I am using markdown files in a private GitHub repo for personal knowledge management. For me this works just fine... Is there any feature you think I might miss from tools like these?
This is what I do with my Obsidian repo. Feels like best of both worlds to me. I have my files in open format in my repo. And I use Obsidian primarily for the editing experience. If I want to quickly capture a thought on my phone, I use the GitHub app to create an issue in that repo and process it later.
Graph view, backlinks and databases.
I see the value in backlinks (I assume you mean backlinks between said markdown files, right?), and graphview might come in handy once in a while...but am not seeing the value brought by databases here? Unless the db becomes part of a top/management layer for said files, which adds other things like maybe possibly faster search or easier query of content (that is, easier than find/grep, etc.)? Not knocking if DBs can be used, with all apologies, am genuinely curious how DBs could help here? (Context is that if this person is using simple markdown files in folders/repos, then they probably don't need/want more than that and typical file management tools)
When people mean DBs in these note taking tools, they are usually referring to the Notion like databases: a lightweight Airtable-like table allowing a few data manipulations and analysis. Basically a CSV file with a nice UI on top if you will
Ah-ah, Ok, i can see that something like that could help. Thanks for the clarification!