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Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

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Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#161

Post by kiaorarohit »

jevogel wrote: post #143
allenleee wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Early user here. Obsidian is literally the best app in 2020 so far IMO. - Blazingly fast - Clean UI - Free - Sync with Dropbox, Github, iCloud... - Great community I have never looked back to Notion and Bear since I found it. Btw, the Obs team is moving so fast.

How does it compare to Roam?

1. Obsidian makes use of a local folder of Markdown text files, rather than syncing to a cloud database like Roam.

2. Each page in Roam is an outline (as in outliner), whereas each file in Obsidian is a Markdown file.

3. #tag is not the same as [[tag]] in Obsidian.

4. Rather than a built-in feature, "daily notes" is available as a plugin in Obsidian.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#162

Post by christiansakai »

ymolodtsov wrote: post #111
christiansakai wrote: post #56

Nothing is forever. Especially if it is not free. Especially if it is not open source. If personal use is free forever but not open source, how am I supposed to believe that it will be free forever? Color me skeptical.

Because individual users don't give a lot of revenue to any SaaS company. That's why Notion just made their personal tier free. It's a top of the funnel to convert people at workspaces into using the tool because they're familiar with it (not talking about Obsidian specifically, but in general).

Why not have a somewhat open core model? The user is free to use the open source app in their local machine, but then there is a license that says you definitely can't host this on your own and charge for it.

Meanwhile for the commercial customers they can offer a managed solution.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#163

Post by z3ncyberpunk »

loughnane wrote: post #137
m-p-3 wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You could build a knowledge base in https://joplinapp.org/ and store/sync it the way you want. I don't see any restrictions regarding corporate usage.

I was actually using Joplin for the past year after migrating to evernote. I really liked it but am now migrating to something with a little more flexibility around structuring. Thinking to structure it around hugo.

Look at Trilium Notes, this is basically a "polished up" clone a bit.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#164

Post by Horita »

mjedmonds wrote: post #53
sdedovic wrote: post #44

My two biggest issues, skimming the website: - this does not seem to be open source or free-as-in-speech. That worries me - especially when it comes to longevity. It's the reason I wouldn't use this product if it was by Google. - i don't see an easy way to export my data in case I would like to migrate to a different service. That being said I am definitely going to try it out and see what it does for me! There is de…

You don't need to export your data. Your data is stored in plaintext markdown files on your machine. So if it does shut down, you still have all of your content in a format that can be readily read by many, many editors

I dont think many can read properly

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#165

Post by wazanator »

deltron3030 wrote: post #82
ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

What do you think about CMS usecases like blogging? Where you'd write locally and maybe define some notes or a folder for static site generation, maybe triggering rebuilds from within Obsidian?

Why not just use Jekyll or Hugo at that point?

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#166

Post by neal_jones »

jpinnix wrote: post #13

For me the biggest benefit of Obsidian over several other PKM tools is that it uses local Markdown files rather than outlines/blocks. It still has bi-directional linking, and bubbles up unlinked resources like Roam. The pace and responsiveness of the developers is remarkable, and the community has been so friendly and helpful. No egos! [editing to add that I'm using iCloud for my vaults which allows for very fast syn…

Can you expand on the "...allows...the ability to edit on iOS"?

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#168

Post by input_sh »

ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

Why isn't the snap package signed?

    $ snap install obsidian_0.6.4_amd64.snap 
    error: cannot find signatures with metadata for snap "obsidian_0.6.4_amd64.snap"

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#169

Post by woodrowbarlow »

douglaswlance wrote: post #141
ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

> 3. As extensible as possible. The app would need to be open source for this to be possible. It's still possible to make money with an open-source product. When you're targeting a developer audience, it might even be more profitable to be open-source.

proprietary software can totally be extensible, that's what plugin APIs are for. foss is cool and all, but i don't buy the implication that it's some sort of civic duty for developers to release under a foss license.

Re: Show HN: Obsidian – A knowledge base that works on local Markdown files

#170

Post by [deleted] »

douglaswlance wrote: post #141
ericax wrote: post #7

Maker here, excited to be on Hacker News. Obsidian is going into public beta today! (We're also on Product Hunt, come check us out!) We made Obsidian to be your long-term second brain and personal knowledge base. As you put in more notes and make more connections, the knowledge base gets more valuable, so we think it's important that you can 100% own your data and not rely on any cloud services. We believe you second…

> 3. As extensible as possible. The app would need to be open source for this to be possible. It's still possible to make money with an open-source product. When you're targeting a developer audience, it might even be more profitable to be open-source.

[deleted]
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