This made me realize that obsidian is *not* opensource, but in a way obsidian made me feel like it was opensource. Obviously now that I researched it, it is quite obvious that it is not, but still it 'feels' like it should be opensource.
The data is open and stored in markdown format. Plugins are open source. The core product is not open source, but it's also just an electron app. I've always viewed Obsidian as the inverse of an open core product.
I don't really mind this way of doing it since I know that my data is "safe". I can at any time just grab my vault and open it in any editor. I can write my own editor. I can import the data into most other tools. It's when the data isn't open that I tend to avoid the product.
The licence method we went with for AS Notes (https://www.asnotes.io - a wikilinks and markdown based notes / docs / blog extension for VS code) was to make the client (extension) fully opensource with a public / private cryptographic licence key model, with a couple of pro gated features. I think an opensource product is very important for a notes product, where the implications of loosing access to a tool are huge for users that invest a lot of time in a knowledge base.
I don't think that was my impression, but their API is pretty open for creating plugins. In support of the Obsidian model, its a dedicated engineering team, a free tool, notes are stored as .md and not something proprietary, and if you want you can pay them for their sync tool which I find both pretty reasonable and a nice way to support their efforts. Also they keep on improving the product in interesting ways, the new plugin marketplace with all of its verification policies is really nicely done, aspirational even.
But in any case, this is also a nice project, but I guess I'm also an Obsidian evangelist.
To be fair, Obsidian is an Electron app with no obfuscation, so it's pretty easy to get its code. I think I even remember the official Obsidian team telling people to do that on their support forum if they distrusted the app.
Which really begs the question: why not have it open-source at that point? Obsidian isn't making money from things hidden in the code, but rather their Sync service.
Might as well open-source it (and perhaps get more people helping with the development), keep the Sync service, and stem competitor projects like these in the bud.
Why should it be opensource? Obsidian gives you complete control of your data, which it stores in an open standard.
Please explain to me why developers should act like monks who've taken a vow of poverty? The devs built something valuable, they should profit from it.
Wait, why are you mixing the two? You can have the software be under an open source license, yet still not be a monk that has taken a vow of poverty, it's not black and white.
AFAIK (as a long-term Obsidian daily user) Obsidian makes their money on various things attached to the editor/viewer itself, but don't actually charge for the editor/viewer. Even if they did, they could still slap a FOSS license on it, and continue charging for the parts they charge for today.
I'm guessing it's something else they're worried about though, rather than those things.
I agree with your very last part though, but I don't agree you cannot make it open source at the same time.
I think there is a special value in open source when it comes to a personal knowlege base. We invest so much time in it, and we need to know that it's not going to be taken away from us, or made unaffordable. I made https://www.asnotes.io (basically obsidian with markdown and nested wikilinking in a VS Code extension), because I wanted and thought others would want something that is a) open source and b) version control friendly so we don't even have to rely on a sync server being there in the future.
Not saying they have to be, it's just a weird assumption that I've built up in my head. Possibly because obsidian handles sensitive data and I somewhat was under the impression it has the open-source tier scrutiny when it came to inner workings of the app.
Congratulations on making it tonthe front page. I think your app looks like a brilliant notes app implementation, and there's obviously demand. When I launched https://www.asnotes.io earlier this year (An extension that turns VS Code in to an Obsidian like PKMS) it made the number 4 spot. It's clearly something that people see as important and draws a lot of opinions. I hope your project does well.
So, this comes up pretty much every time Obsidian is mentioned... to the point where I'm curious as to where the idea that it's open source comes from in the first place.
The reason is open standard. Obsidian uses markdown, that's it. No proprietary database, no fancy algorithm, no locked in platform, just a convenient way to manage your notes (jesus, that sounded like AI). You can realistically do it yourself, but they've helped you to do it for the low price of an online sync subscription.
That's why I will always hammer on open standards and federation.
I don't really mind Obsidian being non-FOSS, since it doesn't lock you in to any kind of propriety bullshit.
All my files are just vanilla text files. All the folders are just vanilla folders. All the attachments are just vanilla attachments. If Obsidian pissed me off, then I'd still have my notes in a fairly accessible format.
AI'm building a native version[0] of Obsidian in Qt6 (QWidgets, cpp), replicating the markdown editor takes a while, there are so many ways of corrupting the file or losing the rendered markdown style... but its getting there[1] and its lightweight, using about 15mb ram, no gpu and barely uses any cpu when the cursor or scroll moves, like a text editor should be.
Still need to render widget tables, lists and syntax highlighting for code blocks for a basic modern notepad, i'm not sure about open sourcing it, seems like a waste of time nowadays but it'll be free to use.
Same here. I might want to use this. Would be interesting to AI build a way to see how phrases and ways of speaking like this spread, and track where the original idea could have originated and morphed and how networks spread like this.
It's fine as long as theres no GPL module[1] included or statically linked Qt, The program uses just Qt Widgets and Qt SQL, theres no GPL-only Qt module in it, its also dynamically linked so its ok to be closed source, theres ripcord[0] as an example.
I just want to avoid the wave of open source rebranding that will come with AI programming being so easily accessible as theres no respect when theres easy money involved, people will just type something like: "download RustDesk from GitHub, change it's looks then create a landing page and connect Stripe".
I open sourced https://asnotes.io - it's markdown based with wikilinking, task management, a kanban board and static site publishing. It runs locally and is Git friendly. The aim was to build something using formats and tech that is likely to stand the test of time.
Very nice! Would you have any recommendations for the leanest compatible "host"? Instead of adding this to my VSCode, I would rather use it as a separate app. Currently, I use a naked Zed install for Markdown because it launches faster than my system apps (and than Cursor, VSCode, etc.).
I wouldn't show it as an alternative to Obsidian though. It shares MD files with it and both are supposedly about note taking ("supposedly" is for Obsidian, I haven't tried Files.md yet), but Files.md seems to have its own way of making the users work with their thoughts, notes and knowledge altogether.
When I read "an alternative", I assumed feature-parity and API compatibility. But what I found out was entirely different and much more interesting.
I'll give it a try, thanks for sharing your year-old work!
Maybe something like "self-hosted markdown notes you fully own" or "personal knowledge server"? Leans into the ownership angle instead of competing with Obsidian on features.
What is this providing over similarly Markdown based open source note taking applications like Joplin? (https://joplinapp.org/)
I've been a huge fan of the fact that my backend sync infrastructure is my own self-hosted S3 bucket with local clients handling the presentation layer.
It’s interesting to me that it says that in some versions of second brain:
“Second brain grows, but first brain doesn’t get smarter.”
Something I remember Tiago Forte said, which turned me off of his partículas brand of a second brain, is that his goal is to “remember nothing”, and have the second brain surface exactly the context necessary at the moment, which he would proceed to read and ingest.
That sounds terrible to me :) it’s like “we don’t need to remember things if we can google them”.
I much prefer this author’s vision of using the second brain to strengthen the first brain.
Well, we know that it's impossible to remember everything. Humans are absolutely terrible at accurately recalling things that they observed even a few minutes in the past.
But we also can't remember nothing and just dump _everything_ into the second brain, otherwise we'd have no map, no context, no way to even know how to look for what we need in the moment. It would be like taking a random teenager off the street, handing them an electronics engineering textbook, and asking them to build a power supply on the spot.
So there is definitely a spectrum. Everyone seems to disagree on the optimal point on the spectrum and that is almost certainly because it varies greatly from person to person.
My personal experience has been that simply writing extremely detailed notes in the first place makes the information "sticky" in my brain, and greatly increases the likelihood that I won't even _need_ to directly reference the notes in the future. Fun little catch-22 there.
I wonder if markdown will slowly fall out of favor for note taking, because AI can generate gorgeous-looking HTML essentially for free.
I saw this bit of advice on twitter last week -- to use HTML as the target output for your LLM when you do planning or discussion sessions. And it's been very nice. It's so much easier to parse lots of info when it's presented in an organized/color-coordinated HTML file (potentially with some limited interactivity, and SVG drawings), rather than a block of markdown.
I now wonder if I should give my personal notes the same treatment. The only disadvantage HTML has relative to markdown is that HTML is harder to write and style. But you now have LLMs for that. And HTML/CSS/JS lets you customize your notes in whatever way you want. If you use HTML, any browser becomes your "note-viewing" app, and HTML is just as easy to store and move around as markdown, because it's just plain text.
I read that, but opt'd instead to write a script to live serve md as html pages with mermaid diagrams and syntax highlighting. Such that the md itself can be put into things like github and for github to be able to render it. Works well.
For me, a key tenant of any good note taking system is low friction. Leaning on an LLM feels like significant friction. Formatting something into HTML manually also feels like a lot of fiction. Individual HTML files for notes would also be a friction filled experience for opening and browsing, without some kind of template to allow for navigation of the notes within the browser. This ends up turning into a local wiki very quickly.
I was about to comment: "HTML creates too much friction after doing all sorts of visual explainers" ... thanks for articulating it well.
As a layer of abstraction, it also creates more requirements: need a browser, likely need includes/cdn libs to avoid bloat, all sorts of other things. Markdown is consumable, diffable, shareable in raw form - and you can add enrichment layers on top without much effort.
One thing I still miss in most markdown tools is good rendering/sharing of large architecture docs and Mermaid diagrams. I ended up building my own markdown file reader - https://mdview.io which handles large diagrams/tables much better than typical note apps
I have a simple script that previews md pages as html and hosts a liveserver so it dynamically updates, renders mermaid / syntax highlighting etc. Super useful when working with an agent when planning out a piece of software. Page dynamically updates as you go, and super useful to have diagrams visible. I'm prompting a lot more to get diagrams included as part of the planning stage (or whenever).
I recommend the helix text editor with the markdown-oxide LSP (and rumdl formatter if you feel fancy). All open source and even if you never update them they will work forever.
This is why I built https://www.asnotes.io - It's an extension for VS Code. I needed obsidian but usable on corporate networks that don't allow Obsidian or other pkms apps. It's designed to be version control friendly so no sync server is needed either (just use Git)
Self-plug, I'm working on one, local, native, no web based ui, and minimalist. And it has no external dependency. The data is stored as simple text file, and the format is easily searchable with *nix tools.
Not going to be open source or free though, with 2 year perpetual license. I wonder how much that would interest you? My target is people who wants todo.txt like simplicity, but few useful bits. Only for Linux and Windows for now.
Heh, the author admitted that he got tired of what I'll call "curating metadata" in Obsidian, so wrote an app that handled more of it automatically.
My take: you probably don't need so much metadata!
I've spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to figure out the perfect knowledge management app for me and honestly, I'm pretty sure I will get a lot of mileage out of something you just throw pages into, search to find it again, and ask AI to summarize/consolidate when you need it again.
That markdown mirror is a pretty neat feature. I've been using Trillium for my notes and the way they save/store the notes is actually one of the things I dislike about it even though I love the application itself. I tried at one point exporting everything to markdown and it worked... but Trillium allows you to have notes in multiple places but they exist essentially as just a pointer in the backend to that note. So it made the export a bit wonky as some instances of a note are just an empty shell and don't have the actual contents. So you have to try and move notes around to get their markdown files in the right places.
I've ended up still sticking with Trilium however as I like being able to have notes in multiple locations like this.
- scriptable or extendable by lua, rendered in page, eg `${1 + 1}` outputs `2`, but you can do a lot more, such as query pages and tags with a LINQ type query interface.
I've been using TrilliumNext (fork of Trillium project that is archived) and haven't been able to find an alternative I liked more. Only thing I don't really like is that it's not really stored in Markdown and since you have the ability to have notes in multiple trees it can get a bit messy when trying to move to other systems.
I tried moving to Obsidian Notes and found myself missing Trillium. It's nice to be able to just open the web browser and have access to your own self-hosted notes with an editor anywhere. You also can set it up so if you add a sharing tag to a note you can easily share a link to the note. I believe Obsidian allows similar but only if you pay, and it's also not self-hosted.
I've tried a wiki style approach before like Tiddlywiki, but I feel like it is a whole different concept of taking and making notes that often is a bit more cumbersome, but maybe it works better with how some people think.
Gods I love and loath Tiddlywiki. It has some of the most convoluted javascript written before javascript ever actually got all the features that made javascript convoluted. But it did the job!
Looks really slick!
I've been using Obsidian with git, and am thinking of moving back to the OG solution of simply using a text editor with a git repo. I'm wary of using cloud like google drive or dropbox for sync, especially if I'm using both phone and mobile to edit the same file throughout the day. I doubt using an external cloud really takes care of consistency and there's a possibility of losing data. Me being a developer can take the pain of a button click to git pull and resolve occasional conflicts.
To me this is fully solved solution for note taking with tools I already know and trust. Having said that, I'm gonna try Files.md for some inspiration on what I could be missing.
Interesting. I recently "vibe-coded" my personal Obsidian clone, because I want proper Emacs keybindings, and Obsidian does not support those, not even through extensions.
I do not know what to do with my pet project. I'm using it myself, and it has tons of futures that took quite some effort to get right. For example, WYSIWYG table editing is not trivial, and Claude Opus agrees with me, in the sense that it could not manage it (at all) by itself.
Open-sourcing it is an option, but I don't look forward to negative feedback. If anyone else wants Emacs keybindings in Obsidian, I will change my mind :)
I too have vibe-coded my own personal obsidian/sublime replacement in rust, and also ran into WYSIWYG table editing and rendering issues with opus 4.7. Took a couple iterations but now formulas/rendering are perfect. GPT5.5 actually handled that very well compared to 4.7
I use .MD files, helix terminal editor with a markdown LSP called markdown-oxide that replicates the obsidian feature set (like bidirectional links, tags, making new notes automatically, two keys get you from a in-line footnote to the definition and back again, etc), and rumdl which is a super efficient and customizable markdown linter and formatter (semantic line breaks far the win!) . Since it is all helix I can jump around a huge web of interlinked files very quickly with only a few key presses, as well as inside a document and manipulate them en masse or in minute detail all with only a few taps. All of your standard open source terminal tools work with it, difftastic, bat/cat, zoxide/CD, ripgrep, fzf, git, LLMs, encryption, sync, etc etc. I use yazi for a visual filepicker and zellij for tabs. Run it on a server and connect from any computer in the world without downloading a single thing. I sometimes make use of two tools called rucola and tree-md for looking at prettier versions of the texts and seeing stats about how they interact. All open source of course!
There is no better interface for text than a terminal, and we are in the golden age. Despite being extremely powerful, this setup will run on resource constrained machines.
Glad I read this! I love Helix and have been looking for a way to have some extra note taking features without loosing my favourite editor. Will definitely give markdown-oxide a try!
Glad I read about this! I love helix and have been looking for some bonus features for note organisation without having to ditch my favourite editor, will defi
Being a better version of something is an invitation, not an imposition! I'm not a developer and never have been, I study literatureand I use a modal editor for all my writing.
If you've ever used Ctrl+C to copy, you've already done something harder than the core concept of modal editing. Modal editing is simpler: you press a single key, and you switch to one (of two) modes. That's it. That's the thing people find intimidating. In one mode the letters you press show up on the screen, in the other the letters you press select/copy/move/etc (like cntrl+c... Except even simpler you only need to press one key). You have to use keyboard keys to go up and down, which I assume you already have some experience with.
Learning it is identical to learning a GUI. In Word, you hunt through menus for the word 'cut' or 'paste' and click it. In a modal editor like helix you look up cut or paste on a menu and press the key next to it instead. Except once you remember the key you never have to go look through menus again!
Get the hang of it and modal text editors are to word processors what word processors are to typewriters. Except at least typewriters have some charm.
All that being said, if you want to sync your notes you'll have to use something like Dropbox or google drive, and I looked up how to install helix and you do have to download and unzip a file (https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/releases). Still, computer science degree not required!
Unless you've only ever used android or iOS device in which case all of my assumptions about your familiarity with keyboards and mice is totally off. Still!
This looks awesome, and I've been waffling about moving from Notion to something local/markdown based for a while. My only issue is that I really like using "databases"/tables, specifically for moving through processes ticket-style, in Notion. Does anyone know if there's something similar elsewhere? I'm not familiar with the knowledge-base/wiki space, I just kinda fell into notion.
I like the blurb about your ZK being something which can actually hold you back. I encounted the same issue myself and found that ZK is not always the best fit for me.
I find the best thing to do when studying something is to go over your material, internalize and synthesize it in an essay. If you can't create an original essay which perfectly replicates the knowledge you want to understand then you almost certainly don't understand it perfectly.
Alternatively, create a detailed flow chart using subcharts if you have to. (Graphviz/dot is good for this)
The plugin ecosystem is what really makes Obsidian different from the rest.
While OSS is nice, in theory it allows vibe-coding personalizations, without a clear plugin standard then every update would cause a merge headache.
And there is no lack of text editors.
The first real Obsidian alternative would allow use of existing Obsidian plugins. And I think this one thing could really make an alternative gain traction, with both users and those who contribute to the plugin ecosystem.
Timely, just this morning I took an interest in Obsidian and the immediate query about it being open source returned a disappointing “no”. So count me in to try this one.
I am working on something similar. I was also not aware Obsidian is not open source. Something never clicked for me with Obsidian. Will check out your code later.
My repo: https://github.com/HabermannR/Nexidion
I’ll use obsidian until I can one shot its replacement with a local llm coding agent. And if it goes away tomorrow AND a solar flare wipes my install but somehow leaves everything else, I’ll use helix and ranger until I can one shot its replacement,… with a local llm coding agent.
The one thing I need in a solution like this is multi-player mode that includes a simplified review/track-changes system that I can collaborate with my AI on these docs. Proof.sdk from Every Inc has an interesting approach on this. If I had more free time, I'd build it myself!
Idk it's pretty common practice to have your landing page at the base url, with the app itself located on a subdomain. Off the top of my head I think of standardnotes, linkwarden, raindrop.
> Only necessary features, restrictions foster creativity
Interesting. Productivity tools should not force me getting creative to do the simplest things. Ideally, I can make it adapt to my workflow, not the other way around.
That's why Obsidian is as popular as it is. It starts with a foundation of features that are necessary, and then lets you add/create extensions to expand it as your creativity desires.
That line above is just an attempt to convince the user that the lack of features/extensibility is a positive thing.
In my case, it helps improve my ADHD-affected executive function. It lowers the barrier to entry to ingesting information into a system I know I can extract it from later. It gives me peace of mind to know I can ramble semi-coherently at the speed of conversation and know that the salient points are being captured.
Local models will continue to improve, if your concern is privacy -- already they do a decent enough job at interacting with a well-schema'd PKM
Lots of Markdown enthusiasts in the thread... if you want to sync your markdown tasks to Reminders.app please pay me some money for the privilege: https://turquoisehexagon.co.uk/remindersync
That's the comment that made me check it out in more detail, as that sticks out from all the other projects that were built in a weekend in the past months.
It appeals to me as a minimalistic version of the Bear[1] notes app.
A few years ago I played around with copying the Bear app interface for the web, the idea was to create a visually identical mockup of the app so you could immediately visualise changes made when customising various theme values. I stalled with the implementation of the last part, but the rest of it is up at bear.christippett.dev
Like other commenter referenced, the markdown-oxide LSP replicates the core of obsidian better than obsidian does. I use it with helix. I described by setup in more detail above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48180639
I use vimwiki. I know vim and appreciate not having to learn a new thing. The output is just markdown files linking to each other, so it's very portable.
As a user of Obsidian I like this, it looks good and clean. I use Typora often as it is easier to start in a folder and just work on the files, on top it has nice visuals.
I'm really glad you mentioned this --- I've been looking for a Rust or Tauri-based Obsidian replacement for years, and this is almost everything I want (and much closer to what I want than Files.md).
Now that I'm playing with it, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more traction on HN or Reddit.
Thank you! I am long time obsidian user looking for something that will work decently on Android and this looks promising.
I only really struggle with one basic feature - I want to be able to write note within 1-2 seconds of clicking the app icon. Obsidian makes it 10-15 seconds at best. The HelixNotes sometimes can get this in under 10, still looking for better options.
AFAICT no. It's similar to Hermes Agent and the Hermes JavaScript engine. They are two very different things. Though you could argue that both Helix projects are editors but I don't think that's meaningful in this instance.
1) Very nice implementation 2) Very nice domain! Did you always own "files.md"? 3) Re storing things on your server, what is the security layer around that?
So you saw a product that (1) gives you complete control of your data (2) uses an open format (3) only charges for sync, publish, and commercial use, and you thought to yourself:
"What a great use of my time building a competitor that adds no value, just to save a few dollars a month on sync and publishing. I hope other people value their time as little as I do and contribute"
But Obsidian doesn't even require a few dollars a month for sync. You can use Github or whatever sync service you want. Your data is just a directory of markdown files. That said, I've paid for the sync service for years, but only because it works really well on Linux. I've always been impressed with Obsidian's first-class Linux offerings.
This made me realize that obsidian is *not* opensource, but in a way obsidian made me feel like it was opensource. Obviously now that I researched it, it is quite obvious that it is not, but still it 'feels' like it should be opensource.
The data is open and stored in markdown format. Plugins are open source. The core product is not open source, but it's also just an electron app. I've always viewed Obsidian as the inverse of an open core product.
I don't really mind this way of doing it since I know that my data is "safe". I can at any time just grab my vault and open it in any editor. I can write my own editor. I can import the data into most other tools. It's when the data isn't open that I tend to avoid the product.
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> I've always viewed Obsidian as the inverse of an open core product.
I'd like to hereby propose the "open shell" development model.
The licence method we went with for AS Notes (https://www.asnotes.io - a wikilinks and markdown based notes / docs / blog extension for VS code) was to make the client (extension) fully opensource with a public / private cryptographic licence key model, with a couple of pro gated features. I think an opensource product is very important for a notes product, where the implications of loosing access to a tool are huge for users that invest a lot of time in a knowledge base.
I don't think that was my impression, but their API is pretty open for creating plugins. In support of the Obsidian model, its a dedicated engineering team, a free tool, notes are stored as .md and not something proprietary, and if you want you can pay them for their sync tool which I find both pretty reasonable and a nice way to support their efforts. Also they keep on improving the product in interesting ways, the new plugin marketplace with all of its verification policies is really nicely done, aspirational even.
But in any case, this is also a nice project, but I guess I'm also an Obsidian evangelist.
To be fair, Obsidian is an Electron app with no obfuscation, so it's pretty easy to get its code. I think I even remember the official Obsidian team telling people to do that on their support forum if they distrusted the app.
Which really begs the question: why not have it open-source at that point? Obsidian isn't making money from things hidden in the code, but rather their Sync service.
Might as well open-source it (and perhaps get more people helping with the development), keep the Sync service, and stem competitor projects like these in the bud.
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Why should it be opensource? Obsidian gives you complete control of your data, which it stores in an open standard.
Please explain to me why developers should act like monks who've taken a vow of poverty? The devs built something valuable, they should profit from it.
Wait, why are you mixing the two? You can have the software be under an open source license, yet still not be a monk that has taken a vow of poverty, it's not black and white.
AFAIK (as a long-term Obsidian daily user) Obsidian makes their money on various things attached to the editor/viewer itself, but don't actually charge for the editor/viewer. Even if they did, they could still slap a FOSS license on it, and continue charging for the parts they charge for today.
I'm guessing it's something else they're worried about though, rather than those things.
I agree with your very last part though, but I don't agree you cannot make it open source at the same time.
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I think there is a special value in open source when it comes to a personal knowlege base. We invest so much time in it, and we need to know that it's not going to be taken away from us, or made unaffordable. I made https://www.asnotes.io (basically obsidian with markdown and nested wikilinking in a VS Code extension), because I wanted and thought others would want something that is a) open source and b) version control friendly so we don't even have to rely on a sync server being there in the future.
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> explain to me why developers should act like monks who've taken a vow of poverty? The devs built something valuable, they should profit from it.
No, don't bully others into a fake argument about your weird fantasies.
They never said that developers should be poor. That's also incorrect. Please don't pull others into this kind of toxic discussions.
Not saying they have to be, it's just a weird assumption that I've built up in my head. Possibly because obsidian handles sensitive data and I somewhat was under the impression it has the open-source tier scrutiny when it came to inner workings of the app.
It's a personal bias for me.
Perception of quality, because the author is under constant review.
Not everyone feels comfortable running third-party opaque code in their computers.
Did GP edit the post? Please explain to me where they stated that developers should act like monks who’ve taken a vow of poverty?
I completely agree with the sentiment of your reply at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48181203 btw
That was the reason a few years ago I started this project.
It seems like software in AI-era should be distributed open source.
So that anyone could tweak it however he wants. Not though clunky plugins system.
> So that anyone could tweak it however he wants.
That was true before the "AI era" as well.
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And the developers get compensated for their work how?
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Congratulations on making it tonthe front page. I think your app looks like a brilliant notes app implementation, and there's obviously demand. When I launched https://www.asnotes.io earlier this year (An extension that turns VS Code in to an Obsidian like PKMS) it made the number 4 spot. It's clearly something that people see as important and draws a lot of opinions. I hope your project does well.
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> It seems like software in AI-era should be distributed open source.
That makes it easy for AI to be trained on it.
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So, this comes up pretty much every time Obsidian is mentioned... to the point where I'm curious as to where the idea that it's open source comes from in the first place.
I had absolutely no idea either, I had just assumed that it was, which was a dumb assumption to make. Thanks for pointing it out!
The reason is open standard. Obsidian uses markdown, that's it. No proprietary database, no fancy algorithm, no locked in platform, just a convenient way to manage your notes (jesus, that sounded like AI). You can realistically do it yourself, but they've helped you to do it for the low price of an online sync subscription.
That's why I will always hammer on open standards and federation.
because open source is a means not an end. folks want good, fast software that respects them. open source isn't the only way there.
I don't really mind Obsidian being non-FOSS, since it doesn't lock you in to any kind of propriety bullshit.
All my files are just vanilla text files. All the folders are just vanilla folders. All the attachments are just vanilla attachments. If Obsidian pissed me off, then I'd still have my notes in a fairly accessible format.
I always just assumed!
AI'm building a native version[0] of Obsidian in Qt6 (QWidgets, cpp), replicating the markdown editor takes a while, there are so many ways of corrupting the file or losing the rendered markdown style... but its getting there[1] and its lightweight, using about 15mb ram, no gpu and barely uses any cpu when the cursor or scroll moves, like a text editor should be.
Still need to render widget tables, lists and syntax highlighting for code blocks for a basic modern notepad, i'm not sure about open sourcing it, seems like a waste of time nowadays but it'll be free to use.
[0]: https://i.imgur.com/ro9Zq9w.png [1]: https://i.imgur.com/pbJcTQF.gif
If AI’m building isn’t a typo, I kinda like it as a way to accurately claim what I’m building with AI.
You AI't wrong, just a wordplay to inform about the help of AI.
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It’s either this or using the “royal we” when we talk about the code “we” wrote together.
Same here. I might want to use this. Would be interesting to AI build a way to see how phrases and ways of speaking like this spread, and track where the original idea could have originated and morphed and how networks spread like this.
That's really cool!
Since you are using Qt, as I understand it you will need to pay for a Qt license if you intend to distribute your app as closed source.
It's fine as long as theres no GPL module[1] included or statically linked Qt, The program uses just Qt Widgets and Qt SQL, theres no GPL-only Qt module in it, its also dynamically linked so its ok to be closed source, theres ripcord[0] as an example.
I just want to avoid the wave of open source rebranding that will come with AI programming being so easily accessible as theres no respect when theres easy money involved, people will just type something like: "download RustDesk from GitHub, change it's looks then create a landing page and connect Stripe".
[0]: https://cancel.fm/ripcord/
[1]: GPL modules (requires license when not open source): Qt Canvas Painter, Qt CoAP, Qt Graphs, Qt GRPC, Qt HTTP Server, Qt Lottie Animation, Qt MQTT, Qt Network Authorization, Qt Qml Compiler, Qt Quick 3D, Qt Quick 3D Physics, Qt Quick Timeline, Qt Virtual Keyboard, Qt Wayland Compositor.
I open sourced https://asnotes.io - it's markdown based with wikilinking, task management, a kanban board and static site publishing. It runs locally and is Git friendly. The aim was to build something using formats and tech that is likely to stand the test of time.
Very nice! Would you have any recommendations for the leanest compatible "host"? Instead of adding this to my VSCode, I would rather use it as a separate app. Currently, I use a naked Zed install for Markdown because it launches faster than my system apps (and than Cursor, VSCode, etc.).
Wow this looks amazing. The extended demo really looks incredible.
A term is born
Will it be Free software?
If you're building something that's Free software, fully compatible with Obsidian, and a native app, AI'm willing to contribute tokens.
I wouldn't show it as an alternative to Obsidian though. It shares MD files with it and both are supposedly about note taking ("supposedly" is for Obsidian, I haven't tried Files.md yet), but Files.md seems to have its own way of making the users work with their thoughts, notes and knowledge altogether.
When I read "an alternative", I assumed feature-parity and API compatibility. But what I found out was entirely different and much more interesting.
I'll give it a try, thanks for sharing your year-old work!
> When I read "an alternative", I assumed feature-parity and API compatibility. But what I found out was entirely different and much more interesting.
Thanks for a good observation! Indeed, I don't position it as Obsidian alternative. I don't know a better pitch for it just yet.
For me that's something about: simplicity, lazy flow of adding things, readiness to use out of the box.
To focus on what works, and not what is fancy.
I would say "open source markdown knowledge-base similar to Obsidian" but I'm not a marketing guy
Maybe something like "self-hosted markdown notes you fully own" or "personal knowledge server"? Leans into the ownership angle instead of competing with Obsidian on features.
Well, that sounds great, actually.
> When I read "an alternative", I assumed feature-parity and API compatibility
When I read “alternative” I immediately had a rant in my head about people calling things alternatives that are not.
What is this providing over similarly Markdown based open source note taking applications like Joplin? (https://joplinapp.org/)
I've been a huge fan of the fact that my backend sync infrastructure is my own self-hosted S3 bucket with local clients handling the presentation layer.
It’s interesting to me that it says that in some versions of second brain:
“Second brain grows, but first brain doesn’t get smarter.”
Something I remember Tiago Forte said, which turned me off of his partículas brand of a second brain, is that his goal is to “remember nothing”, and have the second brain surface exactly the context necessary at the moment, which he would proceed to read and ingest.
That sounds terrible to me :) it’s like “we don’t need to remember things if we can google them”.
I much prefer this author’s vision of using the second brain to strengthen the first brain.
Well, we know that it's impossible to remember everything. Humans are absolutely terrible at accurately recalling things that they observed even a few minutes in the past.
But we also can't remember nothing and just dump _everything_ into the second brain, otherwise we'd have no map, no context, no way to even know how to look for what we need in the moment. It would be like taking a random teenager off the street, handing them an electronics engineering textbook, and asking them to build a power supply on the spot.
So there is definitely a spectrum. Everyone seems to disagree on the optimal point on the spectrum and that is almost certainly because it varies greatly from person to person.
My personal experience has been that simply writing extremely detailed notes in the first place makes the information "sticky" in my brain, and greatly increases the likelihood that I won't even _need_ to directly reference the notes in the future. Fun little catch-22 there.
Thanks!
I've been growing my knowledge base for many years, with great results.
And you really need all that much to start taking notes.
No techniques, no workflows, just the the simplest setup would do.
"Second Brain", however, brings excitement to people's minds.
But in reality it just doesn't work. It makes great sales, though.
I believe that not only you should own your data in plain files, but also you should own the software that opens those files.
So that your files and tools can grow together, fully under your ownership, through the ages.
The app can be easily tweaked for your own needs via an LLM - code is optimized for that.
P.S. And Golang seems to be great fit for this kind of software.
What makes Golang a great fit in your opinion?
Server setup before the rewrite:
docker + php-fpm + php7 + larvel + nginx + redis + cron + worker + certbot
Server after the rewrite to Golang:
server, a 15MB no-dependencies binary that has everything.
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Since I plan to use it for the rest of my life, I need the code and infrastructure to be radically simple and easy to maintain.
Like, I should be able to open it even after a few years, and do some fixes or add some features.
Go's ecosystem seems to share this mindset.
You might like what I made for myself https://github.com/pratikdeoghare/brashtag
I wonder if markdown will slowly fall out of favor for note taking, because AI can generate gorgeous-looking HTML essentially for free.
I saw this bit of advice on twitter last week -- to use HTML as the target output for your LLM when you do planning or discussion sessions. And it's been very nice. It's so much easier to parse lots of info when it's presented in an organized/color-coordinated HTML file (potentially with some limited interactivity, and SVG drawings), rather than a block of markdown.
I now wonder if I should give my personal notes the same treatment. The only disadvantage HTML has relative to markdown is that HTML is harder to write and style. But you now have LLMs for that. And HTML/CSS/JS lets you customize your notes in whatever way you want. If you use HTML, any browser becomes your "note-viewing" app, and HTML is just as easy to store and move around as markdown, because it's just plain text.
I read that, but opt'd instead to write a script to live serve md as html pages with mermaid diagrams and syntax highlighting. Such that the md itself can be put into things like github and for github to be able to render it. Works well.
For me, a key tenant of any good note taking system is low friction. Leaning on an LLM feels like significant friction. Formatting something into HTML manually also feels like a lot of fiction. Individual HTML files for notes would also be a friction filled experience for opening and browsing, without some kind of template to allow for navigation of the notes within the browser. This ends up turning into a local wiki very quickly.
I was about to comment: "HTML creates too much friction after doing all sorts of visual explainers" ... thanks for articulating it well.
As a layer of abstraction, it also creates more requirements: need a browser, likely need includes/cdn libs to avoid bloat, all sorts of other things. Markdown is consumable, diffable, shareable in raw form - and you can add enrichment layers on top without much effort.
AI will have to be very reliable, fast and free to replace md files with HTML.
Because I often dump text into md files and the operation is instant.
Same for small tweaks.
One thing I still miss in most markdown tools is good rendering/sharing of large architecture docs and Mermaid diagrams. I ended up building my own markdown file reader - https://mdview.io which handles large diagrams/tables much better than typical note apps
I have a simple script that previews md pages as html and hosts a liveserver so it dynamically updates, renders mermaid / syntax highlighting etc. Super useful when working with an agent when planning out a piece of software. Page dynamically updates as you go, and super useful to have diagrams visible. I'm prompting a lot more to get diagrams included as part of the planning stage (or whenever).
IMO, Figure out encryption at rest or encrypted note storage / clean self hosting and you'll get a large chunk of "personal note storage" fans.
This is neat, but I need a non-server-side program for this. I want everything local and running for the next 20+ years.
You can just clone and use offline.
Just open web/index.html file, it absolutely requires no server.
If you want a local server though, it is easy to setup: https://github.com/zakirullin/files.md/blob/main/docs/your-o...
TiddlyWiki?
https://tiddlywiki.com/
Which has been around for 22 years now!
I recommend the helix text editor with the markdown-oxide LSP (and rumdl formatter if you feel fancy). All open source and even if you never update them they will work forever.
This is why I built https://www.asnotes.io - It's an extension for VS Code. I needed obsidian but usable on corporate networks that don't allow Obsidian or other pkms apps. It's designed to be version control friendly so no sync server is needed either (just use Git)
Self-plug, I'm working on one, local, native, no web based ui, and minimalist. And it has no external dependency. The data is stored as simple text file, and the format is easily searchable with *nix tools.
Not going to be open source or free though, with 2 year perpetual license. I wonder how much that would interest you? My target is people who wants todo.txt like simplicity, but few useful bits. Only for Linux and Windows for now.
To edit Markdown files I want a nice simple native app.
We had those already more than a decade ago. Personally, I fondly remember Mou.
Obsidian has heavy Electron vibes, and Files.md is several steps more into the wrong direction.
The name is also bad. It feels like it was chosen because someone already had the domain.
Scope out minimal.app (or minimal.app/#beta for anyone who wants to contribute to the roadmap). Opinionated, native-only, extremely focused.
Heh, the author admitted that he got tired of what I'll call "curating metadata" in Obsidian, so wrote an app that handled more of it automatically.
My take: you probably don't need so much metadata!
I've spent an unreasonable amount of time trying to figure out the perfect knowledge management app for me and honestly, I'm pretty sure I will get a lot of mileage out of something you just throw pages into, search to find it again, and ask AI to summarize/consolidate when you need it again.
Or just use LogSeq https://discuss.logseq.com/t/whats-new-with-logseq-db-may-16...
That markdown mirror is a pretty neat feature. I've been using Trillium for my notes and the way they save/store the notes is actually one of the things I dislike about it even though I love the application itself. I tried at one point exporting everything to markdown and it worked... but Trillium allows you to have notes in multiple places but they exist essentially as just a pointer in the backend to that note. So it made the export a bit wonky as some instances of a note are just an empty shell and don't have the actual contents. So you have to try and move notes around to get their markdown files in the right places.
I've ended up still sticking with Trilium however as I like being able to have notes in multiple locations like this.
Nice project. People may also want to checkout Tiddlywiki.
I ended up landing on https://silverbullet.md. It checks a lot of boxes for me,
- self hosted
- works offline (mostly)
- "just md" BUT
- scriptable or extendable by lua, rendered in page, eg `${1 + 1}` outputs `2`, but you can do a lot more, such as query pages and tags with a LINQ type query interface.
I've been using TrilliumNext (fork of Trillium project that is archived) and haven't been able to find an alternative I liked more. Only thing I don't really like is that it's not really stored in Markdown and since you have the ability to have notes in multiple trees it can get a bit messy when trying to move to other systems.
I tried moving to Obsidian Notes and found myself missing Trillium. It's nice to be able to just open the web browser and have access to your own self-hosted notes with an editor anywhere. You also can set it up so if you add a sharing tag to a note you can easily share a link to the note. I believe Obsidian allows similar but only if you pay, and it's also not self-hosted.
I've tried a wiki style approach before like Tiddlywiki, but I feel like it is a whole different concept of taking and making notes that often is a bit more cumbersome, but maybe it works better with how some people think.
> People may also want to checkout Tiddlywiki.
Also Zettlr
> Tiddlywiki
Love Tiddlywiki. It's amazing the amount of functionality it has, even if you use it in "one html file" mode. Great for making a web garden [1].
[1]: https://nesslabs.com/digital-garden-tiddlywiki
Gods I love and loath Tiddlywiki. It has some of the most convoluted javascript written before javascript ever actually got all the features that made javascript convoluted. But it did the job!
Same idea, but directly inside your terminal: https://github.com/RivoLink/leaf
I use tree-md for same end when I want to see my markdown a bit prettier https://github.com/Epistates/treemd
It’s interesting too. Thanks!
This is perfect! thanks for sharing it
Glad it helped you.
Looks really slick! I've been using Obsidian with git, and am thinking of moving back to the OG solution of simply using a text editor with a git repo. I'm wary of using cloud like google drive or dropbox for sync, especially if I'm using both phone and mobile to edit the same file throughout the day. I doubt using an external cloud really takes care of consistency and there's a possibility of losing data. Me being a developer can take the pain of a button click to git pull and resolve occasional conflicts. To me this is fully solved solution for note taking with tools I already know and trust. Having said that, I'm gonna try Files.md for some inspiration on what I could be missing.
Thanks for your warm words!
> I'm gonna try Files.md for some inspiration on what I could be missing
For the most part I was thinking more about what I can remove :D
This inspires me. What kind of minimal feature set does one need to improve his thinking...
Joplin?
Interesting. I recently "vibe-coded" my personal Obsidian clone, because I want proper Emacs keybindings, and Obsidian does not support those, not even through extensions.
I do not know what to do with my pet project. I'm using it myself, and it has tons of futures that took quite some effort to get right. For example, WYSIWYG table editing is not trivial, and Claude Opus agrees with me, in the sense that it could not manage it (at all) by itself.
Open-sourcing it is an option, but I don't look forward to negative feedback. If anyone else wants Emacs keybindings in Obsidian, I will change my mind :)
I too have vibe-coded my own personal obsidian/sublime replacement in rust, and also ran into WYSIWYG table editing and rendering issues with opus 4.7. Took a couple iterations but now formulas/rendering are perfect. GPT5.5 actually handled that very well compared to 4.7
I use .MD files, helix terminal editor with a markdown LSP called markdown-oxide that replicates the obsidian feature set (like bidirectional links, tags, making new notes automatically, two keys get you from a in-line footnote to the definition and back again, etc), and rumdl which is a super efficient and customizable markdown linter and formatter (semantic line breaks far the win!) . Since it is all helix I can jump around a huge web of interlinked files very quickly with only a few key presses, as well as inside a document and manipulate them en masse or in minute detail all with only a few taps. All of your standard open source terminal tools work with it, difftastic, bat/cat, zoxide/CD, ripgrep, fzf, git, LLMs, encryption, sync, etc etc. I use yazi for a visual filepicker and zellij for tabs. Run it on a server and connect from any computer in the world without downloading a single thing. I sometimes make use of two tools called rucola and tree-md for looking at prettier versions of the texts and seeing stats about how they interact. All open source of course!
There is no better interface for text than a terminal, and we are in the golden age. Despite being extremely powerful, this setup will run on resource constrained machines.
Glad I read this! I love Helix and have been looking for a way to have some extra note taking features without loosing my favourite editor. Will definitely give markdown-oxide a try!
Highly recommend it
Glad I read about this! I love helix and have been looking for some bonus features for note organisation without having to ditch my favourite editor, will defi
> There is no better interface for text than a terminal
It's a personal choice that cannot be imposed on everyone. Not everyone is a developer.
Being a better version of something is an invitation, not an imposition! I'm not a developer and never have been, I study literatureand I use a modal editor for all my writing.
If you've ever used Ctrl+C to copy, you've already done something harder than the core concept of modal editing. Modal editing is simpler: you press a single key, and you switch to one (of two) modes. That's it. That's the thing people find intimidating. In one mode the letters you press show up on the screen, in the other the letters you press select/copy/move/etc (like cntrl+c... Except even simpler you only need to press one key). You have to use keyboard keys to go up and down, which I assume you already have some experience with.
Learning it is identical to learning a GUI. In Word, you hunt through menus for the word 'cut' or 'paste' and click it. In a modal editor like helix you look up cut or paste on a menu and press the key next to it instead. Except once you remember the key you never have to go look through menus again!
Get the hang of it and modal text editors are to word processors what word processors are to typewriters. Except at least typewriters have some charm.
All that being said, if you want to sync your notes you'll have to use something like Dropbox or google drive, and I looked up how to install helix and you do have to download and unzip a file (https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/releases). Still, computer science degree not required!
Unless you've only ever used android or iOS device in which case all of my assumptions about your familiarity with keyboards and mice is totally off. Still!
So, I suggest you https://github.com/RivoLink/leaf
Right, but most people want to be able to consult their notes on the go, quickly add items from their phone, etc.
I do too. The setup I've described is best for big screen work when I need tools that dont compromise in any way.
This looks awesome, and I've been waffling about moving from Notion to something local/markdown based for a while. My only issue is that I really like using "databases"/tables, specifically for moving through processes ticket-style, in Notion. Does anyone know if there's something similar elsewhere? I'm not familiar with the knowledge-base/wiki space, I just kinda fell into notion.
> waffling about moving from Notion to something local/markdown based for a while.
Check out Tolaria [1]. Open source, works locally, uses markdown, no-databases. Git client built-in. Even has Notion-style input.
[1]: https://tolaria.md
This looks REALLY good, thanks.
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Is there a way to follow inline links from a mobile device? Doesn’t seem to work for me in mobile Safari.
It is not very well tested on mobiles yet.
People use chatbot on the mobiles - way more convenient.
You can both read/write notes through the chat.
Thank you for actually acquiring the .md domain corresponding to your software and avoiding some security holesof the future :)
I bought this domain with the promise that one day I'll release my pet-project.
So did I, 3 years later :)
I like the blurb about your ZK being something which can actually hold you back. I encounted the same issue myself and found that ZK is not always the best fit for me.
I find the best thing to do when studying something is to go over your material, internalize and synthesize it in an essay. If you can't create an original essay which perfectly replicates the knowledge you want to understand then you almost certainly don't understand it perfectly.
Alternatively, create a detailed flow chart using subcharts if you have to. (Graphviz/dot is good for this)
Thanks! I love being honest. Notes alone wouldn't do.
The '... building this for 5 years' definitely resonates. Text editors are a pitfall of hidden complexities!
It looks and feels great, congratulations for getting this out.
Not very classy to piggy back off of this post to advertise your own text editor. Just make a new "Show HN" post.
You are right, I removed it.
I'm missing export in https://textbundle.org/ format.
"TextBundle brings convenience back - by bundling the Markdown text and all referenced images into a single file."
If you want to bundle your images in markdown why don't you just use an HTML section with the image encoded as base64 data?
Why does every webpage not encode its images as base64 data?
Does in support plugins?
This is great. I build a Ai status page [1] based around MD files and included obsidian as option. Will look to support this as well.
[1]: https://github.com/jwillmer/ai-status
The plugin ecosystem is what really makes Obsidian different from the rest.
While OSS is nice, in theory it allows vibe-coding personalizations, without a clear plugin standard then every update would cause a merge headache.
And there is no lack of text editors.
The first real Obsidian alternative would allow use of existing Obsidian plugins. And I think this one thing could really make an alternative gain traction, with both users and those who contribute to the plugin ecosystem.
Timely, just this morning I took an interest in Obsidian and the immediate query about it being open source returned a disappointing “no”. So count me in to try this one.
I am working on something similar. I was also not aware Obsidian is not open source. Something never clicked for me with Obsidian. Will check out your code later. My repo: https://github.com/HabermannR/Nexidion
I’ll use obsidian until I can one shot its replacement with a local llm coding agent. And if it goes away tomorrow AND a solar flare wipes my install but somehow leaves everything else, I’ll use helix and ranger until I can one shot its replacement,… with a local llm coding agent.
There's also https://logseq.com/
The one thing I need in a solution like this is multi-player mode that includes a simplified review/track-changes system that I can collaborate with my AI on these docs. Proof.sdk from Every Inc has an interesting approach on this. If I had more free time, I'd build it myself!
Maybe the app should be available at files.md?
Not under app.files.md? What do you think?
Idk it's pretty common practice to have your landing page at the base url, with the app itself located on a subdomain. Off the top of my head I think of standardnotes, linkwarden, raindrop.
> Only necessary features, restrictions foster creativity
Interesting. Productivity tools should not force me getting creative to do the simplest things. Ideally, I can make it adapt to my workflow, not the other way around.
That's why Obsidian is as popular as it is. It starts with a foundation of features that are necessary, and then lets you add/create extensions to expand it as your creativity desires.
That line above is just an attempt to convince the user that the lack of features/extensibility is a positive thing.
Why will I want to feed my life into LLM
In my case, it helps improve my ADHD-affected executive function. It lowers the barrier to entry to ingesting information into a system I know I can extract it from later. It gives me peace of mind to know I can ramble semi-coherently at the speed of conversation and know that the salient points are being captured.
Local models will continue to improve, if your concern is privacy -- already they do a decent enough job at interacting with a well-schema'd PKM
Markdown-first tools always end up reinventing each other.
My note taking endgame is a plain dir with md files and a simple website that gives you fullscreen textarea to view and edit them.
Looks nice! Doesn't work in Safari though, which is a non-starter for me.
In Safari it should work in OPFS.
Because Safari still doesn't support Local FileSystem API :(
A docker release would be great. Looks like a more modern version of ManyNotes.
Hm. I thought that there's one single binary + one script to deploy, so Docker is not needed...
Let us know when this isn't a Chrome-specific tool.
As soon as all major browsers support Local FileSystem API :)
Lots of Markdown enthusiasts in the thread... if you want to sync your markdown tasks to Reminders.app please pay me some money for the privilege: https://turquoisehexagon.co.uk/remindersync
or just vibe your own solution :)
I liked it, will try. Good job
Looks nice but seems overkill to me to run a Go server to sync with a telegram bot to authenticate. Maybe I don't fully understand the use case.
I added a table with all possible setup options: https://github.com/zakirullin/files.md#ways-to-use-it
You'll right on this - I'll cover this in great detail.
You don't need to spin up the server, only in case you want your own infra.
Optional sync is only working with chatbot auth for now, but I'll do something about it.
I really like the look and feel!
Thanks a lot! I've been perfecting things for 5 years. A week ago I decided to open source it finally :)
That's the comment that made me check it out in more detail, as that sticks out from all the other projects that were built in a weekend in the past months.
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This is neat. I dont get how sync works. Is it server side? Or is there some client side oauth flow? I dont see it.
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It appeals to me as a minimalistic version of the Bear[1] notes app.
A few years ago I played around with copying the Bear app interface for the web, the idea was to create a visually identical mockup of the app so you could immediately visualise changes made when customising various theme values. I stalled with the implementation of the last part, but the rest of it is up at bear.christippett.dev
[1] https://bear.app
Only works in Chrome!
You can use any browser.
But Local File System API has limited support in other browsers.
Post it again when it works in Firefox.
Once they'll support Local FileSystem API!
I want something like this, but completely terminal based
Like other commenter referenced, the markdown-oxide LSP replicates the core of obsidian better than obsidian does. I use it with helix. I described by setup in more detail above: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48180639
I use vimwiki. I know vim and appreciate not having to learn a new thing. The output is just markdown files linking to each other, so it's very portable.
Maybe leaf : https://github.com/RivoLink/leaf
nvim + markdown oxide is the closest I've found https://github.com/Feel-ix-343/markdown-oxide
Works so well
Nice Project, I really like the look!
Thanks! I am glad you enjoyed it. For the past week alone, I made 500+ commits, fixing all sorts of UI/UX fixes to perfect things out.
I believe I put too much time into it during all those years, but I don't regret it. Because I use the project on daily basis.
As a user of Obsidian I like this, it looks good and clean. I use Typora often as it is easier to start in a folder and just work on the files, on top it has nice visuals.
Very good work.
Thanks for your warm words!
I did a lot of experimentations with the UX/UI and colors, glad you appreciated the effort :)
nice, going to point my hermes agent to this instead of obsidian
I love the simplicity.
Thanks! That's what I was striving for :)
Simplicity started from the domain name.
another one in the same space: https://helixnotes.com/
I'm really glad you mentioned this --- I've been looking for a Rust or Tauri-based Obsidian replacement for years, and this is almost everything I want (and much closer to what I want than Files.md).
Now that I'm playing with it, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more traction on HN or Reddit.
Thank you! I am long time obsidian user looking for something that will work decently on Android and this looks promising.
I only really struggle with one basic feature - I want to be able to write note within 1-2 seconds of clicking the app icon. Obsidian makes it 10-15 seconds at best. The HelixNotes sometimes can get this in under 10, still looking for better options.
Is this related to https://helix-editor.com/ ??
No, its a really ignorant name collision. And the helix text editor is much better.
AFAICT no. It's similar to Hermes Agent and the Hermes JavaScript engine. They are two very different things. Though you could argue that both Helix projects are editors but I don't think that's meaningful in this instance.
Big fan of the note up front about how long they’ve been working on it, feel like we’ll be seeing a lot more of that as an anti-slop signal
Thanks. Even though there's "LICENSE.md 3 years ago" file, today I also added this text :)
This is hand crafted, for the most part.
1) Very nice implementation 2) Very nice domain! Did you always own "files.md"? 3) Re storing things on your server, what is the security layer around that?
I have been building a slightly different solution to the same problem. So far I’m pretty happy with the results and I have enough returning users that I think others are too (https://sdocs.dev/s/B_Ux11DV#k=KsvheEkiBFai6acnoIJnrOdfVRS5u...
> Very nice domain! Did you always own "files.md"?
Thanks! I bought it about 3 years ago. Back then, the project was just a chatbot.
But already back then, I kind of had an idea where I want it all to go.
I wanted the simplicity (and 0 cognitive load!) to start right from the domain name! Files in .md - files.md!
> Re storing things on your server, what is the security layer around that?
For the most part I use the project from my Telegram bot. And due to that, it is not possible to do proper E2E.
Will see if people use the chatbot, if not, we can consider E2E.
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So you saw a product that (1) gives you complete control of your data (2) uses an open format (3) only charges for sync, publish, and commercial use, and you thought to yourself:
"What a great use of my time building a competitor that adds no value, just to save a few dollars a month on sync and publishing. I hope other people value their time as little as I do and contribute"
Have fun!
But Obsidian doesn't even require a few dollars a month for sync. You can use Github or whatever sync service you want. Your data is just a directory of markdown files. That said, I've paid for the sync service for years, but only because it works really well on Linux. I've always been impressed with Obsidian's first-class Linux offerings.
it's nice to have open source implementations so you can extend / borrow / merge / morph features and ideas into something else