7 ms·

This looks nice but nearly identical to Obsidian. How does it differ from Obsidian's features?

by gwelson 2y ago

alwayslikethis 2y ago
It seems to be open source, which is a big plus compared to obsidian
- kelsolaar 2y ago
  Why is it a big plus, genuine question? You do not need Obsidian to use your Markdown written content and are not vendor locked in as such.
  - adhamsalama 2y ago
    The same reason it is a plus for any other open source software. You can modify it and fork it if it's discontinued.
  - jraph 2y ago
    Open source / Free software comes with all the usual benefits: - you can fork and adapt to your needs - should the original authors stop developing it or take a direction you don't like but your started depending on it, someone can take over the development of a fork - you can study how it works - you can reuse some of the code to build an alternative product - you can contribute patches if the project accepts them - if you have to migrate, even if the format is specific, you can at least check how it works That thing being open source is a big plus, and Obsidian using a standard format is a big plus.
  - colordrops 2y ago
    That's like saying "you do not need oracle to use your bytes on disk". I may be mistaken but doesn't obsidian provide a ton of functionality on top of markdown?
    - veidr 2y ago
      No, just a little bit. Your docs remain 98% compatible with other Markdown editors. The functionality is mainly around a.) better UI for editing Markdown, b.) plugin ecosystem (optional), c.) paid sync (optional, and achievable otherwise e.g. SyncThing, your own rsync script, etc), and d.) optional (and very bad) "publish-as-a-website" feature.
      - Tomte 2y ago
        If you only use standard Markdown. But the advocacy often focuses on DataView and a thousand other features that are simply not available without Obsidian.
        veidr 2y ago
        True, but it seems very obvious that if you add a bunch of plugin dependencies (or even one), you are deliberately choosing to forego "standard" Markdown (there's actually no such thing, but roughly speaking). That's why they're plugins. I do use the Excalidraw plugin, but nothing much else, and that is why I have an easy time making my Obsidian notes web-accessible (currently, via SilverBullet, but any tool that makes markdown web-editable will work — as long as you don't go nuts with plugins, that is). Having said that, I think the reason Obsidian "failed" — to the extent that Notion and some others have massively more adoption amongst organizations larger than me and my gray beard – is that they failed to combine their (super awesome) files-and-folders approach with a web editable solution. They thought - obviously wrongly, in hindsight — that web accessible would be enough. It's not. It's the 10%, Notion etc cover the 90% (but with fairly bad tradeoffs, they have export and it works, but you can't easily interop with your data where it lives). But I've had such an easy time making my Obsidian web-editable that I suspect in a few minutes (or months) Obsidian will be like heyyyyy... edit yo vault via web yo — and for free! and then we will all be like woo Obsidian boo Notion!! But we'll see
      - SamPatt 2y ago
        The plugins are no small thing though. I replaced Anki with a spaced repetition plugin, now my notes can be flashcards and I don't need to maintain two separate apps. Also the UI for search and navigation is much better than just a collection of Markdown files. I rolled my own note system using Markdown before this. Obsidian is way better.
- brunoqc 2y ago
  Not fully open source. It seems you need to pay to get the privilege to "Export PDF/Image with watermark". https://b3log.org/siyuan/en/pricing.html https://b3log.org/siyuan/en/pricing.html
  - elashri 2y ago
    It doesn't have to be free everything to qualify for open source. The source and licence are available. You can actually bypass payment if you want to do that as the source ia there.
    - brunoqc 2y ago
      Right but it's a bit unusual. I was expecting the "pro" features to be in a separate repo or something. I don't think I would even bother to update a local patch on every releases. I'll just use another foss app without silly "pro" features.
  - oefrha 2y ago
    The code is indeed entirely AGPL, I looked at license headers in the specific files implementing paid features. I wonder if it’s an oversight. See my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42514304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42514304 for details.
skaragianis 2y ago
The file format isn't markdown, instead a proprietary format in JSON
- adhamsalama 2y ago
  Is it not open source?
  - skaragianis 2y ago
    It locks your efforts to the vendor/project which is different to Obsidian
    - adhamsalama 2y ago
      It is still open source, not proprietary, and you can export files to Markdown anyway.
- Pooge 2y ago
  I'm not an Obsidian user, but I agree with their "file over app" philosophy.[1] If SiYuan stops being developed, are the files still readable/parse-able? [1]: https://stephango.com/file-over-app https://stephango.com/file-over-app
  - pg999w 2y ago
    Yes, if SiYuan stops being developed, you can still get your notes exported as markdown files. Since SiYuan is open-source, you can also use the internal code to parse the JSON format notes.
  - adhamsalama 2y ago
    It's open source, so yes, and you can export files to Markdown anyway.
  - princevegeta89 2y ago
    Yes, your existing installations on your devices, whatever they are, can read your data as long as you use the correct Repo keys that are used to encrypt stuff. In the worst case, you can deploy the docker instance with older images to keep going on.
adhamsalama 2y ago
Isn't Obsidian limited to markdown files? This uses a different format so it can add more features like databases.
- rlupi 2y ago
  No, Obsidian is quite more powerful. Obsidian has built-in support for markdown, images, PDFs, canvas (via JSON Canvas which they developed and open sourced https://obsidian.md/canvas https://obsidian.md/canvas), and others. For databases, you can add fields/properties both in the markdown frontmatter or in the text and query it via very popular plugins: https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview There are tons of community plugins that support all kind of stuff: tasks, kanban, LLM/Copilot, graph analysis of links, charts. It can also be extended in JS, both writing your own plugins or via a few plugins that allow limited JS support. --- Obsidian is actually quite good as a NoCode prototyping platform for personal apps :-) E.g. CRUD: - Use templates, via Templater: to define the content of your data - Use links and tags to define relations and connections - Use dataview or graphs for views - There are even plugins to define buttons and the actions they perform, if you need commands
tcper 2y ago
Obsidian sync feature is paid service, this project you can setup your own service
- hxii 2y ago
  There are free alternatives, e.g https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync
- shim__ 2y ago
  You can just sync Obsidian with nextcloud, Dropbox or whatever
- number6 2y ago
  Also you need a license for anything work related. Since I code in my work time and my free time I can't separate this clearly. To be compliant I would need a license
- SamPatt 2y ago
  I use Syncthing with Obsidian. Free and open source.
- echelon 2y ago
  Obsidian has a free git plugin.
TnS-hun 2y ago
Its editor is fully WYSIWYG, so it does not switch to raw Markdown when you want to modify something.

This looks nice but nearly identical to Obsidian. How does it differ from Obsidian's features?

alwayslikethis 2y ago

It seems to be open source, which is a big plus compared to obsidian

kelsolaar 2y ago
Why is it a big plus, genuine question? You do not need Obsidian to use your Markdown written content and are not vendor locked in as such.
- adhamsalama 2y ago
  The same reason it is a plus for any other open source software. You can modify it and fork it if it's discontinued.
- jraph 2y ago
  Open source / Free software comes with all the usual benefits: - you can fork and adapt to your needs - should the original authors stop developing it or take a direction you don't like but your started depending on it, someone can take over the development of a fork - you can study how it works - you can reuse some of the code to build an alternative product - you can contribute patches if the project accepts them - if you have to migrate, even if the format is specific, you can at least check how it works That thing being open source is a big plus, and Obsidian using a standard format is a big plus.
- colordrops 2y ago
  That's like saying "you do not need oracle to use your bytes on disk". I may be mistaken but doesn't obsidian provide a ton of functionality on top of markdown?
  - veidr 2y ago
    No, just a little bit. Your docs remain 98% compatible with other Markdown editors. The functionality is mainly around a.) better UI for editing Markdown, b.) plugin ecosystem (optional), c.) paid sync (optional, and achievable otherwise e.g. SyncThing, your own rsync script, etc), and d.) optional (and very bad) "publish-as-a-website" feature.
    - Tomte 2y ago
      If you only use standard Markdown. But the advocacy often focuses on DataView and a thousand other features that are simply not available without Obsidian.
      - veidr 2y ago
        True, but it seems very obvious that if you add a bunch of plugin dependencies (or even one), you are deliberately choosing to forego "standard" Markdown (there's actually no such thing, but roughly speaking). That's why they're plugins. I do use the Excalidraw plugin, but nothing much else, and that is why I have an easy time making my Obsidian notes web-accessible (currently, via SilverBullet, but any tool that makes markdown web-editable will work — as long as you don't go nuts with plugins, that is). Having said that, I think the reason Obsidian "failed" — to the extent that Notion and some others have massively more adoption amongst organizations larger than me and my gray beard – is that they failed to combine their (super awesome) files-and-folders approach with a web editable solution. They thought - obviously wrongly, in hindsight — that web accessible would be enough. It's not. It's the 10%, Notion etc cover the 90% (but with fairly bad tradeoffs, they have export and it works, but you can't easily interop with your data where it lives). But I've had such an easy time making my Obsidian web-editable that I suspect in a few minutes (or months) Obsidian will be like heyyyyy... edit yo vault via web yo — and for free! and then we will all be like woo Obsidian boo Notion!! But we'll see
    - SamPatt 2y ago
      The plugins are no small thing though. I replaced Anki with a spaced repetition plugin, now my notes can be flashcards and I don't need to maintain two separate apps. Also the UI for search and navigation is much better than just a collection of Markdown files. I rolled my own note system using Markdown before this. Obsidian is way better.
brunoqc 2y ago
Not fully open source. It seems you need to pay to get the privilege to "Export PDF/Image with watermark". https://b3log.org/siyuan/en/pricing.html https://b3log.org/siyuan/en/pricing.html
- elashri 2y ago
  It doesn't have to be free everything to qualify for open source. The source and licence are available. You can actually bypass payment if you want to do that as the source ia there.
  - brunoqc 2y ago
    Right but it's a bit unusual. I was expecting the "pro" features to be in a separate repo or something. I don't think I would even bother to update a local patch on every releases. I'll just use another foss app without silly "pro" features.
- oefrha 2y ago
  The code is indeed entirely AGPL, I looked at license headers in the specific files implementing paid features. I wonder if it’s an oversight. See my other comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42514304 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42514304 for details.

skaragianis 2y ago

The file format isn't markdown, instead a proprietary format in JSON

adhamsalama 2y ago
Is it not open source?
- skaragianis 2y ago
  It locks your efforts to the vendor/project which is different to Obsidian
  - adhamsalama 2y ago
    It is still open source, not proprietary, and you can export files to Markdown anyway.
Pooge 2y ago
I'm not an Obsidian user, but I agree with their "file over app" philosophy.[1] If SiYuan stops being developed, are the files still readable/parse-able? [1]: https://stephango.com/file-over-app https://stephango.com/file-over-app
- pg999w 2y ago
  Yes, if SiYuan stops being developed, you can still get your notes exported as markdown files. Since SiYuan is open-source, you can also use the internal code to parse the JSON format notes.
- adhamsalama 2y ago
  It's open source, so yes, and you can export files to Markdown anyway.
- princevegeta89 2y ago
  Yes, your existing installations on your devices, whatever they are, can read your data as long as you use the correct Repo keys that are used to encrypt stuff. In the worst case, you can deploy the docker instance with older images to keep going on.

adhamsalama 2y ago

Isn't Obsidian limited to markdown files? This uses a different format so it can add more features like databases.

rlupi 2y ago
No, Obsidian is quite more powerful. Obsidian has built-in support for markdown, images, PDFs, canvas (via JSON Canvas which they developed and open sourced https://obsidian.md/canvas https://obsidian.md/canvas), and others. For databases, you can add fields/properties both in the markdown frontmatter or in the text and query it via very popular plugins: https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview https://github.com/blacksmithgu/obsidian-dataview There are tons of community plugins that support all kind of stuff: tasks, kanban, LLM/Copilot, graph analysis of links, charts. It can also be extended in JS, both writing your own plugins or via a few plugins that allow limited JS support. --- Obsidian is actually quite good as a NoCode prototyping platform for personal apps :-) E.g. CRUD: - Use templates, via Templater: to define the content of your data - Use links and tags to define relations and connections - Use dataview or graphs for views - There are even plugins to define buttons and the actions they perform, if you need commands

tcper 2y ago

Obsidian sync feature is paid service, this project you can setup your own service

hxii 2y ago
There are free alternatives, e.g https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync
shim__ 2y ago
You can just sync Obsidian with nextcloud, Dropbox or whatever
number6 2y ago
Also you need a license for anything work related. Since I code in my work time and my free time I can't separate this clearly. To be compliant I would need a license
SamPatt 2y ago
I use Syncthing with Obsidian. Free and open source.
echelon 2y ago
Obsidian has a free git plugin.

TnS-hun 2y ago

Its editor is fully WYSIWYG, so it does not switch to raw Markdown when you want to modify something.