!
And thanks to that days I realised how so many things can be converted to a simple text file.
Do you store an episode of your preferred podcast? You transcribe the text and you’re done.
As for that video on Youtube? Maybe you can do the same, or at least you can add a link to the video to the transcription.
On the other side, on DT I know I would be able to move my whole PKM anywhere else with a very low sink cost.
And I really prefer to work with the original files.
It’s ok I can transcribe a podcast, but I like to keep the audio file along with the transcription as annotation, so that I have two versions of the same story.
It’s my own experience, of course, and if people are fine with Obsidian and its plugins, I respect their thought.