Launch HN: Dendron (YC W21) – Structured note-taking for developers and teams

Post by kevinslin » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 12:47 AM UTC

Terretta wrote: post #65

kevinslin wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're right - Dendron has a lot of similarities with Obsidian. A lot of our users come from people looking for open source obsidian alternatives. Our main differentiator is our focus on structure - we let users create their own taxonomies using "Dendron schemas" which they can use to both document and change their note hierarchies over time. A big focus in Dendron: how do you continue working with your knowledge bas…

i know why it's not this way, and love what you've built, but find it vaguely dissatisfying that with the structured and hierarchical organization, the URLs don't convey that affordance also decent weight still goes to URL keywords in SERPs (and yes, many to many links to leaves attached more than one place seems a problem, but that's what canonical URLs are for)

Post by jodrellblank » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 1:30 AM UTC

omair_inam wrote: post #4

So a quick glance makes it seem fairly similar to Obsidian... as the docs note, it's built on top of VS Code vs Obsidian which is standalone... What are some reasons Obsidian users would want to switch?

Post by dboreham » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 2:29 AM UTC

kevinslin wrote: post #64

p1nkpineapple wrote: post #60

Congrats on the launch! I've been using Foam [1] for the last year, which is an open-source vscode-powered aternative to obsidian. There seems to be a large overlap in features. What benefits does Dendron have over Foam that would convince me to switch? [1] https://github.com/foambubble/foam/

You're right, there is overlap in the sense that both Dendron and Foam are open source note taking tools based around vscode and markdown. Dendron differs in our focus on structure - while we support backlinks, wikilinks, and tags, the primary way of navigating notes in Dendron is by hierarchy which can be described by schemas (our type system for note hierarchies). We provide extensive tooling around traversing and…

Post by jsumrall » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 6:15 AM UTC

Post by necovek » Thu, Nov 11, 2021, 9:05 AM UTC

kevinslin wrote: post #27

necovek wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought that was to-do apps? But the one you are making a comparison with is not really relevant: that's Apple-only it seems, and that, in itself, is enough incentive to look out for more. Ultimately, market can decide which are needed and which aren't. As for investors like YC, they usually bet into multiple products — while YC might have a better hit rate than some other investors, there are likely still more fai…

I think there's now a blurred line between todo app and knowledge management, especially as tools like notion (and for that matter Dendron), are making it more viable to manage todos within your knowledge base. As for YC, I remember seeing at least two other note taking companies within our winter batch. At AWS, the mentality for new services is to "let 1000 flowers bloom" (and see which one's make it). Something sim…