Obsidian is now free for work - Obsidian
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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.
Edit: I'd be curious about how many downvoters in this case have been using such solutions and for how long. FWIW I've been actively using and maintaining my PIM since 2008.
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.
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Excellent news ! Excellent note taking applications with its ecosystem of extensions.
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What sort of extensions would one use for a note taking app? What sort of notes to you take with it?
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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
One of the benefits of Obsidian is that it stores its data in a format where you CAN use cli tools and python etc. That's one of the reasons I'm using it myself.
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That literally doesn't even remotely resemble what I said.
It's pretty identical there champ.
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I was using Obsidian for a while, but actually switched when I found an awesome open source alternative, SilverBullet. The best comparison would be "Obsidian but for tinkerers/hackers".
Data is stored plaintext the same as obsidian - I actually just copy pasted my vault and it worked with exception of wikilinks being absolute paths only - and haven't looked back
The only downside is that its in early stages of development, but definitely usable
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I was using Obsidian for a while, but actually switched when I found an awesome open source alternative, SilverBullet. The best comparison would be "Obsidian but for tinkerers/hackers".
Data is stored plaintext the same as obsidian - I actually just copy pasted my vault and it worked with exception of wikilinks being absolute paths only - and haven't looked back
The only downside is that its in early stages of development, but definitely usable
I like Silverbullet, but I could never get the file tree to work well. Any tips? Or is that not a feature you use?
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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.
Edit: I'd be curious about how many downvoters in this case have been using such solutions and for how long. FWIW I've been actively using and maintaining my PIM since 2008.
To answer your other question, actively using and maintaining my PIM since 2009.
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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.
Someone develops logseq which is completely foss and like obsidian. Now I can choose to donate to FOSS or buy closed source. How do you decide?
We just need to establish paying for open source software more.
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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
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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.
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I was using Obsidian for a while, but actually switched when I found an awesome open source alternative, SilverBullet. The best comparison would be "Obsidian but for tinkerers/hackers".
Data is stored plaintext the same as obsidian - I actually just copy pasted my vault and it worked with exception of wikilinks being absolute paths only - and haven't looked back
The only downside is that its in early stages of development, but definitely usable
I jumped over to logseq. It takes some getting used to, but overall logseq is working fine overall.
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I like Silverbullet, but I could never get the file tree to work well. Any tips? Or is that not a feature you use?
I have an "index" page where I link important pages and files. When I want to move them I rename them. If I do bulk data changes I SSH to my server and move the files in an old fashioned way.
Personally I have not tried the filetree plugin, since I did not have the need for it - and probably the author of the project aswell. -
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.
Just use Joplin. It checks all those boxes, it’s only flaw is being an electron application.
I use it too, but it doesn’t have something like canvas. You have to write them in Mermaid markdown like a caveman.
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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.
I just wanted to toss out another thanks for mentioning Notesnook. After a week I'm completely won over.
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I tried Obsidian, but it didn’t give me anything extra on top of using Helix with Marksman, dprint and git. 1% the ram usage of obsidian, versioning, auto-formatting, link auto-complete, page pickers/traversing, global search, etc. there’s literally no reason to use more electron bloatware.
I basically use Markdown files for anything i would’ve done in Word, and python streamlit + pandas + csv files for anything done in Excel (and capable of handling millions of rows more performantly)
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