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Ditching Obsidian and building my own

amberwilliams.io

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Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#231

Post by scubbo »

vunderba wrote: post #3

Good article but as a heavy user of Obsidian (and previously Evernote), I would offer some counterpoints: > After some mental gymnastics weighing if I should continue with Obsidian, I found solace when asking myself "Can I see myself using this in 20 years?". I couldn't. The thought of cyclically migrating notes from one PKMS to another every 5 years, as I had done from Evernote to Notion to Obsidian, made me feel ti…

> Again, a little bit odd considering that the author is technically savvy enough to write an entire PKMS but didn't seem to consider that you can just check your markdown notes into a git repository and sync with the native android/iOS Obsidian app on a mobile device.

Even simpler, I have mine in a Dropbox folder. Felt very strange for _this_ to be the straw that broke the camel's back for the author.

Nonetheless, very glad for them that they enjoyed and learned from the experience of building a replacement!

Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#232

Post by Xss3 »

eviks wrote: post #205
edanm wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

True, but the format is still text. In a "catastrophe", you can always just a) ignore these, or b) write custom code to process them (e.g. port the plugin to VSCode or whatever). Still far better than a proprietary format.

A proprietary format with an export function allows you the same inconvenience of having to write code for processing.

No. You might not be able to load the program to get to the export button. They might paywall it away. Etc.

Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#233

Post by Xss3 »

TheFreim wrote: post #218
bryanhogan wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think your comment is very disingenuous. And not just because it's another subscription. That plan does not work if you got more than one vault, and if you use Obsidian you will probably have more than one vault. https://obsidian.md/sync

> if you use Obsidian you will probably have more than one vault. Why would anyone ever want to use more than one vault? I just use different folders. The only reason I can think of would be if you are using Obsidian for work where you aren't allowed to use unapproved services.

Just me perhaps, but I have three. Personal, Work, and Shared. But only personal and shared are synced as work stuff needs to stay on the work PC.

Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#234

Post by MeetingsBrowser »

AstroBen wrote: post #100

> It helped me reclaim control over my privacy, and significantly cut down on recurring costs. Obsidian has end to end encryption and is $4 a month. I totally relate to it being fun to build your own tools but acting like it's a practical use of time... idk

Obsidian's syncing was pretty spotty for me. I was a big fan and was paying by the year, but kept getting frustrated when notes weren't syncing across devices.

$4/month is a lot for something that only sometimes syncs.

Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#235

Post by ThinkBeat »

It seems to really be an ad for Directus (https://directus.io/) (?) That he used to replace Obsidian.

One of the first image to hit me when I got there is a button "Start For Free".

And if I want to run it on my own server in "production" it costs money? or at least you have to fill out a form and "Lets chat".

When I go to a page, I click on pricing, and what I get is a form to fill out and "Lets Chat", I am out of there. If they cant show how pricing is structured, No thanks.

""" Chat with our team about your project. We're here as a resource for you. Get clarity on your project, licensing, or enterprise needs. """

It is open sourced they say https://github.com/directus/directus

The first line of the introduction:

"""Directus is a real-time API and App dashboard for managing SQL database content."""

Yeah... that is not what I need for my personal notes system.

"""Manage Pure SQL. Works with new or existing SQL databases, no migration required."""

No

"""Choose your Database. Supports PostgreSQL, MySQL, SQLite, OracleDB, CockroachDB, MariaDB, and MS-SQL."""

Still going on about that?

I dont see this a good fit for the use case he presents.

Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#236

Post by kdmtctl »

williamsss wrote: post #114
charlie0 wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The odd part here is why take it to 100%+ when you can just build a plugin on Obsidian rather than re-building the whole thing? Seems a bit extreme.

In 20 years will that plugin work? I doubt it.

Directus is not eternal either. They are OSS, but you can't support it yourself forever. For a such a long run this looks like a controversial choice for me.

Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#237

Post by MeetingsBrowser »

arnath wrote: post #196

I could be wrong, but I’ve always been under the impression that Obsidian charges a lot for sync because the app is amazing and free. Sync helps pay for that. But they’re also very helpful about providing other ways to sync your files to your phone. I use iCloud Drive (which I have anyway for other reasons).

At least for me personally, the paid syncing was pretty spotty. I was a hug fan of the app, paid for yearly billing, but never got notes to sync consistently across devices.

Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#238

Post by marcusb »

gugagore wrote: post #197
old-gregg wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your "life hack" is not a good advice. There's plenty of well-written explanations for why perimeter based security doesn't work. What is strange is that you've started in the right place: by being "constantly worried about security implications of each app". Unfortunately it's annoying and time consuming, but that's the right way to keep your data private. And if that's too much hassle, it means it's worth it to pay…

Could you provide an example of one of the well written explanations?

just go and look at any of the vendors selling “zero trust” solutions. They all have white papers available about how a) perimeter security is “dead” and b) how their specific flavor of zero trust is the One True zero trust and the only thing you can trust to protect your data.

You will without exception need to provide an email address to access these white papers, so their inside sales team can ensure you fully understand the importance of trusting their zero trust, and not trusting anyone else’s.

I’m not kidding - even a little.

Re: Ditching Obsidian and building my own

#240

Post by miki123211 »

lolinder wrote: post #6

> Since my PKMS is hosted online to manage notes across devices, I have multiple layers of security to ensure my notes are kept private. {Screenshot of a login form} The biggest life hack I can recommend for a self hoster is to set up a VPN on your local network and then just never expose your services on the public internet unless you're specifically trying to serve people outside your own household. Before I did th…

Even better, set up Tailscale.

It's far easier to set up, is much more reliable (e.g. when devices are behind firewalls), and uses direct (encrypted) connections when possible.

You can get it to do what you want with just a few clicks. Things like exposing a IoT VLAN on your Tailnet or setting up an exit node to tunnel all internet traffic through your home are super easy. You can even share specific devices with friends, which is super useful. If you have anything particularly sensitive (e.g. a notes app that you wouldn't want your children / partner to have access to), you can limit access to specific users / devices on the TS side, without bothering with implementing auth.

I think there's even a way to look up the user and device based on their IP, which is one way to add painless authentication to your apps. There are reverse proxies that do it and inject the info as HTTP headers.

If you aren't comfortable with trusting them with control over your network, you can always host your own Headscale server.

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