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Why I Like Obsidian

• diimdeep 3y ago
  https://github.com/SublimeText-Markdown/MarkdownEditing https://github.com/SublimeText-Markdown/MarkdownEditing is still a way to go for me.
• COMMENT___ 3y ago
  My first thought was that this article is about Obsidian Entertainment (videogame development company).
• Lord_Zero 3y ago
  My biggest Obsidian gripe is I want the sync service for easy collab with my coworkers, but I want to self-host it for free on a VM somewhere. We use Git sync today and its very cumbersome.
• some_guy_in_ca 3y ago
  I tried obsidian but felt it had too many gears and knobs and spent too many times fiddling with them. I fell back on this app which is based on local markdown storage but takes it up a notch. https://noteplan.co https://noteplan.co The fact that everything is in plain text files on my computer is very important for me and future proofed.
• jimmytucson 3y ago
  > allows structure to grow organically > powerful feature ... Internal Links. > plain text files Well, they're not _plain_ text - there is some markup. So that invites the question - why not HyperText Markup Language? Doesn't HTML have all of these features - hyperlinks, folder structures, "plain" text? Isn't HTML also future proof? It's been around long enough. And doesn't it also work offline? There's a bunch of different apps out there that support viewing these both on and offline. So, do people just use Obsidian/Markdown because they like dislike "<em>HTML</em>"? edit: I'm not saying it's "wrong" to dislike HTML. I'm 50% trolling and 50% saying none of these are features of Obsidian. They're features of HTML (and Markdown is its shorthand).
  • paxys 3y ago
    HTML is (1) a lot more painful and verbose to write and (2) impossible to decipher in source mode. Markdown fixes both these problems.
  • el_oni 3y ago
    they like it because # title this is the paragraph is more natural to write than: <html> <head>...<head/> <body> <h1> title </h1> <p>this is the paragraph</p> </body> </html> when you're just jotting some thoughts down.
    • jimmytucson 3y ago
      So the answer to my original question is - yes :)
      • ParetoOptimal 3y ago
        Eh, the em example is reductive and makes it seem like markdown doesn't have much advantage. If you rewrite your comment with lists I think your question becomes self-explanatory.
        • jimmytucson 3y ago
          But you don't need the head and body stuff. This renders perfectly fine in a web browser on my local machine: <h1>My Title</h1> <p>This is a paragraph.</p> For sure, you need an end tag, and Markdown doesn't. But for simple note taking, are you really writing deeply nested HTML?
          • davisoneee 3y ago
            The main benefit is that markdown is really readable _without_ rendering. You don't need to edit and then open in a browser. You can comfortably read plaintext that has a little structure, while HTML adds some ceremony that makes it a bit harder to glance at the material as the tags are much more in your face.
• Waterluvian 3y ago
  I love Obsidian for being a dead simple UI for managing my markdown files. I’ve found that the cloud features are not for me. What I need is to wire it more organically up to a GitHub repo.
  • abelaer 3y ago
    I've done exactly this, and set up a cron job to sync regularly. Still very sub-optimal imo.
  • midasz 3y ago
    I used the git-sync plugin, worked fairly well.
  • have_faith 3y ago
    I'm just using the icloud sync, do you use git repo feature with your notes? or is it just a dumb store.
  • adbachman 3y ago
    I use this setup. My notes folder is a git repo, I have a private repo on GitHub as backup. Then two moving parts. a backup.sh script, which boils down to: `cd ${obfolder}; git add .; git commit -m "auto backup $(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)"; git push`. Give it a `chmod +x` and it's ready. a crontab entry: `1 17 * * * ${obfolder}/backup.sh`, which is "at 5:01pm every day, run the backup script. ${obfolder} is the actual path of the vault directory and I haven't had to think about it in years.
• inferense 3y ago
  obsidian is awesome. I'll go ahead and do a shameless plug for an alternative built with similar philosophy around privacy & data ownership aimed at developers https://acreom.com https://acreom.com
  • outlore 3y ago
    I love the design of acreom! When I tried it, I was impressed with marking notes as Active/Done etc. Do you support collecting individual checkbox items into a unified view as well? Would you also consider adding an outline view/toc? Tysm!
    • inferense 3y ago
      > Do you support collecting individual checkbox items into a unified view as well? yes, acreom is pretty flexible when it comes to creating views over your pages, you can create views with pages with tasks and save it with all tasks surfaced. > Would you also consider adding an outline view/toc? already supported!
• px43 3y ago
  Super weird IMO that they refuse to release source code. Hard to trust something as important as notes to an opaque app.
  • cpach 3y ago
    If you want something open source there’s a bunch of alternatives out there. Logseq, Joplin, Zettlr, Standard Notes, etc. I prefer Obsidian since I like the UI and they offer a subscription for sync, which is very convenient.
  • drakenot 3y ago
    But the notes are maintained as plain markdown files? I don’t find it weird they would want to keep the source for their commercial application closed when there are so many copy-cat apps in the same space.
  • iCarrot 3y ago
    It's built with Electron so not entirely opaque. Car manufacturers don't release their source code either, yet people trust something as important as their life to it daily.
    • Zambyte 3y ago
      > Car manufacturers don't release their source code either, yet people trust something as important as their life to it daily. I personally find it extremely disturbing. Two bads don't make a good.
      • rubymamis 3y ago
        What's so disturbing? The incentives are aligned -> If a specific car model won't be safe, people won't buy it. Also, there is regulation in place. I think we need exactly the right combo in software too. Obsidian is not open source, but you can gauge what they track in their privacy policy. You can try to confirm it using apps like Little Snitch. Also, all their notes are just plaintext so your data is portable.
• hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
  Obsidian is my IDE for Markdown, if that makes sense.
• midasz 3y ago
  I really like Obsidian but the long startup time (on mobile) has stopped me from using it as a daily driver.
  • drakenot 3y ago
    Are you on Android? This is me launching from a cold open on iOS and it was near instant. https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/90sbrx0esggnsmbsva2hg/Video-Jan-17-2024-7-50-37-AM.mov?rlkey=r8j42y67lt29rhwdphjp4gd6l&dl=0 https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/90sbrx0esggnsmbsva2hg/Video-J... Did it progressively get worse over time? I only have a couple hundred notes.
    • pityJuke 3y ago
      iCloud Sync does hurt the initial startup sporadically.
  • readparryrepost 3y ago
    I don't know if it helps but disabling sync plugins and then turning off all the ones I didn't need massively sped up my load times. (~10x increase)
  • Brajeshwar 3y ago
    Perhaps, perhaps, this is something for you to look at. I use Obsidian on the Desktop but I don't do much work/editing on the Mobile, so I just use iA Editor (you an choose any editor of your choice). As the files are that -- files, I just browse and open the file I want to edit. I get to the files with Obsidian on the Desktop and iA Editor on the mobile to edit/read it.
    • tester457 3y ago
      I tried out iA writer on android because Obsidian's loading times are bad but was disappointed to see you can't set a folder in iA writer android. Editing files is even slower since you have to pick a file from the android file search. It's a well designed app otherwise.
  • 3y ago
• zschuessler 3y ago
  The killer feature for me is how extensible the software is made to be. It truly lets you operate how you know best, making very few assumptions on how you use it. Case in point: one of my favorite productivity plugins is a full-fledged Kanban board. It has deep integration into Obsidian features: - https://github.com/mgmeyers/obsidian-kanban https://github.com/mgmeyers/obsidian-kanban
  • rubymamis 3y ago
    You might like my own note-taking app, Plume[1] that's built with Qt C++ and QML. You can integrate a Kanban board (with underlying Markdown text) right within your document[2]. It's still a work-in-progress, so this is why it's not featured yet on the website. But I'll finish implementing it very soon. Unlike Obsidian, Plume's editor is a block-editor. That gives it the flexibility of Notion (to put advanced blocks like Kanban within the same document, to do drag & drop, etc.) with the performance of native apps by utilizing Qt C++ and QML (actually, Plume is 4x faster than the fastest native block editor on macOS - benchmarks on the website). EDIT: Also, Plume is opinionated compared to Obsidian. That means much better ease-of-use at the cost of extensibility. I believe this is a trade-off worth to be making. I know first hand the intimidation of starting to work with something as complex as Notion or Obsidian. Plume is taking the block editor abilities of Notion with the familiar Apple Notes UX/UI while all the data is still plaintext underneath. [1] https://www.get-plume.com/ https://www.get-plume.com/ [2] https://imgur.com/NIgDLOU https://imgur.com/NIgDLOU
    • ghosty141 3y ago
      Will it be open source?
      • rubymamis 3y ago
        Plume is built on top of my open source note-taking app Notes[1]. Since Plume is based on Notes, I'll of course comply with the MPL license and release all existing files that were changed (and must stay MPL licensed). But I recently discussed my reasoning to go close-source[2]. I've been working night and day (every day) converting 4 cups of coffee into code for the last 4.5 months to create Plume. I don't want to risk not being rewarded sufficiently for it. But, I'm 99% sure that I'll either open source the core block editor or the entire app in the future. [1] https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes https://github.com/nuttyartist/notes [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38584960 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38584960
• mofosyne 3y ago
  Anyone tried Dendron (https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron https://github.com/dendronhq/dendron)? It feels like it could almost become a competitor to Obsidian and plus is essentially a vscode plugin, so you get the benefit of using vscode as your code editor as well. Too bad the project has ended as there is no clear approach for the Dendron team to make it financially sustainable (with their cloud sync subscription, much like Obsidian Sync). But it's basically opensource now so hopefully can be forked and the lessons learnt from Obsidian be applied to it (e.g. Any folder of textfile should be openable under Dendron. Unfortunate at the moment you have to initialize a separate repo and then port it over)
  • candiddevmike 3y ago
    I used dendron with vscode and the extension really screwed up vscode for me. It seems to hook into a lot of things within vscode and created quite a few annoying prompts and added some weird markdown previewing issues.
    • jddj 3y ago
      Interesting. Maybe codium for notes and code for code?
  • poulpy123 3y ago
    I used it for a while but I started to have issues of it becoming slow. I'm not 100% sure dendron was responsible of it but I switched to Joplin. The interesting things was is integration with VSCode that I use for coding
  • jodrellblank 3y ago
    I quickly switched to Dendron from Obsidian because I preferred it being open source, and I liked the creator's views on the hierarchical search and categorization instead of just a tangle of wiki links, and liked the idea of it being a VSCode extension and then other extensions would also be available. I think Dendron is high quality, and encourage everyone interested in markdown notes and Obsidian to check it out, and watch some of the creator Kevin Slin's introductory and overview videos or read the blog posts. He worked for Amazon and had to remember too many things and find them quickly, and that drove the Dendron hierarchical layout and features for managing lots of notes. But personally, I'm not a big fan of VSCode or markdown; mostly what I want is to take quick screenshots and stash them for later - "here's how it looked before", "here's where to find this option" - and markdown is not great at that, you need to open 'markdown preview' to render your notes and see images. So you get a VS Code interface, and the editing window and the preview window. It's computing pre-WYSIWYG. And no way to draw on images like in OneNote. Similar with snippets of code and command lines, having to write them in markdown fiddling with word wrap and then preview the markdown to see them rendered properly in monospace isn't very convenient. And of course hierarchy isn't free, it depends on me organizing and categorising (does this command go in "computers.aws.s3" or "software.amazon.s3.cli" or "tickets.12345678-Amazon-s3-client-weirdness" ?) which I'm not very committed to.
• hannofcart 3y ago
  My notes system is: On desktop: Nvim with some markdown plugins plus Goyo On mobile: Obsidian Syncthing for sync (though previously I've Dropbox as well for the same) On desktop I find Obsidian's vim mode slightly uncanny valley-ish. Close enough to be able to emulate my vim flow. But not _quite_ right. On mobile, I've found Obsidian to be just top class. Though admittedly most of my real note taking happens on desktop, on the few occassions I've had to jot down something quick on mobile, Obsidian app has been perfect.
  • david1302 3y ago
    I also tried Syncthing to sync my Obsidian vault between my desktop PC and my Android smartphone. However, I don't like having a file synced multiple times in the background while I'm editing it. Since I want my notes to be versioned with Git, I ended up finding a sync solution using Git that works just fine! I have documented my setup with Git, the Obsidian Git plugin on Desktop and Termux on Android here: https://github.com/davidkopp/termux-scripts/ https://github.com/davidkopp/termux-scripts/ Nevertheless, I still use Syncthing to sync other files between my devices. Great tool!
  • twiclo 3y ago
    Why not use VimWiki on desktop?
    • Loxicon 3y ago
      I used to use vimWiki and then changed to normal vim because I like netrw and vim-vinegar + Goyo + netrw makes for a simpler workflow.
    • jbstack 3y ago
      I used VimWiki for a couple of years and build up a sizeable set of notes with it. Although it seems to have most of the features you'd want, in the end it feels a little clunky to use in practice. A huge minus for me (at the time; perhaps this is fixed now) was the lack of ability to open multiple windows / notes simultaneously. I'm not aware of any other text editor which lacks that feature. I since switched to Emacs + Org Roam, and I'm much happier. If there's something I don't like or a feature I feel is missing, I can either find a plugin for it or just change it myself.
• fsiefken 3y ago
  I prefer Obsidian over Logseq as it performs better in lower RAM conditions. It would have been nice if it could work with AsciiDoc instead of Markdown as I like the syntax better.
• twiclo 3y ago
  I decided to start note taking with VimWiki. It's organization is the same and has full vim support where Obsidian has partial keybindings. I still feel like I'm missing out. Can anyone opine on if it's worth switching over?
  • taopai 3y ago
    Just try it. Also consider trying Emacs org mode.
  • pprotas 3y ago
    Don't fall for the trap of note taking tools. At the end of the day, if you can write down your thoughts then it does the job. Spend less time on thinking about tools and more time on writing notes. At the same time, in my opinion you should feel comfortable in your tool. If VimWiki does not suit your needs but you still want to use vim (like I do), you could look into https://github.com/epwalsh/obsidian.nvim https://github.com/epwalsh/obsidian.nvim to edit notes in neovim, and then view them in Obsidian using :ObsidianOpen. I like to have my terminal and Obsidian open side-by-side for this workflow.
  • logtempo 3y ago
    Keep complexity monster away, and don't fear the fear of missing out. Does VimWiki suit your needs? If yes, work on real problems.
  • tester457 3y ago
    Try it. You tried vim which was a large time investment and it paid off. Try Obsidian too, for a week to write down your thoughts. Don't even commit to it, just use it to journal for a week to see if you like it.
• kisamoto 3y ago
  Obsidian is great. For those looking for an open source alternative (or don't want to pay the Obsidian fees for professional usage) check out Logseq: https://logseq.com/ https://logseq.com/
  • merdaverse 3y ago
    You can also use Foam, a FOSS VSCode extension that is compatible with the basic markdown files from Obsidian. You can just open your vault in it and it will probably work if you're not using the fancy features in Obsidian. https://foambubble.github.io/foam/ https://foambubble.github.io/foam/
  • kstrauser 3y ago
    Search for “Logseq data loss $current_year” and you’ll see horror stories of people who did everything exactly right and still lost a bunch of data from it. The most recent one I saw involved someone getting on a plane and thus losing Internet access to the paid syncing service. They did a bunch of work as they flew across the country. When they landed and the connection resumed, it synced everything back to the pre-takeoff state and erased their work. Logseq is so very close to being exactly what I want, but there are way too many tales like that for my comfort. Yes, I could come up with something involving Git or rsync or whatever, but at that point I’ve conceded that I don’t trust the tool. And if I don’t trust the tool, I’m not going to use it.
    • asdfgeoff 3y ago
      This exact issue happened to me. I think it was related to crossing timezones during the flight. The experience has definitely made me think twice about adopting Logseq my primary notes tool.
    • kirso 3y ago
      Pretty much a weekly occurrence for my work with Confluence. Never happened to me with Logseq, also why are we making a trend of something that has happened to 5 people out of 10000 users? Kind of a bias when you see only horror stories of people losing data, but not the rest who are fine.
• basedrum 3y ago
  I prefer logseq over obsidian
  • olenczyk 3y ago
    Can you elaborate? I need to chose one among those two
• rabbitofdeath 3y ago
  Just last week I fully committed to Obsidian with the git sync plugin. It took some fiddling and a bit of trust to sync 4 years of notes. (Previously I was just using Sublime Text and my notes folder as a project hooked up to my gitea instance.) But now, its like second nature and I'm looking for neat plugins that you cant live with out.
  • TSiege 3y ago
    Can you share a link to the git plugin you're referring to?
    • llimllib 3y ago
      I use this one, and I presume they do too: https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git
      • rabbitofdeath 3y ago
        This is the one - it works great. I also use it in iOS, but I needed to use the Working Copy workaround to get the initial sync complete. https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-syncing-with-mobile-app-using-working-copy/16499 https://forum.obsidian.md/t/mobile-setting-up-ios-git-based-...
        • jmhammond 3y ago
          Does the obsidian-git plugin run reliably on iOS? I have a license for Working Copy, so I use that alone with shortcuts, but I’m always interested in a solution with fewer parts.
          • rabbitofdeath 3y ago
            It does so far - I have not had more than 3 or 4 commits in a single push though so it hasn't broken for me yet. The notes said that if you do have many changes it can run out of memory due to the git plugin it is using.
• _fat_santa 3y ago
  Obsidian is a killer app and I've moved all my note taking to it over the past few months. The app is top notch in my opinion and with git integration you basically get a free Evernote with no restrictions and control over your data. I would say the one downside is that it's only "free" for those that have the technical knowhow to setup git sync. I tried converting my stepfather to using it but he didn't like that you had to pay for sync and wasn't technical enough to setup git integration and maintain it.
  • RobKohr 3y ago
    You can also put it in a Dropbox directory. I actually do both. On one machine I keep it in the dropbox folder, and have Sync turned on. Importantly, don't do this in multiple machines. Either: 1) Use Dropbox to store and keep your notes in sync across multiple machines 2) Use Dropbox as a backup on one machine, and use Sync on that and all other machines, but on the other machines, only point the Obsidian app to a copy of your vault outside of dropbox. Otherwise, I could see you ending up in a horrible sync/dropbox update loop that would be a mess. I do it this way so if Obsidian ever dies as a Sync service, I have a secondary backup. I might even eventually git a github repo for extraness.
• dustincoates 3y ago
  I like Obsidian, too, having recently switched over from 9 years of OneNote (the fact that there's a tool to import my OneNote notes helped a lot). The most important tip for getting started with Obsidian, in my mind, is to absolutely ignore all of the Obsidian "power users." I'm 99% convinced that no one actually uses zettelkasten seriously, but even if so, it's overkill for when you're just checking out the app. And, please, don't buy one of these $500 Obsidian courses. It's just not necessary. With that said, I have started extending out my own setup, and one of the plugins that I like the most is DataView, which allows me to automatically link to other notes, or pull in tagged text, or to-do items. It has allowed me to really take daily recaps reliably for the first time ever, because, even if I have nothing to write, I at least have a repository of what I was doing for that day.
  • rthkljlkrj 3y ago
    The plugin ecosystem for obsidian is insanely large, and I say that not in a good way. I agree, just ignore all of that. Plain files and internal links, that's it.
    • PurpleRamen 3y ago
      More specifically, Obsidian shows me, at this moment, 1382 plugins available from the app itself. Some more are probably not available there. And an insanely large amount of them also seems to be already broken, abandoned or having a rather poor quality or just duplicating each other's features with a slight twist in flavor. I guess, it's now big enough, that having some pre-selection of high quality-plugins accessible from within the app, would make sense.
    • rchaud 3y ago
      It feels like WordPress. Core product is solid but minimal in features, expectation is for plugin developers to provide the rest. WordPress was FOSS though.
  • jdksmdbtbdnmsm 3y ago
    Because who doesn't love running random github repos in a root process?
• Multicomp 3y ago
  Thanks for sharing your thoughts on your favorite notetaking app OP, it's more than I've done for mine. I'm glad it works for you, the in-between applications trying to do notetaking is a pain. I settled on OneNote because I'm always trying to capture context with my notes, codify my knowledge. Usually that means screenshots, handwriting, file copies, rarely video or audio embeddings. I'm not going to try to convince you to use onenote, I want to instead complain about how this makes me boring and uncool, I see how trendy/popular the 'markdown files plus some goodies' notetaking applications are, but somehow I just don't get why those have enough ROI for my usecase, but still, my ego of not being a cool 10x developer who uses only certified organic grass-fed markdown files for my notes means I write rant comments like this. Anyways, that's much ado about nothing on my part, again, thanks for sharing!
  • lawgimenez 3y ago
    Speaking of boring, my entire life runs on Apple Notes. Everything to-dos, from family, kids, work, car, etc. I am just not sure how to migrate all of my 2,000 plus notes on to a new system. Plus with limited mobile data signal, I’m not sure if apps like Obsidian will work.
    • pantulis 3y ago
      People have reported success using Exporter, which is reasonably priced. http://falcon.star-lord.me/exporter http://falcon.star-lord.me/exporter
      • lawgimenez 3y ago
        Thanks! Will look into it.
      • jazzyjackson 3y ago
        This might have been necessary at some point but if you sync your notes with icloud then they can be exported by logging into privacy.apple.com and clicking "request a copy of your data" You can also get your icloud drive and photos this way.
• Bo0kerDeWitt 3y ago
  I was an Evernote subscriber for a time, then I asked: Why am I paying just to save notes? So I switched to plain old text files. After a while, on a whim, I tried Obsidian, and I love it! I find the Android app very responsive, and with the files saved locally, it's future-proof. I don't pay for syncing or anything. If I need a note on my PC from my phone, I send it via Bluetooth. It's a system that works for me.
• sgt 3y ago
  Apple just needs to add Markdown to Notes and it would be the perfect app. Right now I am making do with creating little sections where I put monospaced fonts, but it's not ideal. I just need to plop down code between my notes once in a while, and Markdown's ``` makes that very easy.
  • drio0 3y ago
    I don’t have a Mac so I couldn’t access my Notes natively, or export it to use elsewhere. Another reason stopping me from using apple notes is that their search sucks (both within note and across all notes)
  • kstrauser 3y ago
    I agree. I’ve considered trying to use Keyboard Maestro to implement an ersatz Markdown mode, like “replace '##<space>' with ‘trigger the Set Heading Format menu’” or “replace ``` with ‘trigger the Monostyled format menu’”. Huh. Having actually written that out, that should be easy. I know what I’m doing this morning.
    • sgt 3y ago
      Please do share the outcome. I believe there is interest in this. Apple Notes is always there and convenient, which pulls me back.
      • kstrauser 3y ago
        Welp, I did it. I can share the macro if needed, but it ended up exactly as I described it. I also made macros for #, ##, ###, and --- while I was at it.
      • kstrauser 3y ago
        I've published them at https://dev.honeypot.net/kirk/keyboard-maestro https://dev.honeypot.net/kirk/keyboard-maestro if you're interested. Edit: That also turned into a new blog post at https://honeypot.net/post/making-notes-looks-like-markdown-editor-if-you-squint/ https://honeypot.net/post/making-notes-looks-like-markdown-e... . Thanks for the nudge! I've been trying to get into a cadence, but hadn't had anything to talk about recently.
• innethread 3y ago
  What are people’s opinions on Obsidian over Logseq?
  • PetitPrince 3y ago
    Logseq is more opinionated than Obsidian: - It's an outliner, meaning you don't have paragraph but collapsible block. - It's focused on journaling. The default view when you open the app is a journal that's internally a list of all `<date>.md` (today's file is automatically created). - Backlink are built-in instead of being a plugin (albeit an official one). It's automatically displayed at the bottom of the page, meaning I can have a [[SecretProject]] page and have a list of all relevant blocks/page in one go (in LogSeq, all tags are regular pages, so I put a #SecretProject page in the top of my page) - Obsidian ecosystem is massively bigger - LogSeq is FOSS (AGPL), Obsidian is not. I cannot (or rather, should not) use Obsidian at work (but nothing mechanically prevents you), so I'm using LogSeq. - I'm not clear about LogSeq funding
• boiler_up800 3y ago
  A friend has a very popular post on obsidian templates. Never really followed it until he told me it was the most visited post on his site by a large margin, https://dannb.org/blog/2022/obsidian-daily-note-template/ https://dannb.org/blog/2022/obsidian-daily-note-template/
• Brajeshwar 3y ago
  Btw, I also like the CEO's[1] writing and philosophy. I think he is also active here on Hacker News. One such is “File over app”[2] which I have sent to quite a few friends, kids, to read and think over it. 1. https://stephango.com/about https://stephango.com/about 2. https://stephango.com/file-over-app https://stephango.com/file-over-app
  • wrycoder 3y ago
    If you want your writing to still be readable on a computer from the 2060s or 2160s, it’s important that your notes can be read on a computer from the 1960s.
• hoherd 3y ago
  I was unaware of this until a few weeks ago, so I'd like to raise awareness for anybody who it affects: Obsidian is not FOSS, and purchasing a license is required for any work that generates revenue at a for-profit company of 2 or more people. https://obsidian.md/license https://obsidian.md/license Obsidian looks awesome to me, and for a long time I've been thinking about adopting it, but this licensing issue caused me to back away and look for alternatives. I'm not suggesting that paying for software is a bad idea, but the free distribution of it led me to believe that it is FOSS, and it is not. https://obsidian.md/pricing https://obsidian.md/pricing
  • hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
    It's what caused me to pick it. Selling usage for commercial use is a smart move, and I want to ensure the original developers are incentivized to keep working on the product.
    • Tomte 3y ago
      That didn‘t work so much for Dynalist.
      • hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
        This one? https://dynalist.io/ https://dynalist.io/ Looks like it's still alive and kicking. I guess you're probably upset by a lack of updates or something - luckily upgrading to a paid plan would be a good way to incentivize whoever is developing it to continue working on it, at least at the margin.
        • Tomte 3y ago
          I‘ve never been a customer, I‘m using Workflowy. What you missed is that the paid offer didn‘t stop the developers to lose interest and… start Obsidian!
          • euazOn 3y ago
• kuter 3y ago
  The deal breaker with obsidian for me is that it is not opensource. It's great that it's at least using a markdown derivative format. I am using Emacs Org Mode and quite happy with it. You can link different files, include images, embed and view LaTeX, encrypt your notes with GPG and much more. I think it will stand the test of time better than Obsidian which is something I care a lot for note taking and journaling.
  • jbstack 3y ago
    There's also Org Roam which adds some useful ZK-like features to Org Mode.
• jpgvm 3y ago
  I picked up Obsidian after reading a post by the CEO here. Good leadership is usually a sign of a good product and I wasn't disappointed.
• igtztorrero 3y ago
  Does anyone have a simple and concise manual on how to get the most out of Obsidian ?
• ryangs 3y ago
  Linking is an exceptionally good idea. It is very transformative to how I think about organizing information and doing it with Obsidian the past few months has felt great. Besides future proofing, I love the speed of processing a simple text format like markdown (plus local first) allows. Everything opens instantly, which feels very different from things like Google docs or Microsoft Word. About the only note tool it doesn't replace for me is spreadsheets that use math. There are plugins but it doesn't feel quite as clean as Google sheets for this purpose.
• stared 3y ago
  I really like the calendar plugin - it makes it easy to write daily notes, https://github.com/liamcain/obsidian-calendar-plugin https://github.com/liamcain/obsidian-calendar-plugin.
• ncrmro 3y ago
  What’s the best way to sync iOS app to say git for consuming in Linux else where. It seems like they really want you to use iCloud
  • samrolken 3y ago
    If you have a git client for iOS like Working Copy, then it's pretty straightforward to set it up.
• wey-gu 3y ago
  I prefer Logseq :)
• bbx 3y ago
  I've tried to like Obsidian for a long time. It had never clicked with me, despite it's simple interface and seemingly great support. But I recently finally found a great use case for it: saving code snippets. Specifically: code snippets found on Stack Overflow and ChatGPT. You can simply select the answer (usually written in markdown), copy and paste it into Obsidian, and it retains all the formatting, and even applies language-specific color schemes. Here is an example: https://i.imgur.com/GBFr431.png https://i.imgur.com/GBFr431.png It's absolutely brilliant.
• pers0n 3y ago
  If you want an open source alternative use Zettlr or Logseq
• ladyanita22 3y ago
  I'm surprised nobody here's mentioning AppFlowy. Is Logseq that much better?
• stemlord 3y ago
  Obsidian is too clunky for a daily driver text editor. Compare to Sublime. Obsidian also sometimes breaks. Last week it gave me a fully white window, I couldn't use it at all despite a reinstall. It should be ported to a C lang or similar.
• rcarmo 3y ago
  I've recently moved from vimwiki to Agenda (https://www.agenda.com https://www.agenda.com) because I wanted a "proper" native app, and have been quite happy with it. Logseq and Obsidian always feel unnatural either on desktop or mobile (Obsidian, in particular, has a mobile UX that never seems to have full parity with the desktop one, and that is very painful to use on an iPad)
• georgejfrick 3y ago
  I have moved to Obsidian after One Note, Notion, and Trilium. I learned something from using each; but ultimately I wanted the portability of Markdown and with Obsidian I can always fall back on the root folder container all my markdown. (which I backup) I can share my user flow if it helps people... 1. You can turn on support for other file types, so you can move source code/etc in. 2. I have the Day Planner plugin; but it's just JavaScript; so mine is highly customized and uses various sources to generate me a daily calendar/planner in the morning. 3. I don't use Zettelkasten; but all of those systems have something to learn from them in regards to organization. I have a setup I like; but with a personal rule that if I'm not finding something or I feel stuck; I spend time reorganizing. 4. I use tags a lot now; it would take an entire blog to explain why - but the TLDR is that I switched to focusing on WHEN and TAGS instead of trying to perfectly put the right content in the right place. 5. I'm able to use Obsidian on a plane really well - tablet on tray, K380 on lap. I'm frequently getting out 2,000 words on a flight. 6. I manage my work (software dev), campaigns (D&D), personal project, etc all on Obsidian. I even have some code in it when appropriate and its nice. 7. !!! Templates. I've started creating and using templates. So if I want a checklist, ctrl+shift+t/cmd+shift+t and I choose one of my markdown templates and it gets inserted. I currently have "meeting", "1:1", "Pomo Checklist", "Campaign Session". 8. I mentioned this; but I don't hesitate to go into plugins and just change their code to do what I want; it is one of my favorite features.
• paradite 3y ago
  Currently using Joplin with self-hosted NextCloud WebDAV. It has a couple of minor UI/UX issues, even with the plugins. Anyone tried both? How does Obsidian compare against Joplin?
  • aprdm 3y ago
    I tried both and am using Joplin. Has less fuss around it and I focus more on simply taking notes .. the syncing is also cheaper and you can use for work
    • ElCapitanMarkla 3y ago
      I've been using Joplin for over a year after spending too much time testing all of the options out there. Joplin's syncing sealed the deal for me, free and it works well. Obsidian was something like $100 USD a year just to get things synced to my phone.
  • weberer 3y ago
    I've tried both. No UI issues to complain about in Joplin. But Obsidian seems to use its own style of title bars, and it uses the GTK file chooser when my OS is using KDE.
  • theshrike79 3y ago
    I moved from Joplin to Obsidian pretty much only because Obsidian has all the files as regular files. Joplin has its own weird-ass database system. It was also really janky 4 years ago when I used it, might've gotten better since.
• borg16 3y ago
  obsidian is good for what it does, but in the last month I saw someone share heynote[1] with me that I have grown fond of as a support to my obsidian note taking [1] https://heynote.com https://heynote.com
• PurpleRamen 3y ago
  I like Obsidian, but I really dislike the annoying design-philosophy which restricts my usage. For example, it's not possible to open any random folder with it, you need to first register the folder as a vault, and then can open the vault. It also doesn't handle file links under Linux correctly. For whatever reason, any link pointing to a file inside the vault, disappears. Probably some flaw in their file system-abstraction, but that made several workflows for me impossible. And then there is the problem with every vault having its own isolated configuration. Basically, every vault has a folder ".obsidian" which contains all installed plugins, configurations and whatever. For any new vault, you need to link this folder, and for whatever reason they are still unable to let obsidian handle this automatically. Overall, Obsidian is designed to have mainly one, or at least just a very low number of vaults. But considering how poor obsidian scales with file numbers, this is not working well for every one. For me, this removed any motivation to use Obsidian for everything.
  • D13Fd 3y ago
    Yeah it's just not meant to do that. That's how these apps have worked for over a decade. Obsidian is far from the first app to work this way. Notational Velocity, nvalt, Bear, Ulysses - they all worked that way IIRC. Having used these apps for a while, your comment sounds like “these fishing poles really suck as tent poles. Sure, I made them work by tying twigs to them, but they really don’t seem designed well for my use case of holding my tent up.”
    • PurpleRamen 3y ago
      > That's how these apps have worked for over a decade. No, because Obsidian is not one of "these apps". It's not using a database, nor an organisational layer to abstract away the data. It's directly reflecting the filesystem and changes in it, and they are even advertising it with this. There is no technical reason for those limitations and bugs at all.
      • D13Fd 3y ago
        > It's not using a database, nor an organisational layer to abstract away the data. Neither do the other apps I mentioned. They use folders of text files (sometimes with a proprietary database option). They are not general purpose editors meant to just open whatever random file you want on the drive.
• keep320909 3y ago
  I prefer Logseq. It does not need plugins for basic things (PDF annotations). And is completely opensource with transparent development on Github. And I find its workflow much better. Obsidian is commercial closed source app with subscription. Free for personal use only, commercial license is $50/year. I am not going to build my PIM around proprietary tool with subscription!
  • hiAndrewQuinn 3y ago
    Wait, really? I thought it was going to be like $300, $50 would be a steal for the ability to use the Templater plugin to generate all of my business reports from YAML.
  • orbital-decay 3y ago
    > I am not going to build my PIM around proprietary tool with subscription! If your concern is about the lack of a clear migration path, Obsidian vaults are just folders with markdown files, which can be used with absolutely anything, you can literally use them in Emacs or VSCode if you want. The most popular PDF annotation plugin is AGPL-3 licensed and its format is also transparent so you can migrate to something else.
    • keep320909 3y ago
      > which can be used with absolutely anything Not really, markdown has tons of tiny implementation details. And I can not use PDF annotation plugin in Emacs...
      • orbital-decay 3y ago
        I'm saying that because I actually tried. There are Obsidian and customizable markdown modes/plugins for both Emacs and VSCode. My notes are usually cross-referenced, have pictures, occasional Mermaid diagrams, and are often heavy on math and code. > markdown has tons of tiny implementation details. And I can not use PDF annotation plugin in Emacs The same can be said about any other open format, I guess. There's no free lunch, you're always locked in by the implementation/workflow details, and have to write actual code (or use the code written by someone else) to migrate off to a different tool. The point is to not be locked by the format obfuscation or the storage.
• bongripper 3y ago
  > Knowledge is a mosaic crafted from interconnected ideas. source?
• geokon 3y ago
  Not to put to down the author, just trying to understand it better - But the tasks described in the link seem a bit trivial. I can already write a Asciidoc file, tag it, and add links to other .adoc files. Are tools like Obsidian/Logseq just adding a layer of tools on top of that to search and sort files based on tags/dates/etc.? I keep plenty of notes in asciidoc and orgmode files, so I'm genuinely curious to hear from someone with experience. I've tried running Logseq and didn't really get what I was supposed to do...
• rocky_raccoon 3y ago
  What is the best option for cross-device syncing when you're using, e.g. - an iPhone - Google Workspace (+ Google Drive) - Multiple desktops/laptops - Dropbox Is there a single solution that doesn't cost an arm and a leg?
  • poulpy123 3y ago
    I'm using https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync with IBM cloudant as described by the documentation. It handle my android phone, a windows laptop, a windows desktop and a linux desktop
• hiq 3y ago
  A few weeks ago I started splitting knowledge between that which is worthy enough (for me) to remember via flashcards and spaced repetition, and that which I don't need to even write down anywhere. Meaning, in practice, that I don't feel the need to have a proper note-taking system. I just need proper flashcards, which I already have in Anki. I just started this split so maybe I'll come back to it, realizing limitations I'm not aware of yet, but at least for now I feel way better not having a proper note-taking workflow. Compared with Zettelkasten-based systems, this might make it harder to add connections between pieces of knowledge, but I never got around to actually using a Zettelkasten so I am not entirely sure what I'm missing. On the other hand, one's brain is IMHO the best way to connect pieces of knowledge together, and recalling the vertices frequently might be enough to recall the edges of this knowledge graph as well. I haven't seen this (lack of) "approach" mentioned before so I'm curious if I'm alone with this realization and mistaken somehow.
  • MichaelNolan 3y ago
    You’re not alone. My “note taking” is essentially what you described. I do have a single google doc where I paste temporary notes though. This gives me a space where I can properly decide to either delete the content, or ankify it.
  • senjin 3y ago
    This is basically what I tried to do using the spaced repetition plugin for Obsidian but it's just not very good yet. I just checked and the author asked for a co-maintainer yesterday. I really hope they can find someone to put a bit of time in because it's a great idea and a great foundation. https://github.com/st3v3nmw/obsidian-spaced-repetition/ https://github.com/st3v3nmw/obsidian-spaced-repetition/
  • machomaster 3y ago
    Why not combine both? Make notes in Obsidian, but add the information worth memorizing as Anki cards inside the Obsidian?
    • hiq 3y ago
• CrypticShift 3y ago
  So the author is keeping notes in a flat hierarchy and then using the graph. He stated that the goal is "greater understanding," and then he just (in all honesty) states that the nice graphical topology represents my learning journey and keeps me motivated. That is exactly the problem: motivation and a history of learning do not always lead to "greater understanding." On the contrary, I find that our 'notes' are often transient while our internal understanding morphs subtly yet swiftly (especially when learning something new). That is why I think 'organic linking' works better for very large AND more definitive content. Wikipedia is the best example. For personal use, I prefer more structure. The outliner/database combo (like logseq) is the best tool for that. And Frankly as long as I can easily download my data in a readable format, I'm OK with any tool. It does not have to be built as plain text files. But I do like Obsidian :)
  • aaarrm 3y ago
    I often hear of people using Obsidian or other feature-ful not taking and task organization apps creating PKMS (personal knowledge management systems) in then. They often state that linking things together, categorizing and organizing them well, and using appropriate tools to help view these associations that it results in... "realizations", or "understandings"? But I've yet to see anyone mention a concrete example of what they mean by this. I can use my imagination to come up with some potential examples, but I'm curious these conclusions actually often occur or if people are just chasing some idea, when in reality they just get enjoyment from the organization process. Either way, I use Obsidian lightly and am trying to refine how I use it, but I'm definitely not "there" yet. I mostly enjoy having a personal wiki basically of any information that I've researched or need to keep on hand somewhere. Main downside I've run into is that I'm not a huge fan of the layout / UI (maybe there's plugins for that) and tables are horrendous in it (I know they just added an update for them recently but I've already offloaded my table-style data elsewhere and I don't plan on bringing it back).
• subpixel 3y ago
  I struggled with Obsidian especially b/c repeatedly creating files and futzing around in the UI to name and move them felt wrong. I landed on Workflowy which has it's own quirks but has seen a lot of improvement since I last kicked the tires, including mirroring etc. It does a great job of staying out of the way so I can just get notes done.
• poulpy123 3y ago
  I cross my finger for someone to propose a similar tool based on typst (although the extensibility of the language may be counterproductive)
• tamimio 3y ago
  What I like about obsidian is how it’s a very good front-end for my notes, that’s it, just a front end, in case of anything or if obsidian tomorrow ceases to exist, all my notes are in my git and they are also backed up daily somewhere else, I don’t feel I’m locked to anything or any company. The addons too are very nice extra touch but it isn’t why I like obsidian.
• nigamanth 3y ago
  As a high school student, I also use Obsidian over more mainstream alternatives such as Notion or OneNote. I find it primarily useful because of the no-internet feature and I find the linking ability to be extremely useful since most ideas are related to other ideas, and in totality this creates a concept.
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• joemccall86 3y ago
  I used Obsidian for a while, but for some reason https://silverbullet.md https://silverbullet.md ended up resonating more with me.
• ska 3y ago
  Anyone familiar with both have a comparison with org-roam mode?
• NoMAD76 3y ago
  Tried Obsidian multiple times, can't make it work for me. Tried Zettlr a week ago, same result. Somehow I seem nobody noticed anytype - https://anytype.io/ https://anytype.io/ They're still in beta, looks like they draw inspiration from Notion but it's more closer to what I need.
• avgcorrection 3y ago
  Obsidian is that thing in the back of my mind which is Markdown+Synch. Service. I’ve never really gotten into synch. since I tend to monocompute a lot. I write things in Org Mode. Not a power user of that thing, just the markup I use. I don’t use links in Org but I would like to. I sometimes make very informal and tedious links. So that would be a welcome feature. > Obsidian’s choice to work with plain text files make it future-proof Future-proof yes. It is. But as a customer this doesn’t sound that exciting. A company could offer to print all my data and mail it to me when I terminate the plan. That’s also future-proof. Ditto with > Obsidian allows structure to grow organically I haven’t read the links but 95% of the time this means “because there isn’t any structure (YOLO)”. Yeah okay I am free as a bird, cool. But I can’t make a decades-spanning personal wiki based on completely unstructured data and links alone. All in all: most MD tools kind of fade into the background for me. People want all kinds of bells and whistles with that semi-language like a dedicated editor so that they can write headers and unordered bullet lists with a preview. Overall the marketplace feels excessive.
• crossroadsguy 3y ago
  Whenever there's an Obsidian fanfare going on here on HN (and it happens quite often :P) I wonder around among the comments looking for a simple, minimal, and clean knife (or maybe a light bow and arrow) while people are discussing their AWPs, customised Dragunovs, and bespoke Abrams. Good fun :)
  • justnotworthit 3y ago
    I've been waiting for and nvAlt/Resophnotes with image file support for 10 years.
    • hskf 3y ago
      [dead]
      • deafpolygon 3y ago
        That has been "coming soon" for years now.
    • dist-epoch 3y ago
      I replaced Resophnotes with Obsidian, since I found Obsidian to be extremely similar.
  • sevagh 3y ago
    I have a bludgeon. A permanently open markdown file with my life stuff in it (chores, ideas, projects, backburner, vacation plans). I think the closest is probably this: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38733968 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38733968
    • dandy23 3y ago
      I like easyorg for development and project tasks. Makes it easy to prioritize tasks etc but still in a text file. https://easyorgmode.com https://easyorgmode.com
• tristor 3y ago
  I've tried to use Obsidian three different times, and I always end up going back to Standard Notes. I love Markdown, I love note-taking with Markdown, but I really just want something that's clean, simple, and fairly basic. I'm very fluent in Markdown and am not trying to do something crazy to munge into a Markdown representation, and I also don't want to deal with a complex plugin architecture to get things done. Before I used Standard Notes, I was mostly satisfied with a private Github repo, containing Markdown files and NeoVim.
• pilgrim0 3y ago
  Obsidian is nice, I use it to write articles. But I don’t like to take notes in it. IME notes are something transient, so recording them as files generates too much pollution/trash. Having paper notebooks around is much more fun, gets me in a flow easier, there’s close to no commitment with structure, the mind works better, can use colored pens, etc. Plus, it’s so much fun to go through old notebooks, it has historical weight, it makes me remember other aspects of my life surrounding the events, you can tell the mood of the writing, etc. So, my take: Use the tool relevant to the desired output format.
  • timetraveller26 3y ago
    Not disagrreing with you but it's sorta funny that you say files pollute more than paper.
    • pilgrim0 3y ago
      I keep my notebooks around. But I get your point about the paper making industry. I think it’s mostly water waste than by-products pollution, though, since most sources nowadays employ reforestation. Those industries evolved a lot. Unbleached paper (what I use) has less of an impact. I actually meant pollution to signify “mess”, but English in not my native language.
• mortallywounded 3y ago
  I tried Obsidian for a while and the whole "second brain-thingy" until I watched a video about complex procrastination (basically, using tools like Obsidian as a means of not doing actual work). https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baKCC2uTbRc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=baKCC2uTbRc
  • rchaud 3y ago
    Another term for it is "knowledge p*rn", basically getting off to the idea that you're learning by watching another power user video, or reading another blog post, instead of simply doing the work.
• barbazoo 3y ago
  Anyone know of an alternative that stores data locally and looks and feels a bit more like Notion? The plain list like note view is just so ugly and when I create a new note I'd want it to be in the context of whatever I'm currently looking at, not at the root. I know about tags and the graph view but it's just not what I need. There was a comment to a Notion related submission the other day that talked about something Notion like but self hosted, that's be fine too but I can't find it right now.
  • rchaud 3y ago
    Was it anytype.io?
    • barbazoo 3y ago
      It wasn't but it looks great!
  • abhinavk 3y ago
    SiYuan? https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan
• n8henrie 3y ago
  My setup is a little complex, but I'm very happy syncing plain-text notes between my Mac, several Linux machines, and my iPhone. I'm still using (and loving) Notational Velocity on my Mac. Thankfully it's open source, so I was able to hack together arm64 support even though I don't know C/ObjC/C++ [0]. On my iPhone, I've been very happy with 1Writer, which has a similar interface, and is scriptable with JavaScript for power users. I have NV configured to store plain-text notes that are stored in 1Writer's iCloud folder, so syncing happens seamlessly between them. Finally, I sync that same directory with Syncthing to my Linux machines, where I mostly use neovim for editing. The only feature that I'm often wishing I had is shared editing with my wife. At some point I whipped up some launchd scripts to automatically move notes tagged with `#shared` to a shared subfolder, but it never worked very well. Thankfully my wife is not really all that interested in sharing notes, so we just use Apple Notes when needed. Tried Obsidian but was miffed at the inability to recognize / store as .txt files instead of .md (or perhaps it was vice versa) without a community plugin, and I prefer FOSS, so uninstalled after a couple days. Have LogSeq installed but can't convince myself to use it, what I have fits my needs well enough. I'm also concerned about their funding model and the longevity of the project, the other side of the coin of FOSS I suppose. [0]: https://github.com/n8henrie/nv https://github.com/n8henrie/nv [1]: https://apps.apple.com/app/id680469088 https://apps.apple.com/app/id680469088
• deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
• DLion 3y ago
  I'm a happy Obsidian user too, it's probably the application I use the most. The amount of plugins available is incredible (my favs: Excalidraw and Calendar, Obsidian Git) I also wrote an article about why I switched from Notion to Obsidian a few years ago. https://domenicoluciani.com/2021/12/17/why-did-i-switch-from-notion-to-obsidian.html https://domenicoluciani.com/2021/12/17/why-did-i-switch-from...
• Otternonsenz 3y ago
  While not my personal knowledge base yet, my personal use case for Obsidian is probably what gives me the most joy for it: as a Dungeon Master’s Worldbuilding Notes / Interactive DM Screen Where I have used pen and paper in the past to track everything, Obsidian has supercharged my ability to sit down and flesh out my homebrew world in a way that was hard to do for myself prior. On top of the ease of writing and linking together notes, it also allows me to simultaneously tie in my pre-written lore with the session notes I take, so I don’t forget stuff that happens or that my players are supposed to pick up on. I’ve also encouraged my players to use it, so that if they are taking notes on the right things, they can piece together stuff or make their own assumptions to inform how they choose to play. It works for us, I get it’s not for everyone. But versus my old DM Binder in OneNote, it works perfectly for my needs! On a similar, yet separate note, I’ve found the folder/note structure to be conducive to learning new TTRPG rules and essentially having my personal SRDs for different games (currently chunking my way through the Shadowrun 6e SRD and making my own notes or expansions on it to make it make more sense).
  • BrandoElFollito 3y ago
    A lady that gives a lot of tutorials about Obsidian on YouTube users it as a DM as well. I think she posted a few videos about that usage. Edit: found her: https://youtube.com/@nicolevdh https://youtube.com/@nicolevdh
    • Otternonsenz 3y ago
      Nicole is great, and someone who is a fantastic resource for all the cool ways people use the software! Her and a bunch of others are active on the Obsidian discord, and from the TTRPG specific Obsidian group, they released a fantastic resource in: https://obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials https://obsidianttrpgtutorials.com/Obsidian+TTRPG+Tutorials/... It has a lot there, and not every DM needs everything in here. However, I love this resource as another way to understand all the different things you could do with and without plugins.
• adhamsalama 3y ago
  While Obsidian is good, I prefer SiYuan Note, which is open source, and has more features. It's like a mix of Notion and Obsidian. https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan
• mtriassi 3y ago
  I've really fallen for Obsidian myself. I became somewhat of an evangelist for it in my office. Much like the author i tend to use it as a "backstage for my life". In the interest of sharing my system with my colleagues i even turned my work vault into a template of sorts [^1]. Though that's also the most interesting part about Obsidian. What works for one person doesn't necessarily work for another. When i presented my template to my colleagues i definitely got some comments like: "oh man, my brain doesn't work that way" or "this feels overly complex". It's interesting how a simple markdown editor has become this analogue for some of our brains. [^1]: https://github.com/m-triassi/obsidian-workvault-template https://github.com/m-triassi/obsidian-workvault-template - This is still a work in progress, but if anyone has suggestions or things they'd like to share i'd be open to feedback or even PRs!
• glub103011 3y ago
  [dead]
• ezst 3y ago
  Unpopular opinion: I dislike obsidian. I came to the realization that any reasonably large collection of notes requires structure, which goes by the definition of types (for people, places, organizations, ...). Obsidian is very rudimentary in this regard: it offers properties, folders and templates. Those are workable at first but fall apart soon enough: you can derive many instances of a type from a certain template, but obsidian will happily let you change the template later on without offering the means to propagate the changes to existing instances, leaving your notes in an inconsistent state with no way to tell. Anytype, SiYuan, LogSeq have the same problem. Notion is a bit better considering its "databases" help finding and patching such discrepancies, but is also limited in that it doesn't let you extend types (polymorphism). None of them support cardinality (should there be one or multiple references) nor defining forward and backwards relationships when the property is relational. As I was about to give up, I found out about Trilium which checks all the good marks when it comes to data modeling and consistency, in a super simple and straightforward manner. And on top of that, it's opensource, local first, self hostable, syncable, has a web UI so you don't have to install anything if you can't, and lends itself to emacs levels of hackability. IMO, anyone claiming to be managing a large collection of notes should give it a serious look.
  • eternityforest 3y ago
    Looks really cool, aside from the lack of Android support or a managed cloud option. My big issue with Obsidian is just performance. Android likes to kill the background process and you're waiting 10 seconds or more just to be able to write a 5 word shopping list entry. I eventually switched to Google Keep, with always listening assistant turned on.
    • ezst 3y ago
      > Looks really cool, aside from the lack of Android support or a managed cloud option. For Android, you can use trilium as a PWA currently, I do that and it's not bad at all, but offline isn't supported yet. I would say that the UX through the PWA isn't worse than that of Obsidian. If offline on your phone is a requirement, you should be able to run trilium server there (haven't tried): https://github.com/Nriver/awesome-trilium#-android https://github.com/Nriver/awesome-trilium#-android There is managed hosting too, at a very fair price I'd say (compared to the alternatives): https://trilium.cc/ https://trilium.cc/
• Lazare 3y ago
  Tried Obsidian for a while, loved a lot about it, but....mmm. Obsidian out of the box is a bit limited; plugins are great and add tons of features, but then you start hitting issues with plugin maintainers abandoning plugins you rely on, or needing to make a decision between three different plugins that all do the same thing slightly different. Depending on your use case and expectations that may not be a big deal, but I really missed not having what I personally saw as core features not being officially supported. (Also, FWIW, the sync service is a bit pricy for what it is. I get that it's how they're trying to monetise it, but...I would have preferred another pricing model, even if the total cost was just as high.) I've personally switched to Trilium Notes which I'm finding nicer. One element I particularly like is that it has first class suport for notes being able to exist at multiple places in a tree simultaneously. I know it's a very personal thing, but for me personally being able to file notes in multiple locations "clicks" in a way that tags didn't. Trilium Notes: https://github.com/zadam/trilium https://github.com/zadam/trilium And here's a nice writeup on ways to use Trilium (although much of it applies to Obsidian too): https://github.com/zadam/trilium/wiki/Patterns-of-personal-knowledge-base https://github.com/zadam/trilium/wiki/Patterns-of-personal-k...
• Biganon 3y ago
  Whenever I read about Obsidian or similar software, I feel like it's great, but I also feel ashamed, because... I have absolutely no idea what I'd write in them. What do you people write about? Do you really have genius ideas all day long that you need to write down? Or do you want to keep track of everything you've seen / discussed? Maybe I'm just an idiot