Disclosure: I make Life Dashboard. Take that bias into account. I'll be honest about where Notion and Obsidian beat what I built — there are plenty of cases.
These three tools get compared a lot but they're solving different problems. Notion is a structured workspace and database. Obsidian is a personal knowledge graph in markdown. Life Dashboard is a glanceable widget board. Picking the right one depends entirely on what you actually want — so this post starts with that question.
The 30-second decision tree
- Want a glance-and-go dashboard always visible on a second monitor — habits, weather, tasks, calendar in one window: Life Dashboard.
- Want a long-term notebook / second brain you'll grow over years and link aggressively between notes: Obsidian.
- Want a structured database for projects, wikis, team docs, content calendars — anything where typed columns and views matter: Notion.
- Want all three? Run all three. They genuinely don't overlap much.
What each one actually is
Notion (web-first SaaS)
Hierarchical pages and databases stored in the cloud. Notion's actual unique strength is the database — you can build a "table" with typed columns (date, person, status, relation to another database) and then view that same data as a kanban board, a calendar, a gallery, or a timeline. This is rare in personal-productivity software and it's what Notion is genuinely best at.
Free tier is generous for personal use. Plus tier is $10/user/month for unlimited file uploads and version history. Team tier $15/user/month adds collaboration features.
Obsidian (local markdown files)
Obsidian operates on a folder of plain markdown files on your local disk. The killer feature is bidirectional links between notes plus a graph view of how your notes connect. Build it for years and you accumulate a personal knowledge graph that's genuinely yours — the data is plain text files, no proprietary format, you can read them in Notepad if you want.
Free for personal use. Sync across devices is a paid add-on ($5/month) but you can also just use Dropbox / iCloud / Syncthing for free since it's just files. Publish (web hosting) is also paid. Vast plugin ecosystem.
Life Dashboard (Windows desktop app)
16 small widgets in a single resizable window. Tasks, habits, finance tracker, weather, calendar, sleep log, diet plans, water intake, goals, Pomodoro, notes, RSS news, world clock, quick links, countdowns, motivational quotes. Drag to rearrange, resize, hide what you don't want. Everything stored locally as JSON files in %APPDATA%\Life Dashboard\. No account, no subscription, no telemetry.
Free, forever. Windows 10/11 only. ~104 MB.
Side-by-side
| Feature | Life Dashboard | Notion | Obsidian |
|---|---|---|---|
| Price (personal) | Free | Free / $10/mo | Free |
| Platform | Windows only | Web, Win, Mac, iOS, Android | Win, Mac, Linux, iOS, Android |
| Offline | Yes (always) | Limited (recent pages cache) | Yes (always) |
| Account required | No | Yes | No |
| Storage | Local JSON | Notion's cloud | Local markdown files |
| Habit tracker | Built-in widget | Template only (manual setup) | Plugin only (Habit Tracker) |
| Tasks / to-do | Built-in widget | Built-in (rich) | Plugin (Tasks) |
| Weather | Built-in widget | Embed third-party | Plugin |
| Pomodoro timer | Built-in widget | Embed third-party | Plugin |
| Long-form notes | Basic markdown widget | Strong (rich blocks) | Excellent (markdown native) |
| Linked notes / wiki | No | Yes (page links) | Yes (bidirectional + graph view) |
| Databases / typed columns | No | Best in class | DataView plugin (text-based) |
| Multi-device sync | DIY (Dropbox / OneDrive on data folder) | Built-in | Paid ($5/mo) or DIY |
| Telemetry | None | Standard SaaS analytics | Minimal (opt-out) |
| Plugin ecosystem | No | Limited (integrations only) | Vast (1000+ plugins) |
| Glanceable widget board | Yes (the whole point) | No (page-based) | No (note-based) |
Where Notion is genuinely the right answer
- Project management for small teams. Databases + multiple views + collaboration permissions are excellent. Nothing in Obsidian or Life Dashboard touches this.
- Content calendars and editorial workflows. Posts as database entries with status / publish date / author / channel as typed columns. Filter views per channel. Notion was built for this.
- Wikis with structured metadata. Internal documentation where each page has tags, owners, last-reviewed date.
- You need access from any device with no setup. Web app first means iPhone, Android, friend's laptop, all just work.
- You're already in the Notion ecosystem and have years of pages there. Don't migrate for the sake of migrating.
Where Obsidian is genuinely the right answer
- Long-term personal knowledge base ("second brain"). Bidirectional links, graph view, daily notes, Zettelkasten workflows. Obsidian's natural strength.
- Researchers / writers / academics. Citation plugins, footnote support, MathJax rendering, deep markdown.
- You want full ownership of your data forever. Plain markdown files in folders. Even if Obsidian Inc. disappears tomorrow, your notes still open in any text editor.
- You enjoy customising your tools. The plugin and theme ecosystem is enormous. People build entire personal operating systems out of Obsidian setups.
Where Life Dashboard is genuinely the right answer
- You want a glanceable view in the corner of a second monitor. Habits, today's tasks, weather, the time, current Pomodoro all in one window you don't even have to focus to read. Notion and Obsidian aren't designed for this — they want focus.
- You want zero setup and immediate utility. Install, open, the dashboard works. No "build your own template" required, no "watch a 30-minute YouTube tutorial first".
- Habit + task + sleep + finance tracking that's checkmark-simple. The phone-app habit tracker but on Windows desktop where you actually work.
- You don't want a cloud account or sync between devices. Single PC, your data, never leaves the machine.
Where each one is the wrong answer
Don't pick Notion if: you want strict data ownership, you work offline frequently, you're allergic to cloud SaaS pricing creep (Notion has raised prices multiple times since 2020), you find their "AI" features intrusive in the free tier.
Don't pick Obsidian if: you want collaboration, you want a glanceable dashboard, you want something that works without 2-3 hours of initial configuration, you don't want to manage plugins.
Don't pick Life Dashboard if: you need cross-device sync built-in, you want to write long-form documents, you need Mac / Linux / mobile support, you want a structured database.
What I actually use, personally
All three. I'm not joking — they don't overlap.
- Life Dashboard on a second monitor. Habits checked daily, today's tasks, weather, Pomodoro for deep-work sessions, water intake reminder, sleep log.
- Obsidian for long-form thinking. Project notes, blog post drafts, what I learned this week, daily journal.
- Notion for the bits where database structure matters — content calendar for this site, software roadmap with status columns, occasional client work where collaboration is needed.
That setup costs me $0 (Notion's free personal tier is enough for my volume; Life Dashboard and Obsidian are free). Total RAM impact: about 250 MB across all three because Life Dashboard is small and Obsidian doesn't load until I open it.
Three quick-pick recommendations
Just want one: Notion. The most general-purpose. Will fit most people's needs even if not perfectly.
Want two: Notion for structured stuff + Life Dashboard for day-to-day routine tracking. They cover different surfaces of the productivity problem.
Want maximum control over your data: Obsidian + Life Dashboard. Both fully local, both yours forever, no cloud account anywhere.