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I wanted to go all in on Obsidian, but in the end I went with “Upnote” which has an easy UI and a lifetime price. (No monthly fees). It’s like a mix of Evernote and OneNote. The Slash commands are so cool too.
It’s a different thing. What Obsidian and Logseq offer is plain-text markdown files in folders on your disk. Upnote and most of the other alternatives mentioned in this post store their data in a database.
Different thing altogether. Just depends what you’re looking for.
I couldn’t get work to pay for it so I found a better, cheaper alternative, Notesnook. It’s open source (client and sync server), you can publish notes, and it’s end-to-end encrypted.
Can you selfhost a sync server? Be completely independent of them?
technically yes. they just recently made the sync server open source - https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook-sync-server - but their documentation for it is still pending.
I’ve been following their progress for a while and can say that they appear to be following through on all their goals. and are very responsive to issues on GitHub. but don’t take my word for it, check out their roadmap to see when they release the self hosting documentation- https://notesnook.com/roadmap/
The community plugin “Google Drive Sync” is free, open source, and lets you (clunkily but effectively) bypass Obsydian Sync. One less server to manage.
Which is a great workaround but then all your private notes are on Google’s servers, accessible to anyone with enough admin rights on their end. All apps should be end-to-end encrypted going into 2025. There’s no reason security AND privacy shouldn’t be included.
There’s also syncthing, which allows syncing a folder… Hell theres even a git plugin to bypass obsidian sync, so you can get version controlled notes (which might be desirable in a work setting)
Wdym by bypass obsidian Sync? Do you have the link for said plug-in?
There is also the Obsidian Selfhosted Livesync community plugin that will sync with your own sync server. As the name suggests, it syncs live, so you can even see typing from one device appear on another. It’s pretty neat
Huh, didn’t see that one when I set up obsidian… I might check it out because syncthing does have some conflicting edit issues from time to time
i use notally for quick notes and reminders but i needed another organizer for longer text
i started trying notesnook after reading your comment and it looks like what i needed. I really like its customizability. I wish there was an option to choose fonts from file.
The only problem is that constant login reminder. Is there a way to get rid of it?
Thanks for sharing I didn’t know about this one and it’s robust as keep
It says it’s free, but then there’s a pricing and plans page?
A lot of alarm bells ringing for me about that app.
Notesnook is free. It is developed under gpl https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook
I just wanted to toss out another thanks for mentioning Notesnook. After a week I’m completely won over.
It’s always been free for me using Mobius Sync…
SyncThing for me, but yeah.
Yup! I should have been more specific, Mobius Sync uses syncthing on iOS.
Not the point here. Using it in a commercial environment for free was a violation of the terms, now it’s not anymore.
Ah got it, thanks for the clarification.
I thought this was about a different obsidian lol
Same. I’ve never heard of the Obsidian in the OP, so I was hoping they somehow left Microsoft and were looking for a game designer or something.
This is the same conversation they had with reddit for years. It’s being developed for everyone and we’ll make it open some day. Now look what happened.
I use obsidian but only with the bare minimum knowing that I may have to jump ship at any moment.
It’s regrettable that Obsidian isn’t open source. But the nice thing about it is that its data store is just a bunch of markdown files in a folder structure, and very easily migrated to any other application. They may have the code but they don’t take the data hostage like a lot of commercial software does.
Yeah they even say if you don’t like what they do in the future you can easily pickup your md files and take them elsewhere.
It’s insane obsidian isn’t open source, since it’s just a fancy vscode plugin or fork basically (idk how they developed it obviously but that’s all you’d need to do). That’s why I don’t use it. It’s too simple not to be OSS
Agreed, I use it with as few options and extensions as possible. I don’t want to start creating a complex system of notes that will rely on anything specific. I try to stick to the core functions without any extras because of the worry of eventually falling into a proprietary black hole. I keep my foot in just enough to get my uses but not so much that I might get stuck with the software.
Use Logseq. It’s amazing IMO. And OSS
It’s a very, very different approach having everything as a bullet point though.
Yeah but you learn it and it’s a far more organized approach
It doesn’t matter if it’s a “far more organised approach”, logseq simply doesn’t fit many types of workflows for note taking.
logseq is a zettelkasten program; Obsidian is a text editor
Embrace zettelkasten as your note taking workflow. It’s more organized 😅
I’ve tried logseq for the last 6 months (no commercial license) at work, but while it’s really good for outlining, it’s lack of a tag function is what feels like a critical weakness to me. I realize structurally it’s different in concept. But making everything into bullets doesn’t always suit the task.
I would love Logseq for journalling or writing though.
I actually find the lack of distinction between a tag and a wiki link a breath of fresh air. So many other apps make a meaningless distinction between them and make you choose ahead of time a styleguide for how you plan to use both. Logseq makes a queryable style enforced and then you adapt to using it. Very different
Yes, but the syntax and documentation on the queries is obtuse as hell in logseq. Like it is ridiculous how granular you have a to get of you want to return all links within a time period or something. If I need to write SQL to pull notes, I should just use a database, lol.
The nice thing about tags as a distinct entity is it offers the option you can utilize if you choose. It gives you two buckets you can sort into and connect between. And it does make creating “topic groups” easier than manually linking them all to a tag page in logseq, imo.
Conversely, I would massively prefer of Logseq abolished support for hashtags entirely if they are functionally identical to wikilinks. Or combine them so the hashtags auto-convert to wikilinks or vice versa. But supporting hashtags in any manner when they are frankly not a “real” feature is more frustrating. Making topic links in Logseq is harder because of this.
Also, the existence of tag pages themselves is a confusong abberation given the above…
Logseq is a great tool, but very different in terms of what it is best suited to handle. I think I will revisit it for if I do a lot of writing, but for disparate ideas or notation it is good but could be better.
Obsidian dev’s original project Dynalist is an outline based notes app that does have tags. She doesn’t update it anymore but I still rely heavily on it as my second brain.
I think for some brains it just doesn’t click. How do you write a long form document? How would you write documentation? How would you write a blog post?
I tried for a while but I just couldn’t understand the concept of “Everything as an outline.”
Well I think the first thing is just simply that documents aren’t notes, so you wouldn’t write those things in Logseq.
What you are writing in Logseq is a zettlekasten, which is just a personal knowledge graph. And in a knowledge graph, everything needs to relate somehow to everything else, that’s why it has to be an outline.
So things can relate to the journal date they were written on, to their parent and children concepts, and to the links that they contain. Every idea has at least a relationship to the date you wrote it, but hopefully you can link that idea to more than just that relationship. You want to organically rediscover that next time you make a cake, that eggs are bad for your allergies, and be able to trace that you discovered that at this doctors appointment on this date.
Otherwise, how would you ever find anything? And more importantly, how would you rediscover it organically when researching other concepts in your graph?
Obsidian purports to help you create organized knowledge graphs, but it makes you plan your organization up front. Logseq lets it evolve naturally and organically, by giving you the necessary tools and constraints.
Thank you, that’s what I had suspected, so I’m glad I wasn’t doing anything wrong.
The way I like to think is through long form writing and personal documentation, so I guess it’s not a good match for me.
In Obsidian I have a script that lets me know any notes that aren’t linked to anything else, so it means I have everything interlinked.
This is true of Markdown though, no? Which Obsidian runs?
Markdown has many more elements than bullet points
I assume this means free for local use? Not any kind of backups?
Why would they donate server space to you on top of giving you free (beer) software?
The way some of you think is very odd to me.
Back up your own shit or pay for sync.
I said absolutely nothing to indicate that I felt that way so I don’t know WTF you’re on about.
I assume this means free for local use? Not any kind of backups?
Why would they donate server space to you on top of giving you free (beer) software?
That’s literally what you said… ?? Or at least that’s how it reads to me and the previous commenter.
That literally doesn’t even remotely resemble what I said.
I don’t necessarily like a few takes in the comments here.
Vibes wise the Obsidian team seems to be great and they don’t seem to have shown any reason why I should distrust them. I love FOSS but gifting others my work doesn’t put food on my table, so in that sense they need to have a lucrative business model which they seem to have established.
I could use SyncThing, Git or other solutions to do synchronisation between my devices but I choose to buy their Sync offer, since I want to support them (they also have EU servers, which need to be GDPR compliant by law afaik).
The closest comparison I could make is NextCloud. NextCloud open sources their software, but they sell convenience. Sure, you could self host it, but paying them to do so for you may be more attractive. In comparison Obsidian is not really complicated to set up or maintain. It’s literally just a MD-editor. So the only convenient thing to sell is synchronisation if you don’t want to put a price tag on the software.
If they open source all their code, some tech wizard will implement a self hosted obsidian sync server with the same convenience as theirs in a day, and the company will lose their revenue stream.
We’ve all been burned by tech bros in one way or another, but I think it’s ok for people to profit off of their IP. And they seem to be doing so with a positive vision. Feel free to let me eat my words if they ever go rogue, but that’s my 2 cents.
I think it’s ok for people to profit off of their IP
I absolutely agree. That doesn’t mean the software has to be closed source though, a lot of software works well when sold with paid support, especially to companies.
If the price is low enough, companies will often just pay even if they don’t need the support.
That’s a bit naive imho. Remaining closed source is a form of IP protection and that’s really ok for what Obsidian is (a markdown editor). There’s just not any benefit for them other than appreciation from FOSS enthusiasts. Also maintaining an open source repository causes a higher workload and they lose a lot of freedom.
If privacy is your concern you don’t need source code anyway. It’s quite easy to sandbox an application like that and analyse network traffic and such. Also Obsidian is built using Electron. That means with enough motivation one could quite easily reverse engineer most of the app. Most of the applications behaviour can also be observed via the integrated dev console, which lets you view source code.
In short I don’t really see the need, unless I want to build or maintain it myself. And I think the negatives far outweigh the positives from the perspective of Obsidians team.
You don’t need a public repo to be FOSS. You don’t need to accept changes. All you need is to provide a copy of the source code upon request. You can even automate that with a link to a tarball or something in the app.
My concern is less about privacy and more about security and longevity (i.e. what happens if they turn evil?). If it’s FOSS, I can audit the source and fork it if they go in a direction I don’t like. If it’s proprietary, I’m SOL if they turn evil or stop development. Projects like these tend to die.
I don’t really see any negatives here. The chance that someone makes a more popular fork is incredibly low, and the chance that someone audits it and points out a bug is a lot higher. They can retain control of the name, sell the software, etc. I really don’t see how providing source code is a downside.
I guess we just have to agree to disagree then. Which is fine.
Your points are valid and thank you for detailing them for me. If I was in their shoes making others able to steal my IP, even if they’re not allowed due to licensing and having to deal with constant scrutiny of the source code are k.o.-criteria, which hinder the project and lead to potential revenue loss.
And it’s totally fair to run your project however you choose. My point is just that FOSS doesn’t automatically mean you can’t make money, tons of businesses are built on a FOSS-first basis. Pick the model that works for your business, and I sincerely hope you find a way to make FOSS part of it.
As I’ve said. Nextcloud is a great example of FOSS working out for a business, haha.
Joplin is more directly comparable. The apps are open source and it offers sync with all kinds of targets. It monetises through a source available sync server (i.e you can run your own but you arent allowed to run it commercially) hosted by Joplin (Joplin Cloud)
For transparency im directly involved with Joplin as a volunteer (less so in recent months admittedly) so yeah, im a bit biased.
If they open source all their code, some tech wizard will implement a self hosted obsidian sync server with the same convenience as theirs in a day, and the company will lose their revenue stream
Obsidian is storing everything as plaintext files. Those convenient selfhosted sync solutions have been out there for years.
It’s not just about syncing files. It’s also the fact I can edit stuff on my tablet and see the changes in almost real time on my laptop with Obsidian Sync. I believe most other solutions wouldn’t play nice with such a workflow.
I use this as a backup in tandem with the official sync
And the official one works every time, remotely-save just fails randomly and I need to dig through the logs to see what happened this time
With the vault stored on a synchronized cloud drive, Proton/Google/etc the same thing happens.
Then that’s a moot point I guess, haha.
Still a great way to pay for Obsidian to support the development though.
Yeah I agree, hopefully it’s a rare non-evil entity that just wants to make a revenue off convenience and quality rather than some batshit shareholder nightmare monetization garbage.
One thing that keeps me really calm about obsidian is the plaintext database. I can live with a proprietary db if the code is foss and I can fudge my data out if I need to. If code and db are proprietary, I’m not putting my data there if I can help it.
it’s ok for people to profit off of their IP
Absolutely. I just have trust issues with closed source software and platforms. Burned too many times.
Thanks for the rare, rational comment regarding Obsidian. Many people here seem to think releasing software as closed source automatically means you have something to hide; seemingly forgetting we live in a capitalist system in which you must constantly sell your services to survive. (I am saying this as someone who adores FOSS and donates to most of my homelab software on a regular basis).
I think a more productive way to look at is: is the closed source dev friendly (or at least non-hostile) to the open source community? In the case of Obsidian, they haven’t done anything egregious, and regularly contribute to open source plugins. Furthermore, the notes are stored as markdown files. This gives the user strong resistance against potential enshittification, so even if they did go rogue you can just move to some other text editor lol. Granted, you would miss out on plugins but otherwise that’s a good reason to keep your plugin usage light and plan your Obsidian vault accordingly.
Switched from Onenote to obsidian. There was a small learning curve and I had to install some plugins, but I love it. It looks amazing and runs so much faster than OneNote ever did.
I would love to move off OneNote but the lack of alternatives that support inking is disappointing.
For sure. I’ve been looking for a solid OneNote replacement for a few years now. Inking is the only major barrier.
I really like OneNote, and I’ve been using it for more than 10 years. But in recent years, my dislike for Microsoft has grown to the point where I feel I need to stop using all their products.
Right now I’m using xournal++ a lot. It has really excellent drawing functionality; but zero organisational functions. (I’m organising my xournal notes using just file names and folder structure.)
What I really want is integrated xournal support with Obsidian, or Joplin. In Joplin, I’ve tried inserting a pdf into my notes, and telling Joplin to open the pdf by launching xournal++. That sort of works; but the viewing of the pdf in Joplin shows a window-within-a-window; and the creating of new notes is fiddly; so I decided it wasn’t quite good enough.
Obsidian has a plug in for this… here is an announcement from the plugin author: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1bsa6dy/alpha_release_of_my_handwriting_plugin_ink/ (sorry for a reddit link)
So does obsidian support nonlinear spatially organised notes the way onenote does? I’ve been using joplin but without that onenote feature it’s been a bit underwhelming tbh, and I can’t find any software that does it.
You mean like the obsidian canvas?
That’s the thing, thank you! I tried looking before and couldn’t find anybody doing it. Maybe I discounted obsidian because it wasn’t free or foss. If it’s free now and the format is open then that helps a lot.
Note linking is what did it for me a few years back. It’s possible in OneNote, and clunky as hell.
I was sold the moment I read links can be wiki style in Obsidian.
I moved from Google keep notes to obsidian.
As for the onenote its useful for its hand written notes.
Yea i know obsidian has it but i have so many old notes there. But I’m making new notes in obsidian itself
Was there a way to import your Google Keep notes into obsidian?
First use “importer” community plugin to import the zip file of Google keep (search Google for how to get that keep zip file backup)
Then use "consistent attachment and link " plugin to transfer images in sub folder accordingly.
Finished.
The android app want to quit when you hit the back button and it drives my nuts
I just don’t see the point of obsidian et al.
Just use a directory structure and save markdown files in it.
There are many apps that are great editors for this structure on every platform. IDK exactly what obsidian does but many editors have zettelkasten (fancy cross links) functionality, just no fancy graph.
Ghostty + helix is the sexxy RN.
There are many apps that are great editors for this structure on every platform
And Obsidian is one of those apps 🤦 It’s has equal amount of “point” to all the other editors you think are somehow more valid - it’s just another editor.
the extensions mostly
Good point, the thing is… if you do have MarkDown in a directory, as suggested here, then your CLI tools become your extensions. One can start with git and voila, version tracked. One can used a Web server e.g. Apache or nginx, and voila, accessible anywhere on the network, possibly on the Internet (via e.g. Grok or TailScale). That also includes any programming language, e.g. invoking a Python script on said files. Might not sound like much but it’s a LOT.
So… I’d argue maybe not necessarily extensions themselves but the curation of extensions, namely their discoverability because they are all in one neat spot, with comments from users, etc whereas CLI commands are… all over.
That assumes the person using obsidian is a software dev or a sysadmin. Most users aren’t going to want the extra hassle, or they might be unable to do these things.
IMHO note taking systems are precisely about empowerment. The whole point is to learn… so even if they are not a dev or sysadmin, they can try and scaffold their knowledge, initially typing commands they don’t understand, copy/pasting from the Web, then discover they can write their own, add that knowledge to their system, etc. I’d argue for most people that might be at least as valuable as their own content.
TL;DR: let’s not infantilize fictional users. Having the option to do more, for those who do want to, is extremely valuable.
Source: I’ve seen nurses with no IT training installing drivers in the CLI for their WiFi card, no help from me. IT is cool but it’s nothing magical either, people CAN learn if they want to.
You only have to consider the plugin developers. Most of them would have the technical ability to do what you mention, but they prefer to use Obsidian instead. Clearly there’s a reason for that.
How can you tell? I imagine you have stats on how many plugin developers exist and are active but I don’t know how you can know how many people rely on a file system with CLI tools approach.
Holy shit this is huge. I can finally use obsidian at work! I was avoiding it due to the license and using Logseq. Which, to be fair, did admirably. But it’s much more and Outliner or journaling system than a knowledge base I feel.
Can you elaborate on this? I use logseq as an information dump and use tags and hashtags to associate the individual entries with a certain topic. I love that i do not have to think about the file structure (where do i have to put it?) and instead can just write it down immediately.
E.g: had a meeting with #name with regards to #project Z. We have a set of new requirements that need to be implemented in by Q3 2025….
Would this be significantly different in obsidian?
Yeah Logseq is actually a much better knowledge management tool than obsidian. It’s literally built for that, whereas obsidian requires you to force structure onto it.
Read whole page. Not sure what Obsidian even is?
Note-taking app. Each note is a markdown file, so you can add formatting.
A very successful one with a large extension ecosystem to boot.
What sort of extensions would one use for a note taking app? What sort of notes to you take with it?
I use mermaid and git extensions personally.
Lots of AI bros add LLMs to it but that’s not my cup of tea
The Dataview plugin is the most critical one. You can create queries with the metadata in your notes (YAML frontmatter and # hashtags). If that sounded like a bunch of non-sense I highly encourage you to dig into it, because I had no idea what those words meant either but it took my note taking to a new level. I think of my Obsidian vault as my second brain.
Below are some cool examples of vaults that you can click through. Also note that because the obsidian pages are in markdown format you can use the Jekyll engine to directly turn them into web pages without any coding (this is how GitHub Pages works)
If you know how to do a bit of coding (or use ChatGPT) you can incorporate APIs from other apps in your obsidian vault. Maybe you want to make a fancy home page that displays all your tasks from ToDoist, alongside the RSS feeds to your favorite podcasts and YouTube channels. Maybe you are tracking your habits and using DataView to compile all relevant instances of #habit tags into one calendar for a birds eye view.
There’s lots of types, think even stuff like d&d monster blocks, or custom date ones
Its a staggeringly powerful app. Utilizing the markdown format and the Dataview plugin to create queries with metadata in your notes allows you to build INSANE knowledge management systems.
Example of some set ups here: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/14-example-vaults-from-around-the-web-kepano-nick-milo-the-sweet-setup-and-more/81788
It’s like trillium, but not open source Here is an enthusiastic person talking about the state of the art of one year ago for 20 minute. https://youtu.be/XRpHIa-2XCE
What is a Trillium?
It’s like a Bilium, but with one more
What is Billum?
It’s like Millium, but one more.
It is a really good app. But was a pain in the ass to keep the archive in sync using multiple different platforms without paying for their sync addon in my experience. You can roll your own sync with stuff like Syncthing, cloud storage, etc. But the archive had a bad habit of seemingly finding ways to get out of sync.
Take a look a SyncThing! It’s a free FOSS app for syncing files and is available on all devices, and it’s all self hosted. I initially used it for Obsidian syncing, but it’s proved incredibly useful beyond that
They mentioned SyncThing. 👍
Did you try any of the sync extensions?
I’ve had zero problems with Dropbox.
I just paid for the sync 🤷🏻♂️
It’s $4 a month, I drink one beer less a month and I actually save 3€ 😀
Oh I don’t disagree, it is worth it. I ended up paying for it myself before I switched to Joplin. I just went down a rabbit hole of realizing I technically could self host the backend and stubbornly trying to make it work well beyond what was good sense at the time. 😅
The biggest issue I had was with folder permissions on Android. I also ended up paying for the sync functionality and have zero regrets.
It’s interesting that a closed-source app has good reputation among FOSS enthusiasts. Surely they are not a Microsoft or Apple, but still who controls your computer, you or them?
I just cant wrap my head around why they’re willing to go so far to gain good will from people by having such a generous free tier, but somehow licensing the code under a FOSS license is out of the question??
Why not just go all the way and make sure everyone who cares about reading the souce could also give you free contributions?
Yep and the Android app is full of small things to improve, for sure someone would put in contributions for free
I think the big difference is that you can use it for free without any account needed, and all your data is stored locally in a format that remains accessible to alternative apps.
So the moment they start doing questionable stuff you are not a hostage to their app. There are alternatives, they are just not as nice as this currently.
It stores your data in plaintext, and simply uses the program to parse special formatting characters. There are no attempts at obfuscation or encryption, and it doesn’t lock you into a walled garden that refuses to play nice with other programs. The program itself is closed-source, but anyone could write an open source version to parse the same info… There just hasn’t been a good reason to do so. Even if Obsidian as a company and program ceases to exist overnight, your data is still safe on your machine and can be read by anyone who cares enough to dig into the file. Hell, you can even open it as the plaintext file and dig through it manually.
Markdown is also an open format. You aren’t forced to use Obsidian for everything, and there are already numerous programs that are capable of displaying the formatted end-file, because it’s standard markdown.
It’s not some proprietary thing that only Obsidian uses.
Use obsidian enough and your brain also just starts to interpret raw markdown lmfao.
I’ve definitely caught myself using md to format pen and paper notes before.
That’s the whole point of markdown lmfao.
I can see the Matrix, man, I can see the truth behind it all, I can interpret raw markdown and even write bbCode by hand
I don’t even see the code. All I see is heading, emphasis, dot-points …
And the old version you have on the pc still works, since there is no cloud communication needed to run it.
Hol up. Are notes stored in files in a directory structure or a single file? Just that you said “the file” so I’m wondering.
If so, that’s lock in.
It’s a directory. When you create a new note, it creates a new file inside of that directory. My point was simply that you can always just browse the directory and read the plaintext file for whichever note you want. Obsidian simply adds things like text formatting and automatic links to other notes.
There in fact are FOSS alternatives like Joplin. Personally, I actually switched from Joplin to Obsidian due to a larger community (and therefore community-driven plugins) and overall a more polished UX. That being said, I have the security of switching back if Obsidian ever becomes evil or unusable.
Another aspect is that the entire source code is technically viewable (partially obfuscated) since it’s a web app. Having written plugins for Obsidian, you’re very much interacting with the source code itself. Feels like open source with extra steps and I wish one day they will finally make the switch to true FOSS.
That’s not so true of the Android app. I do have access to bytecode but changing bytecode to bring feature enhancements is not for the faint of heart.
And storage in their current android app is a major privacy breach.
You’re right, I wasn’t thinking about the android app when writing this.
I switched from Joplin because Obisidian data is just markdown and I can edit and generate it with external apps
Joplin had a custom database system (at the time)
least paranoid foss nut
I want to both up and downvote this
I’ve been really enjoying trilium as an open source alternative but fair warning it’s not as polished as Obsidian
Obsidian stores the notes in a well known plaintext format on your computer. They can’t easily hold you hostage like with other closed source apps.
