I just started using Obsidian and I’m really enjoying it. I’m looking into my options for syncing my data between my mobile devices and computer. I don’t mind paying for a quality service but making sure i have privacy/ownership of my data is important.
I’ve been researching the different options but I’d love to know what others are using what which ones you recommend.
I personally use SyncThing for this! Takes a moment to set up, but well worth it. Note that it is NOT a cloud, it just syncs the files between multiple devices of yours.
I’ve used Obsidian’s own sync service for a while and been very happy. The price is reasonable. The encryption is good enough for my concerns. As best as I’m aware, they have no way to read my content and no reason to want to sell it.
I tried Obsidian’s own sync service, but ended up with some edits from my phone causing problems (sections would occasionally get duplicated). There were a few reports of the same issue on their forums too, but they weren’t addressed at the time. Could be a plugin or something not playing nice, but I didn’t feel like debugging it. The great thing is they have a no-questions-asked self-service refund policy in the first seven days, so you have nothing to lose by trying it for a week.
I eventually just settled on Git. There’s a plugin that can handle it on the desktop, then I use GitSync on my phone with some Apple Shortcut automations to automatically pull changes when I launch Obsidian, and commit and push when it closes. (There’s a bunch of guides on the Obsidian forums for it). Git is waaaaay more involved than most other syncing options, but I’m intimately familiar with it so it works for me!
I am very happy with using Git for my syncing needs with the appropriate Obsidian Plugins for it. BUT I do not sync to my phone.
I have tried to sync to my android phone and tablet in the past and it was always just so clunky on these platforms it rarely felt worth it. On android I needed to run git through Termux to get the vault onto my device, and even using the Git plugin on my phone would occasionally cause the app to crash entirely if the changes it was trying to pull was too large.
I can only recommend their own sync service.
I tried using my Proton Drive for syncing seeing as I was already paying for it, and it was an absolute clusterfudge. For whatever reason, my phone had “priority” and would overwrite notes that I’d made major edits to on my computer if I happened to open them on my phone.
Their own service is seamless and notes are never overwritten!
As for privacy and ownership concerns, I don’t believe there are any, but my word for these kinds of things are not that relevant because I don’t really see most of the data I put online as valuable in any way. 