I get the obsidian question all the time! The differences are:
- better note organization with types and relationships
- different, more Notion-like UX
- first class support for git as sync + version control layer
- long tail of design decisions that help AI work well with vaults: types, MCP, git authorship, etc
- and most of all... open source!
Obsidian and these newer tools share markdown + local files, but they're aimed at different assumptions about who reads and edits the vault. Obsidian's default is "human reads and curates; plugins optionally enhance." The AI-first cohort (Tolaria, Sig in the sibling comment, and several others) assumes the AI reads and writes as a first-class agent, which makes design choices like how the app reacts to files changing underneath it (cf. the Zettlr comment downthread) a core concern rather than an edge case.
Worth watching how each of these tools positions the AI: as a UX copilot inside the editor, or as an autonomous agent with file-system access via local CLI/MCP.
It would be nice if you could “see” the AI in your vault making changes. Almost like a Google doc collab session. Even if you weren’t directly interacting with the agent, and it was making change thru a CLI/MCP, its presence would be highlighted in the frontend. And then it appears as its own contributor in the git history.
Git is great as the durable layer, but what fiatpandas is pointing at is a bit different — real-time awareness that the agent is active right now, not a retrospective diff.
I've been working on this split in a side project (https://github.com/rillmd/rill — vault layer on top of Claude Code). Git still handles the durable side for free, since the CLI agent just writes files and commits normally. The live side comes from Claude Code hooks (UserPromptSubmit / Stop / PostToolUse) appending to a plain activity-log.md that the Electron GUI tails. Cruder than Google Docs cursor presence, but cheap — and the log itself is just another markdown file in the vault, same data model as everything else.
One trade-off: going the other direction and letting the frontend detect edits via FSEvents-style watching runs straight into the reconciliation issues the Zettlr subthread is about. Hooks on the agent side are less elegant but sidestep the whole class.
And I was going to say Mac native as well, but uses Tauri. I’d love some app with the polish of Bear Notes but that just edited raw Markdown files. Ideally Obsidian with the Notebook Navigator plugin (strongly inspired by Bear Notes perhaps?) and (checks list) this very specific list of plugins that I need and should be good for everyone else thanks.
I get the obsidian question all the time! The differences are:
- better note organization with types and relationships - different, more Notion-like UX - first class support for git as sync + version control layer - long tail of design decisions that help AI work well with vaults: types, MCP, git authorship, etc - and most of all... open source!
Obsidian and these newer tools share markdown + local files, but they're aimed at different assumptions about who reads and edits the vault. Obsidian's default is "human reads and curates; plugins optionally enhance." The AI-first cohort (Tolaria, Sig in the sibling comment, and several others) assumes the AI reads and writes as a first-class agent, which makes design choices like how the app reacts to files changing underneath it (cf. the Zettlr comment downthread) a core concern rather than an edge case.
Worth watching how each of these tools positions the AI: as a UX copilot inside the editor, or as an autonomous agent with file-system access via local CLI/MCP.
It would be nice if you could “see” the AI in your vault making changes. Almost like a Google doc collab session. Even if you weren’t directly interacting with the agent, and it was making change thru a CLI/MCP, its presence would be highlighted in the frontend. And then it appears as its own contributor in the git history.
Git is great as the durable layer, but what fiatpandas is pointing at is a bit different — real-time awareness that the agent is active right now, not a retrospective diff.
I've been working on this split in a side project (https://github.com/rillmd/rill — vault layer on top of Claude Code). Git still handles the durable side for free, since the CLI agent just writes files and commits normally. The live side comes from Claude Code hooks (UserPromptSubmit / Stop / PostToolUse) appending to a plain activity-log.md that the Electron GUI tails. Cruder than Google Docs cursor presence, but cheap — and the log itself is just another markdown file in the vault, same data model as everything else.
One trade-off: going the other direction and letting the frontend detect edits via FSEvents-style watching runs straight into the reconciliation issues the Zettlr subthread is about. Hooks on the agent side are less elegant but sidestep the whole class.
the idea of being git-first it's exactly for that! so you can setup AI as a git contributor and see its changes clearly
>open-source
Huh, somehow I had no idea that Obsidian wasn't open source. I guess I was fooled by the open source plugins.
And I was going to say Mac native as well, but uses Tauri. I’d love some app with the polish of Bear Notes but that just edited raw Markdown files. Ideally Obsidian with the Notebook Navigator plugin (strongly inspired by Bear Notes perhaps?) and (checks list) this very specific list of plugins that I need and should be good for everyone else thanks.
> I’d love some app with the polish of Bear Notes but that just edited raw Markdown files.
Typora? (https://typora.io/)
> I’d love some app with the polish of Bear Notes but that just edited raw Markdown files.
HelixNotes? ( https://codeberg.org/ArkHost/HelixNotes )
1 reply →
Zettlr would like a word.
I really like Zettlr, but I find it is always crashing when markdown changes behind the scenes and it has the document open.
It's so good for viewing all markdown in a repo, but dies all too often.
Yes, but the claim is presumably that this one is good.
Exactly - cooperation is not incentivized properly