You can use without plugins as well, they are not a must. I've been using Obsidian for years just for it's inter-connected markdown references. Kind of like a wiki, I'm just taking markdown notes and sometimes create a link to another related note. Also, good at handling attachments and embeds. I haven't used anything else (maybe tags nowadays... But that's it)
Thing is, if you like markdown then you should give it a go.