Choosing an app for Zettelkasten — Obsidian, Apple Notes and ZettelkastenNote
The first hurdle in starting a Zettelkasten is usually “which app?” The books don’t prescribe one, and there are many candidates. Here the main options are weighed against what the method actually needs.
Four things Zettelkasten needs from a tool
Working back from the method, the requirements boil down to four:
- Small units. One idea per card. Tools that only do long pages fight you.
- Two-way connections. Cards link to each other and the link is visible from both ends (backlinks).
- Capture in the moment. If you can only write at a desk, you lose the most valuable notes — the passing thoughts.
- A way to resurface. Cards you wrote must come back to you, not disappear after saving.
Obsidian: maximum freedom, assembly required
Obsidian stores Markdown files in folders and connects them with [[links]]. Backlinks, a graph view and a huge plugin ecosystem make it one of the most popular tools among Zettelkasten practitioners.
It suits people who enjoy building their own environment. Templates, daily notes and plugins can realize any workflow. The flip side: requirements 1 and 3 are yours to design. Whether a file holds one idea or a long essay is up to you, and fast capture from iPhone takes plugins or shortcuts to set up. Plain-text files mean your data is portable to any future app — a real advantage.
Apple Notes: effortless capture, no connections
Apple Notes is on every Apple device and opens from the lock screen in seconds. For requirement 3, nothing beats it.
But it lacks requirement 2. There is no way to link notes to each other; you’re left with folders and tags, so the heart of Zettelkasten — knowledge growing through connections — isn’t possible. As a place to catch fleeting notes it’s excellent, and “capture in Apple Notes, turn into Zettels elsewhere” is a realistic combination.
ZettelkastenNote: the method built into the structure
ZettelkastenNote bakes the Zettelkasten shape into the app itself.
- One idea per card is the default structure: small Notes stack inside a Zettel, so long pages don’t happen by accident
- Tags, links and backlinks are built in, between Zettels and between individual Notes
- Inbox, a home-screen widget, voice, the share sheet and text scanning from photos get a thought in within seconds
- Timeline, a daily “Ideas, revisited” nudge and an activity heatmap bring old cards back
- On Mac, a link graph shows the whole web and on-device AI suggests related cards
It suits people who want to start writing in the Zettelkasten shape without spending time on setup. It’s less flexible than Obsidian — there are no plugins, and the app decides what it does. In exchange there are fewer places to get lost.
Data stays on your device; your own iCloud is used only when you choose to sync (local-first). Nothing is sent to the developer’s servers. The Mac app also includes an MCP server, so AI agents such as Claude can read and write your cards.
Which one?
| You… | Try |
|---|---|
| want to build your own setup and value portability above all | Obsidian |
| want to build a writing habit first; connections can wait | Apple Notes |
| want to start in the Zettelkasten shape, capture on iPhone and grow on Mac | ZettelkastenNote |
If in doubt, write ten cards in one tool for one week. Zettelkasten is a habit, not a tool, so the right tool is the one you keep using. ZettelkastenNote is free to download, and the iPhone and iPad app is fully free.