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?
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.
Read whole page. Not sure what Obsidian even is?
Note-taking app. Each note is a markdown file, so you can add formatting.
What sort of extensions would one use for a note taking app? What sort of notes to you take with it?
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
It’s like a Bilium, but with one more
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.
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.
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.
With the vault stored on a synchronized cloud drive, Proton/Google/etc the same thing happens.
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.
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.
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.
Excellent news for myself. I’ve wanted to use this at work but it’s hard enough to convince people to use it without asking for money.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
