Mandala and knowledge managers.
Medha, Mandala’s knowledge layer, keeps Markdown files on your disk, like Obsidian. It has tasks and an agenda in plain text, like Org-mode. It treats a kind of note as a database, like Notion. It is younger than all of them, and it is only one part of Mandala.
Checked 12 October 2026
Four tools people love, for good reasons.
Local Markdown files, polished apps on desktop and phone, and thousands of community plugins and themes. Bases, a core plugin, gives table, list, card, kanban and map views over your notes. Sync is a paid, end-to-end encrypted service.
Documents and databases in one place, with realtime editing for a whole team, permissions, sharing, templates and integrations. Notion Agent can create and edit pages and databases for you. Nothing to install or look after.
An open-source outliner built around blocks, references between them and a daily journal, on local Markdown or Org files. A new database version, with typed properties and realtime sync, is in beta.
More than twenty years of depth: an agenda across files, time tracking, tables with formulas, export to many formats, and code that runs inside documents. Entirely programmable, and no vendor at all.
Types in the files, and a law around them.
In Medha a type is a short text file that says what a client or a delivery is: its fields, the allowed values, what must stay true. Every document of that type is checked against it, and views query them. The type lives next to the notes, in your folder, not in an app’s database.
And the notes are not alone. The same Mandala holds your records, your inbox and an accomplice that reads and writes the same files, and that needs your approval before anything leaves.
Set a status that doesn’t exist and the document is flagged.
A button on every document of a type, carried out by your accomplice with your approval.
type delivery
fields
title: Text
customer: Link<customer>
planet: Text
due: Date
crates: Integer
status: Enum(booked, loaded, delivered)
invariant
status == 'delivered -> open_tasks == 0
actions
tell_customer:
label = "Tell the customer"
transport = "alma"
prompt = "Write to {customer}: {crates} crates land on {planet} on {due}. Keep it short."
confirm = true
The other two types
type customer
fields
title: Text
planet: Text
contact: Text?
terms: Enum(prepaid, credit)
tags: List<Text>?
type project
fields
title: Text
owner: Text
status: Enum(planned, active, done)
launch: Date?
invariant
status == 'done -> open_tasks == 0Real types, exactly as Medha loads them. Set a delivery’s status to “lost” and Medha flags it: expected one of booked, loaded, delivered.
Where they differ.
| Obsidian | Notion | Logseq | Org-mode | Mandala (Medha) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Where notes live | Markdown files on your disk | Notion’s cloud; pages can be marked for offline use | Local Markdown or Org files; the new version uses a local database | Plain-text files on your disk | Markdown files on your disk |
| Structure | Properties; Bases views; the Dataview plugin | Databases with relations and formulas | Queries; typed properties in the beta database version | Properties, agenda views, tables | Types that check each document; views in a query language; tasks and agenda from a line of text |
| Sync between devices | Paid Obsidian Sync, or your own means | Built in: it is a cloud service | Its own sync, in testing | Your own means, such as git | Directly between your own devices, merged, with no cloud |
| Working together | Shared vaults that merge at sync; no live co-editing | Realtime, with permissions and comments | Realtime collaboration in alpha | None built in | Live co-editing on one Mandala today. Several people, each signed in, is coming |
| AI | Through community plugins | Notion Agent, on its business plans | Through plugins | Through packages such as gptel | An accomplice that works in the same files, with your own model, under your approvals |
| Phones | iOS and Android apps | iOS and Android apps | Mobile apps; new ones in testing | Third-party apps | The web app in a phone’s browser. The iPhone app is coming |
| Extending it | Thousands of plugins | Integrations and an API | Plugins | Emacs Lisp: anything | No plugin system. Types, views, and the rest of Mandala |
Said plainly.
Obsidian’s editor, its mobile apps and its plugin directory are years ahead. If your work lives in a plugin, stay.
Notion’s realtime collaboration, permissions and sharing work today for whole companies. Mandala’s equivalent is designed and not built.
Org-mode’s agenda, clocking, export and literate programming go further than Medha does, and Emacs users can bend it to anything.
Logseq and Org-mode are free software. Mandala’s licence is not published yet.
view DueThisWeek documents delivery | where status != 'delivered and days_until(due) <= 7 | select title, planet, customer, due, crates | sort planet
| title | planet | customer | due | crates |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Waffle irons for the Perpetuity Wing | Earth | customers/lumon | 2026-10-15 | 24 |
| Fryer oil, Mars branch | Mars | customers/los-pollos-hermanos | 2026-10-13 | 40 |
| Duff for the Lunar Park | Moon | customers/duff | 2026-10-16 | 120 |
What Medha returns for this view over the five deliveries. Left out: the test run (delivered) and the Neptune crates (due in January).
Choose honestly.
Choose one of them if…
- You want the best personal note-taking app with a plugin for everything: Obsidian.
- Your team needs to write together in realtime, today, with nothing to host: Notion.
- You think in outlines and want open source: Logseq.
- You live in Emacs and want total control: Org-mode.
Choose Mandala if…
- You want notes that are checked and queried like data, and still plain files.
- You want your notes, tasks, inbox and business records in one place, with one accomplice across them.
- You want sync between your own machines with no service in between.
- You are happy to live with a younger tool.
You don’t have to choose at once. Medha’s files are ordinary Markdown in ordinary folders, so you can open the same folder in another editor. How Medha works
We checked every statement about other products on 12 October 2026, against their own sites, documentation and repositories where we could. Products change. If something here is wrong or out of date, write to hello@getmandala.org and we’ll correct it.