To people using org mode, how does it help you more than Markdown? Genuinely curious because I tried at some point and it felt too heavy.
Maybe because I am a vim user instead of eMacs?
Maybe because I am a vim user instead of eMacs?
To be quite frank, Org mode is a lifestyle which existed long before Notion or Obsidian did. Saying that it has a barrier to entry is a bit of an understatement.
Having said all that, quite ironically, I've migrated over to Obsidian because I started using Intellij more for work, meaning that I don't need Emacs for its other capabilities all that much.
And you can insert snippets of code into your notes, like
#+BEGIN_SRC shell
ls | wc -l
find . -type f -name "*foo*"
#+END_SRC
You can even augment orgmode with elisp code if you are so inclined.
But to answer your main question, markdown is used for writing text which can then be converted to HTML, PDF, etc, etc. It's used just to format things. org can be used in that way, and it might feel better/worse depending on what you feel about the choices used for various formatting styles.
However the big gain of org is that you can use it to format dynamic tables, handle todo-lists, have deadlines, recurring tasks, etc, etc. It makes no sense to compare org-files with markdown-files. It's like saying "I use notepad how does Excel help you do more?" - they do different thigns.
Now, much like excel, most people don't do everythign with org, but they can if they want to. It is extraordinarily flexible, and can be extended with custom lisp code if necessary.
I track rental properties with an org-document for each property, and I get per-year profit/loss statements in a neat format with graphs too. You can't do that with markdown.
1. Code blocks that can be executed have their result captured
2. Links to everything
3. Drawing vector images (SVG) with a tablet
4. Perform calculations on tabular data (like a simple Excel sheet)
5. Agenda (connected to Google Calendar)
6. Spaced repetition system for language learning
7. LaTeX export for reports/presentations with citations
Expanding:
1.1. Execute code on different remote machines
1.2. Work with sessions and execute code asynchronously
1.3. Use noweb syntax for reusing code blocks
1.4. Tangle ("export") source blocks to files (locally or in a remote machine!)
1.5. Use a source block to generate a graph/plot and view the figure in the same place
1.6. Use narrow functionalities to automate script executions (example: execute all blocks in this section).
2.1. Links to PDF pages, commits/pr`s/branches, email, other files` particular lines, remote files, web pages, etc.
7.1. Very easy to select which sections I want to export or not
7.2. Include hand-drawn SVG graphics in the PDF output
7.3. Generate Beamer presentations
> Genuinely curious because I tried at some point and it felt too heavy.
Which part felt heavy? The syntax? The tooling? The setup? orgmode's purpose is to deliver an environment for managing your notes, tasks, data, etc. Of course, will it be more heavy than just the markup-language alone, as most documentation focuses on the tooling and which jobs you can execute with it. This more akin to a whole Office-suit, than a simple plaintext-editor.
Markdown doesn't have a built in concept of todo or tag or scheduled event, for instance. It wasn't built for that.
I hate emacs but orgmode is still the file format which contains all of the primitives I need for my notes which looks like it will have the most staying power. I hope to be able to edit the same files in 2035 using whatever brain-connection device everybody is using in the future that I used in 2015 running on a netbook with 1GB of RAM.
Markdown files from the note taking flavor of today will have to be migrated somehow.
Combined with org-agenda you also unlock a calendar with recurring events, task priorities and more.