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Comment by choward | Hacker News Reader

A little of topic but I tried Obsidian out even though it isn't "free" software. I could still use it without the paid features. Then one day I went looking for the source and discovered it wasn't open source. That's when I stopped using it.

There was discussion on open sourcing it but I'm not holding my breath. Does anyone have any additional info on this?

https://forum.obsidian.md/t/open-sourcing-of-obsidian/1515/1...

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598

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So Logseq [1] is open (AGPLv3), also markdown with no lock in, more powerful in some key ways than Obsidian (it has block links, which I’ll let others expound on the benefit of or edit this when I’m at my desk).

The main thing it’s lacking for now is good mobile support, for which folks still use Obsidian mobile…

[1]: https://logseq.com/

It's lacking good support for mobile, but the mobile app is usable, and in active development. I use it daily with no issues. It mostly just lacks a no-frills setup for syncing notes on multiple devices, but they are developing a subscription for backup/sync hosted by them (I use syncthing, but others have used iCloud and google drive).

To build on the features mentioned there's also:

- A community marketplace for plugins and themes

- Simple customization and extensibility

- A builtin PDF viewer with highlighting and linking

The builtin pdf viewer is terrible, though. It doesn’t even have search.

FWIW - I'm a huge FOSS guy, but I went ahead and paid for Obsidian because it looked so good and it at least feels as if "saving in pure Markdown" is darn near equivalent, or at least a reasonable non-free alternative experiment; i.e. I'm not sure if this is as good as FOSS, but it's interesting enough for me to throw a few dollars at to see what happens.

In theory, seems like a fine idea. But for, me, in practice, I went back to https://zim-wiki.org (like I pretty much always do.) Not exactly sure what that says about it all, or if it much matters.

One thought though is that Obsidian feels "overloaded," almost as if it wasn't allowed to grow naturally like Zim did?

I have used zim in the past, and I didn't like zettelkasten because of the autogenerated magic.

I also just learned about obsidian for the first time in this thread and it looks pretty impressive, but I do agree that the onboarding is a bit hard and all the plugins while impressive are also a bit overwhelming.

But it's interesting that the core plugins including things like slides which is definitely something that is great to have

I mentioned this in another comment, but you should check out tiddlywiki[0] with the mind map plugin[1]

[0] https://tiddlywiki.com/

[1] https://github.com/felixhayashi/TW5-TiddlyMap

My favorite example of a Zettelkasten in Tiddlywiki is this one: https://zettelkasten.sorenbjornstad.com

The author also has a site called "Grok TiddlyWiki" that helped me tremendously when starting out with TW: https://groktiddlywiki.com/read/

I use TiddlyWiki and love it. Because TW's UI and functionality is based on individual "tiddlers" within the wiki (just like your notes), adding functionality becomes part of the wiki itself -- a fusion I like compared to other plain-text note tools that keep the note-taking and note-storing separate.

Can definitely recommend Tiddlywiki. Ive just spent several weeks implementing a mini ZettelKasten using Tiddlywiki. It is created in 'exploded' mode in NodeJS and then a script runs to re-assemble it into a single html file (with the images in a separate folder) and then I push it to GitHub where it is published on to a personal domain. It is visible here: https://chloetiddlykasten.chloegilbert.me

I used the template (TZK) created by Soren Bjornstad to build it.

That bothers me, too. On the other hand, I haven’t found a good Free replacement for it, and there’s zero lock-in: its database is just a folder of Markdown files. If it stopped working tomorrow, I’d still have all of my content in a convenient format, ready to start using with another app.

There's also obsidian-export[1] that converts the few things that are not plain markdown (`[[links]` and `![[links]]`).

To be honest, obsidian not being open source doesn't bother me too much, what is important to me is that I own the data and that it is in a fairly common format so i can move it to another software in 10 years. An open source software with a weird binary format to save the data will probably do more harm in the long term

[1] https://crates.io/crates/obsidian-export

Same for me. I wrote a little Python script to copy my Obsidian files into a set of Hugo files, then publish them. Proprietary or not, it's so easy to work with the files that things like this are possible. It's my data in my favorite format, ready for use with all the existing text manipulation goodies I already know. There's not much to improve on there.

Plug: I wrote a couple of other scripts and put them on GitHub[1]. If you use Drafts and its "Quick Journaling" action group[2], then `process-notes` will look awfully familiar.

[1] https://github.com/kstrauser/glassknife [2] https://actions.getdrafts.com/g/1Sd

That's the first thing I check for any system that would, if adopted, become a life-long thing. Zettelkasten is supposed to be exactly that: an ever-growing collection of linked notes, growing more useful the longer you stick with it.

I never understood why anyone would accept linking this sort of system to any third party, no matter how sound their business model, no matter how much trust you may put into the individuals running the company.

Slightly different take: OSS is the second thing I check.

The first one is data export. If it's a closed component that still generates value and I can capture that value via export, OSS becomes a tie-breaker between otherwise equivalent tools.

Obsidian is an editor on top of a bunch of markdown files. If they go away, meh. The world is not running out of Markdown text editors. Sync is an add-on feature, so I can sidestep potential privacy concerns there.

A working system always beats waiting for a perfect system.

I didn’t like moving to Obsidian from Joplin for this reason, but Obsidian is so much more useable because it stores everything in a regular file hierarchy. It also has a better UI. And above all, I absolutely hate Joplin’s “every note is a folder” approach.

> absolutely hate Joplin’s “every note is a folder” approach

that's not true. They have notebooks and sub-notebooks, which form a tree on the left. To the right of that is a list of notes within that notebook.

The result is the same. Every sub-notebook is a notebook that can contain more sub-notebooks, but there is no such thing as a mere folder that can be placed inside another folder without also creating a confusing space where notes can hide inside the notebook but not alongside its sub-notebooks.

The other way to interpret it is just a very poorly planned UI that uses separate panes to list folders and notes that are located in the same hierarchy position. Either way, it’s madness.

I am completely unaware of that. Thanks for bringing it up! This may tilt my decision in choosing a note-taking platform.

This is a really good point, I am using Obsidian but I feel OK about the proprietary-ness of it because at the end of the day, it's a nice tool to read my well-organised folder of markup files with. It's possible I live to regret this ...

You could try Dendron [1], a VS Code extension similar to Obsidian, and in some ways more powerful (schemas for data).

1. https://www.dendron.so/

Been using this for a few months now, as I got fed up with emacs-specific configuration when using org-mode. There's also a plugin to integrate it with Anki, all thanks to solid package base of VS.

Before I used Obsidian, I used VS code and a folder of markdown notes. In general, if Obsidian went evil, I could take my existing note setup and go back to that, much as I started with it when I used Obsidian. I'd lose some of the nice todo list setup I have but I know I could write a custom program to replicate that and if it bothered me enough I could even figure out how to write VS code plugins.

So while I'd prefer an open source solution, I'm not in a huge rush, though I am keeping an eye on logseq's evolution.

Logseq is somewhat different from Obsidian, since it's an outliner. IMO Dendron would be a better replacement for Obsidian. Particularly so if you're already using VS Code.

There are other downsides with Obsidian as well. The thought development Luhmann experienced is watered down in the instantiation of Zettelkasten that obsidian provides. If you’re interested in an alternative approach, I’ve been using the Zettelkasten system the way Luhmann did for the past year. Here’s a behind the scenes look at writing a book using a physical Zettelkasten: https://youtu.be/fRgIX4azYOs

Could you be more specific what's missing?

It’s not analog (writing by hand and doing things the hard way pays off. It did for Luhmann and continues to do so for many others who use notecards). Second, numeric-alpha addresses per card with strict character count restrictions. Third, tree-like structure for branching thoughts infinitely. Fourth, an index that forces one to neuro-imprint keyterms in their mind to act as cues for thought. All of these create a unique structure Luhmann communicated with. Obsidian = bubbles that connect markdown files. Completely different concept. It’s not a zettelkasten even though people have hijacked the term and ensconced it with digital notetaking apps. This is my opinion.

Obsidian is just a tool, like notecards are; you set your own process and organization. With the exception of handwriting in place of typing, it's entirely possible to set up an Obsidian workflow with all of the properties you list here.

My Obsidian vault, for example, is organized into 2 parts: Ad-hoc notes and an organized zettelkasten. This latter part is a single flat directory with Luhmann-style alphanumeric hierarchical addresses as file names. My first task every day is to split up the previous day's ad-hoc notes and file them in the zettelkasten, which naturally leads to a review of the existing material as I look for the proper place in the sequence.

Do you think it is possible to recreate a digital version of this by basically handcoding your own tool for thought organisation, but coding it yourself needs to be part of it? Like writing a cheatsheet being the main point, and you might not even look at it in the exam?

You could give a try to Foam [0].

[0] Foam is a personal knowledge management and sharing system inspired by Roam Research, built on Visual Studio Code and GitHub. https://github.com/foambubble/foam

Athens Research (an OSS "clone" - sort of - of Roam Research) might check all your boxes. I love Obsidian.

Is there an opensource/selfhosted alternative to obsidian?

You should take a look at tiddlywiki, which has a mind map plugin[0]

[0] https://github.com/felixhayashi/TW5-TiddlyMap

It might not be a direct alternative, since it's not using markdown files directly, but I really like Trilium notes (https://github.com/zadam/trilium).

It's open source, you can selfhost it and you can write your own scripts in JS to really make it your own.

it doesn't need to be open source for me.

you could look at vscode pkms plugins like Dendron or Foam.

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