10 comparisons
This desk does not publish fifty-item roundups. But "which of these two" is the question people actually arrive with, and it is still one app at a time — twice. Both are paid for, both are used for at least two weeks, and the pick is stated plainly.
Obsidian keeps notes as Markdown files on your device; Notion keeps them in a cloud workspace built for sharing. Which suits personal notes, from each app's own documentation.
Both point a camera at dinner and return a figure in seconds. Only one of them has an accuracy claim that somebody outside the company produced — and it has two.
Both are mature, both do forward meal planning, and one costs twice as much. The deciding question is whether you eat out or you are starting from zero.
These two are good at completely different things, which makes this the easiest comparison on the desk to answer and the hardest to answer generically.
One is trying to change what you do; the other is trying to record it. If you pick by price you pick MyFitnessPal, and if you pick by what you actually need it might still be neither.
Five dollars a year apart, and they are good at almost opposite things. One is the most accurate tracker in the category; the other is the easiest place to start.
These are the two best food databases in consumer nutrition and they are good in different ways. One has been measured by two independent labs; the other has micronutrient depth nothing else approaches.
One of these has the only accuracy number two unrelated labs agree on. The other has the only target system that adapts to your own data. They are not competing on the same axis, and the right answer depends on which of those you are short of.
One has 1.2M entries somebody checked. The other has around twenty million that nobody adjudicated. I paid for both for three weeks and the choice comes down to whether you eat mostly out or mostly in.
The clearest quality-versus-coverage trade in the category. One gives you one reliable record per food; the other gives you forty and no way to choose.