You wanted the files, not the project
Obsidian is an excellent piece of software and this page is not going to pretend otherwise. But plenty of people install it because they want notes and tasks in plain markdown, then find themselves comparing four task plugins on a Sunday. If that's you, TaskForge reads the same kind of folder and comes with the parts already assembled.
- Reads your existing vault, nothing to import
- Notes, tasks, and a calendar with no plugins
- iPhone, iPad, Mac, Android, and Windows
This is not a migration
There is no import step and no export step, because there is no database on either side. Both apps read a folder of .md files. Point TaskForge at the vault you already have and your notes and task lines show up as they are, in the Obsidian Tasks syntax you already write. Change something in one app and the other sees it when the file saves. If you decide TaskForge isn't for you, delete it, and every note is still exactly where it was.
One file. Obsidian shows it, TaskForge shows it, neither one owns it.
What you get without configuring anything
Task management that's already there
Due dates, priorities, recurrence, subtasks, dependencies, custom statuses, saved lists, and kanban boards, with no plugin to install and no query language to learn. In Obsidian this is Tasks plus Dataview plus a Kanban plugin plus the evening you spend wiring them together.
A mobile app designed as a mobile app
Obsidian mobile is the desktop app on a phone, and it shows: editing is fiddly, and there are no notifications and no home screen widgets. TaskForge has quick capture that parses dates from plain words, notifications that fire when you asked, and interactive widgets you can tick a task off from without unlocking.
A real calendar
Day, week, and month views on a time grid, with your device's calendar events beside your tasks in their own colors. Drag a task to Thursday and the date changes inside the file, in the syntax the Tasks plugin expects.
Notes that render and edit
A file tree, a block editor that shows headings and tables and callouts properly, a raw source view with editable frontmatter, daily notes with templates, and a scan that finds links you broke by renaming a file somewhere else.
Nothing to maintain
No plugin updates, no plugin that breaks after an Obsidian release, no community theme to re-pick. That is a real cost of Obsidian's flexibility, and it's the one this app trades away deliberately.
Or keep both
This is the most common setup among people who write in. Obsidian on the desktop for long-form writing and the graph, TaskForge on the phone for capture, reminders, and ticking things off. One vault, two apps, no sync between them because there is nothing to sync.
What day one actually looks like
Install it, point it at your vault folder, and wait a few seconds while it reads the workspace. Your notes appear in a tree and your task lines appear as tasks with their dates and priorities intact. There is no import screen, no account, and no wizard asking which plugins you would like. If it isn't for you, delete the app; the folder is untouched.
The plugin problem, stated fairly
Obsidian's plugin ecosystem is genuinely its best feature and genuinely its biggest tax. Tasks, Dataview, Kanban, Calendar, Templater and Style Settings is a normal stack, and each one is a thing that can break on an update or need re-learning. TaskForge ships those jobs as app features, which means you cannot extend them, and also that they cannot break independently of each other. That trade is the whole product.
Your syntax comes with you
Due dates, scheduled and start dates, priorities, recurrence text, custom status characters, subtask indentation, dependencies, and hierarchical tags all read and write in the same Obsidian Tasks format. This is not a lossy conversion into an internal model. The file is still the file.
When you should stay on Obsidian
If any of these is why you use Obsidian, TaskForge is not a replacement and this page would be wasting your time by implying otherwise.
You use the graph and backlinks
TaskForge has no graph view and no backlinks panel. Links resolve and renames rewrite references, but the linked-thought part of a knowledge base is genuinely absent. Obsidian was built around it.
You depend on plugins
Dataview queries, Excalidraw, Templater beyond daily-note templates, and the other 1,000-plus community plugins have no equivalent here. If your vault's value is in what you built on top of it, keep it.
You use Canvas or Publish
Neither exists in TaskForge, and there is no plan to build them.
You want PDFs in line
Images render in a note, but a PDF only opens in your system viewer. Obsidian shows it inside the note.
Switching, or not switching
Do I have to stop using Obsidian?
No, and most people don't. Both apps read the same folder, so running Obsidian on the desktop and TaskForge on your phone is a normal setup rather than a compromise.
Will TaskForge change my files in a way Obsidian won't understand?
No. It writes the same Obsidian Tasks syntax, and anything it doesn't recognize, including Dataview blocks, raw HTML, and math, is preserved exactly as written. A note you open and don't change stays byte-for-byte identical.
What about Obsidian Sync?
It keeps working. TaskForge doesn't run a sync service; it reads whatever is in the folder. Obsidian Sync, iCloud Drive, and anything else that syncs files are all fine.
Is there a free version?
Yes, with no time limit. Notes, the markdown editor, daily notes, task management, and viewing your calendar are free. Premium is $49.99 once and covers custom lists and spaces plus creating and editing calendar events.
I use TaskNotes rather than inline tasks. Does that work?
Yes. One task per file with YAML frontmatter is supported, including custom properties, and task files and inline tasks appear together in every list.
What if I don't use Obsidian at all?
Then this is simpler. TaskForge works on any folder of markdown files, and a fresh workspace sets itself up with sensible defaults.
Is TaskForge open source?
No, it is a commercial app. Your data is not locked in regardless, because it is plain markdown in a folder you chose. That is the guarantee that matters when an app closes down, more than the licence is.
Can I use it on the same vault from two devices at once?
Yes. If a note changed on another device while you had it open, TaskForge shows a banner with two choices rather than picking for you: keep your version, or take the one on disk.
Does it support Obsidian's callouts?
Yes. Callouts render with their icon and color band, and round-trip unchanged.
Keep the markdown. Skip the assembly.
Free to download and free to use. Point it at your vault and see what it looks like in five minutes.