Comment by mutoyoru
1 day ago
> Obsidian was a great tool for me personally for a long time. But I felt frustrated when I wanted to access my notes on my phone while on-the-go and saw that I had to pay for this feature.
I'm using Syncthing [0] to sync my vault between devices. On my main PC, Syncthing runs constantly in the background. Say, if I made a change, and want to send those changes to my phone, I open the application on my phone and let it fetch the changes. It's not perfectly smooth, like Obsidian's own integration, but I prefer this instead of setting a Git repository. Also, the files don't stay in a remote server.
I do this but additionally with an always-on Raspberry Pi, so syncing works perfectly even if the laptop and phone aren’t able to sync directly to each other. The SyncTrain iOS app arrived just in time for me: https://t-shaped.nl/posts/synctrain-a-rethought-ios-client-f...
I've also been using Obsidian a lot. I recommend the SyncThing Fork over SyncThing.
I myself currently use Google Drive with DriveSync on Android to sync my notes, which works great. Other cloud providers also work well.
I wrote a comparison of different tools to sync here: https://bryanhogan.com/blog/how-to-sync-obsidian
It’s $4 a month to sync Obsidian notes, for anyone wondering.
This was news to me, so this must have changed recently, as I have been billed more than that ever since I signed up.
I looked at my account, and I am charged $10 but it seems they automatically moved me to a "Plus" plan that has more storage. So no complaints from me really. Either that or the $4 plan is new. [1]
The $4 only comes with 1GB of storage. I would recommend the $10 for 50GB if you use images in your notes.
[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37251708
The $4 plan was launched March 20, 2024
https://obsidian.md/blog/standard-plan/
It's a good price but still feels wasteful if you also run/pay for nextcloud or similar.
There are plugins allowing you to sync via other means (for free). I don't know how the author fails to realise/mention this. I've been using Remotely Save with WebDAV or years without issue.
And the notes are all just markdown files. If the obsidian software were to disappear you have all your notes. It's fine someone wanted to spend a load of time writing their own software but none of the reasons presented in this piece make sense.
For me it was the It Just Works-iness of it combined with a handy way to support the project cheaply.
As long as I'm paying for it, I'm the client and not the product.
I tried some of the third party stuff, iCloud, Dropbox, etc and with all of them I either lost data because of notes not being in sync or had to manually fix stuff. $4/month and zero issues was well worth it for a tool I literally use every day.
It's not wasteful to support great software.
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.
1 reply →
It's a time/cost tradeoff and for me personally $4 has been fine for out-of-the-box syncing between clients for the last ~2 years of using just the one vault. It's now $8 for 10 vaults (I only recently added my second), which is still a relatively insignificant amount considering I spend more than that on toilet paper.
I use Obsidian and don't have more than one vault. What a weird thing to claim.
Apple allowing iCloud directories to be permanently downloaded fixed this for me.
Yep. I use iCloud for my Obsidian vault, set to always be downloaded. I haven’t had an issue, and doesn’t cost me anything (beyond what I’m already paying for iCloud due to Photo Library).
Does the iCloud & Windows caveat still apply? https://help.obsidian.md/sync-notes
I've been meaning to switch over to syncthing. I currently use insync for google drive syncing on Linux and it's basically instant and constant. I can make an edit on one machine and in the time it takes me to grab my laptop, it's been synced. That said, using google drive which I don't want to do anymore.
I did this and hooo does Apple make it difficult to sync files without iCloud. I felt like it was too janky for my liking, and paid for obsidian sync, but I felt like it was really silly how an official app could do it no problem, but you can’t get generic functionality to work with iOS.
Syncthing is a lifesaver, it's such a useful tool!
There are also several Obsidian community plugins for sync, I use Remotely Save via WebDAV.
Same. I admit I've running into a few syncing headaches over the years, but given the cost of $0 and the fact it's open source, I recommend it too.
I previously rolled my own notes system and I find Obsidian plus Syncthing is better. Plugins are a big deal.
too bad Syncthing is no longer officially maintaining andoird app https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-androi...
But the syncthing fork (https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.github.cat...) has been going for years now, and should have been the first choice anyways.
For anyone who would prefer to get the Syncthing-Fork build from F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncth...
Or you setup a Couchdb and the self hosted live sync plugin. Although the data will reside on a remote server in this case.