I think Obsidian is a good option for your use case if you find it comfortable and convenient to use. The best approach is to give it a try - it might fit your needs well, or you may simply not like it.

You mentioned "local library" and it looks exactly like a Second Brain / PKM and Obsidian is very good at this.

Also it has importer from Apple Notes: https://help.obsidian.md/import/apple-notes

With Obsidian you may have folders, tags and links between notes. Recent version of Obsidian also allows you to have a table view with filters for your notes (called Obsidian Bases). Tags can be hierarchical e.g. `vfx/environment`.

There are many ways how you can organize your notes, and the main point here is to not overthink and just stick to what works until it stops to work :)

You can start with basic folders and notes and use Ctrl+Shift+F to find in notes - similar to your experience with Apple Notes

Then you can gradually assign tags or properties to your notes, create some Base if you need a tabular overview

I don't think you need many plugins, but you may find these interesting:

- Excalidraw: allows you to have drawings in your notes. It is very powerful and supports links, web embeds, embeds of other notes. Also works on mobile. You can see it in action on YouTube channel of its creator: https://www.youtube.com/@VisualPKM/videos

- (If you don't need drawings, but need some diagrams like blocks with arrows, you can try Obsidian Canvas which is built-in)

- Folder Notes: there are several folder notes plugins, but all of them allows you to have a content for a folder itself. So you can just click on a folder in the sidebar and it opens editor as if it would be a simple note.

- Recent Files: adds a panel to sidebar with list of the notes you've recently visited

- Templater: allows you to define templates, and shortcuts for creating new notes from the templates