Obsidian basics — plugins

Obsidian plugins: where to start

Q: How many Obsidian plugins are there?

Counting the official registry (community-plugins.json on GitHub) directly on August 21, 2026 gave 6,812. Themes, counted the same day from community-css-themes.json, came to 701. That is 241 more plugins than the first count of 6,571 on August 11, 2026 — 10 days earlier.

Q: Which plugin should I install first?

Sorted by the official download-count data (community-plugin-stats.json), #1 is Excalidraw (hand-drawn diagrams, 7.36M), #2 is Templater (templating, 5.34M), #3 is Dataview (cross-note queries, 4.81M). Downloads are a popularity signal, not a guarantee it fits your workflow — check that separately.

Q: Do Obsidian themes support dark or light mode?

Tallying the modes field in the official registry (community-css-themes.json, 729 entries) on September 4, 2026, both-mode themes led at 491 (67.4%). Dark-only came to 206 (28.3%) and light-only to just 32 (4.4%). 17 themes (2.3%) remain registered in the legacy format.

"There are thousands of plugins" does not tell you which to pick. For this page we pulled Obsidian's official plugin registry and its official download-count data directly and counted the total and the 10 most-downloaded plugins ourselves. We also cover, honestly, what you can do without installing anything at all.

By AI ATAKA · Published August 21, 2026 · Counted August 21, 2026 (official registry) · Updated August 27, 2026 (added keyword analysis) · September 4, 2026 (added theme mode split)

How many Obsidian plugins are there, and which to install first?

Counting the official registry directly on August 21, 2026 gave 6,812 plugins (701 themes). Sorted by the official download-count data, #1 is Excalidraw (hand-drawn diagrams, 7.36M downloads), #2 is Templater (templating, 5.34M), #3 is Dataview (querying your notes, 4.81M).

A big number is not itself a reason to install anything. Obsidian ships with 31 core features already on, and many needs stop there. See both the counts below and what the core app covers before deciding.

The shortest path from a spoken note on iPhone into your vault is in the four-route comparison (no plugin needed).

Measured: the official registry over time

We fetched community-plugins.json and community-css-themes.json directly from Obsidian's official distribution (GitHub: obsidianmd/obsidian-releases) via raw.githubusercontent.com each time, and counted array length. Lined up against our earlier counts, the registry grew by 241 plugins in 10 days.

Date	Plugins	Themes	Source
2026-08-11	6,571	—	PR #470 (first count)
2026-08-14	6,638	691	/obsidian/compare/logseq/
2026-08-19	6,739	—	/obsidian/what-is-vault/
2026-08-21	6,812	701	This page (first count)
2026-09-04 (this update)	7,242	729	This page (the theme mode-split count)

※ "—" means themes were not counted that day, not that the count was zero. The plugin count grew by 430 (about 31/day) in the 14 days since August 21.

Measured top 10 — ranked by official download counts

We fetched community-plugin-stats.json (download-count data, 6,780 entries) from the same distribution and sorted by the downloads field. Descriptions are quoted verbatim from each plugin's own registry entry.

#	Plugin	Downloads	Official description
1	Excalidraw zsviczian	7,365,086	Visual PKM powerhouse. Create and edit Excalidraw drawings.
2	Templater silentvoid13	5,336,051	Create and use dynamic templates.
3	Dataview blacksmithgu	4,805,635	Run advanced queries over your vault. (Guide)
4	Tasks obsidian-tasks-group	4,061,506	Track tasks across your vault. Supports due dates, recurring tasks, done dates and filtering.
5	Advanced Tables Tony Grosinger	3,124,723	Improved table navigation, formatting, and manipulation.
6	Git Vinzent	3,028,476	Integrate Git version control with automatic backup and other advanced features.
7	Calendar Liam Cain	3,021,004	Explore your daily notes.
8	Style Settings Obsidian Community Archive	2,604,959	Adjust theme, plugin, and snippet CSS variables.
9	Kanban Obsidian Community Archive	2,568,158	Create Markdown-backed Kanban boards.
10	Iconize florianwoelki	2,180,911	Add icons to anything in Obsidian, including files, folders, and text.

#1 Excalidraw (7.36M) has more than three times #10 Iconize's downloads (2.18M) — the distribution is heavily front-loaded. Most of the 6,812 registered plugins are nowhere near the top 10 in actual downloads. "Too many to choose from" is not quite right; what people actually use is a fairly small set.

Measured: plugins whose name or description mentions capture-related keywords

On August 27, 2026, we fetched the same community-plugins.json (6,982 entries as of that date) and counted case-insensitive substring matches against each plugin's name and description fields. A single plugin can match more than one keyword, so the rows below do not sum to the total.

Keyword	Matches	Share
daily note	133	1.9%
template	108	1.5%
capture	82	1.2%
voice / dictation	64	0.9%
inbox	40	0.6%
clipper / web clip	15	0.2%

Out of 6,982 plugins, only 82 (1.2%) explicitly name "capture" in their name or description. The largest group is "daily note"-related at 133 (1.9%) — more plugins address where a captured thought ends up than address the act of capturing it. This is a substring match, not a rigorous functional classification (a plugin can mention "capture" while doing something else, or offer real capture features under different wording, and neither case is caught correctly here). Treat it as a rough order of magnitude, not a precise count.

Measured: theme dark/light mode split

On September 4, 2026, we fetched the same distribution's community-css-themes.json (729 entries) and tallied the modes field (dark / light) each theme declares. We also counted how many are still registered as legacy — the older CSS-variable format.

Mode support	Themes	Share
Dark + light (both)	491	67.4%
Dark only	206	28.3%
Light only	32	4.4%
(subset) legacy format	17	2.3%

Two-thirds (67.4%) of the 729 themes support both dark and light mode and follow the OS-level toggle. Among single-mode themes, dark-only (28.3%) outnumbers light-only (4.4%) by more than 6 to 1 — light-mode-only themes are a small minority. The 17 (2.3%) still on the legacy format still work, but have not been updated to the current CSS variable set.

Before you install anything: what core Obsidian covers

Obsidian works for a lot of workflows with zero community plugins installed. As measured on a separate page, the app ships with 31 core features, 21 on and 10 off by default — daily notes, the graph view and Markdown formatting are all in there already.

Daily notes & calendar-style use

The core "Daily notes" feature already creates a date-named file each day. The #7 Calendar plugin adds a month-grid UI on top — the workflow works without it.

Editing tables

Plain Markdown tables work without any plugin. #5 Advanced Tables speeds up navigating and formatting them — it does not make tables possible in the first place.

Backups

A vault is just a folder, so OS-level backup or iCloud Drive's version history already protects it. The #6 Git plugin adds diff-based version control, a different value on top.

Tweaking the look

Switching themes is itself a core feature. #8 Style Settings gives you a GUI for a theme's CSS variables when that theme supports it — it is not required to use a theme at all.

On the other hand, hand-drawn diagrams (Excalidraw), template automation (Templater), cross-note queries (Dataview), task rollups (Tasks), Kanban boards (Kanban) and file icons (Iconize) are not in core — there is a real reason each ranks where it does.

Before you go plugin-hunting, decide where the first line lands

Plugins expand what you can do inside a vault; they do not shorten the walk to get there. Simple Memo emails each note to you and appends it straight into the daily note inside your vault folder on iCloud Drive, including from Siri and Apple Watch, and it writes plain Markdown.

Shorten the way into your vault

Say the thought and it lands in your inbox and your daily note alike. Free to download.

On desktop? Scan with your phone

FAQ

How many Obsidian plugins are there?

Counting the official registry (community-plugins.json on GitHub) directly on August 21, 2026 gave 6,812. Themes, counted the same day from community-css-themes.json, came to 701. That is 241 more plugins than the first count of 6,571 on August 11, 2026 — 10 days earlier.

Which plugin should I install first?

Sorted by the official download-count data (community-plugin-stats.json), #1 is Excalidraw (hand-drawn diagrams, 7.36M), #2 is Templater (templating, 5.34M), #3 is Dataview (cross-note queries, 4.81M). Downloads are a popularity signal, not a guarantee it fits your workflow — check that separately.

What works without installing any plugin?

Yes. As measured, Obsidian ships with 31 core features, 21 on and 10 off by default (details on our vault measurement page). Daily notes, the graph view and other core functions all work with zero community plugins installed.

Does the registry count match how plugins are actually used?

No. The registered count (6,812) and the number with recorded download stats (6,780) nearly match, but a small handful dominate. #1 Excalidraw (7.36M) has more than 3x #10 Iconize's downloads (2.18M) — the distribution is heavily front-loaded.

Where do I install plugins from?

The official path is searching from Settings → Community plugins — the registry we counted here is exactly that list. Manually pointing at a GitHub repo also works but skips the official registry's review, so it is safer to stick to known sources.

How many Obsidian plugins are about "capture"?

Counting keywords in the names and descriptions of all 6,982 registry entries on August 27, 2026, plugins explicitly naming "capture" came to 82 (1.2%). The largest group was "daily note"-related at 133 (1.9%). This is a substring-match estimate, not a precise functional classification.

Do Obsidian themes support dark or light mode?

Tallying the modes field in the official registry (community-css-themes.json, 729 entries) on September 4, 2026, both-mode themes led at 491 (67.4%). Dark-only came to 206 (28.3%) and light-only to just 32 (4.4%). 17 themes (2.3%) remain registered in the legacy format.

TEST ENVIRONMENT & SCOPE

Counted August 21, 2026 (totals, top 10), August 27, 2026 (capture-keyword analysis) and September 4, 2026 (total recount, theme mode split). We fetched three files — community-plugins.json, community-css-themes.json and community-plugin-stats.json — directly from Obsidian's official distribution (GitHub: obsidianmd/obsidian-releases) via raw.githubusercontent.com, then counted entries, sorted by download count, ran keyword substring matches on names and descriptions, and tallied the modes/legacy fields, all with scripts. Plugin names, authors and descriptions are quoted verbatim from the registry. We again did not install and run any plugin or theme for this page (vault-contents testing was done separately on another page). This environment restricts outbound access to Obsidian's official website (obsidian.md), so nothing on that domain — including its pricing pages — is cited as a source here.

What is a vault (31 core features, measured) Getting started with Obsidian Obsidian comparison hub Obsidian integration Appending to daily notes Glossary FAQ

References & data sources

obsidianmd/obsidian-releases（GitHub） — Obsidian's official distribution. community-plugins.json (6,812), community-css-themes.json (701) and community-plugin-stats.json (6,780, download counts) were all fetched from here directly on 2026-08-21. The capture-keyword analysis re-fetched the same file on 2026-08-27 (6,982 entries). The theme mode split re-fetched community-css-themes.json on 2026-09-04 (729 entries; community-plugins.json was 7,242 that same day)
What is an Obsidian vault? — Our measurement of the 31 core features (21 on, 10 off by default) (2026-08-20, Obsidian 1.13.7)
Obsidian and Logseq comparison — Our plugin (6,638) and theme (691) counts as of 2026-08-14
Simple Memo - for Obsidian — App Store — App Store download page

Obsidian is a trademark of Dynalist Inc. This site is independent of the Obsidian project; Simple Memo - for Obsidian is an independent app by Yurica Inc. Plugin names, authors and descriptions are taken from each plugin's official registry entry and do not constitute an endorsement of any plugin's developer or rights holder.