{"slug": "obsidian", "name": "Obsidian", "category": "notes", "category_name": "Notes and knowledge", "description": "Desktop and mobile note-taking app that stores notes as local Markdown files.", "recommenders": 78, "commenters": 166, "warners": 5, "score": 84.036, "rising": -2.96, "first": "2025-11-14", "latest": "2026-10-31", "why": "HN commenters like Obsidian for keeping notes as plain Markdown files with little lock-in, for heavy customization through plugins, and for working well alongside AI agents like Claude.", "why_is_quote": false, "has_verdict": true, "sentiment": {"recommend": 80, "neutral": 77, "compare": 13, "warn": 6}, "spark": [1, 0, 5, 13, 7, 12, 10, 8, 7, 5, 5, 7], "listed": true, "loved": ["Plain Markdown files", "AI agent integration"], "caveat": "Sync and data bugs", "short_quote": "Obsidian stands beside the terminal and Firefox as one of the pieces of software I use the most every single day.", "icon": true, "domain": "obsidian.md", "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://obsidian.md", "pricing": "freemium", "aliases": ["Obsidian", "Obsidian Web Clipper", "Obsidian Sync"], "verdict": [{"text": "HN commenters like Obsidian for keeping notes as plain Markdown files with little lock-in", "cites": [{"id": 801198528, "item_id": 50074908, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50074908", "by": "jshaqaw", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Obsidian makes a good product and frankly barely charges for it.", "excerpt": "I love open source. But Obsidian exists. Cloning existing apps to open source is almost push-button in the age of Claude. Obsidian makes a good product and frankly barely charges for it. Yes it's closed source but since all your files are markdown there is no lock-in risk. I guess I'd rather see people in open source make new things than copy existing products especially when those products are made by small scrappy ", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Opensidian"}, {"id": 770978528, "item_id": 48186158, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48186158", "by": "humanfromearth9", "date": "2026-05-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "its file format is definitely more open than Joplin's. Which is why I switched to it.", "excerpt": "Obsidian may not be open source, but its file format is definitely more open than Joplin's. Which is why I switched to it. Synchronizing with Syncthing works well enough both on desktops and smartphones.", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "Joplin", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}, {"id": 771225440, "item_id": 48201590, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201590", "by": "Macha", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I pretty seamlessly moved from VS Code as my notes app to obsidian and could move back to a text editor if obsidian turns evil.", "excerpt": "You can use standard markdown links in obsidian, and even wikilinks are often supported (e.g. pulldown-cmark supports them). Or you can configure obsidian to prefer standard markdown links (https://obsidian.md/help/settings#Use%20Wikilinks) My notes were _already_ a folder of markdown, so I pretty seamlessly moved from VS Code as my notes app to obsidian and could move back to a text editor if obsidian turns evil. Th", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown notes", "switched_from": "VS Code", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}]}, {"text": ", for heavy customization through plugins", "cites": [{"id": 783471872, "item_id": 48966992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966992", "by": "iammjm", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Generally I\u2019m a big fan of Obsidian because it\u2019s very intuitive and customisable.", "excerpt": "I digitise some of my handwritten stuff, but not all of them, just what I really want to keep or be searchable. For that I created a simple Shortcut on my iPhone: take a photo > rotate it > resize by 20% > save file > rename > share with Obsidian and add it to either Daily Note or a specific note. In Obsidian I have a Claude integration (Claudian Plugin) with an /ocr skill, which runs optical character recognition on", "context": "", "use_case": "notes with digitised handwriting", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Started a \"Dirt Notebook\""}, {"id": 775327360, "item_id": 48457960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48457960", "by": "HSO", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now obsidian works for me like I want, and still every day I use it Im still in awe", "excerpt": "transitioned from my OmniOutliner 3(!) based system last year finally to modern macOS and obsidian. 1 year later, with no js/ts skills at all, i got 10 custom plugins, several forks where i fixed bugs and some custom adapations, dozens of scripts and snippets and what not Now obsidian works for me like I want, and still every day I use it Im still in awe It is a bit hard to describe until I make a video but basically", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with custom plugins", "switched_from": "OmniOutliner", "story": "Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI"}]}, {"text": ", and for working well alongside AI agents like Claude.", "cites": [{"id": 764163232, "item_id": 47760202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47760202", "by": "harmoni-pet", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That's the killer feature of Obsidian imo.", "excerpt": "I'm surprised there's nothing about using this with Claude (or whatever LLM). That's the killer feature of Obsidian imo. My original friction of keeping up with a style or format of notes is taken care of. You can also do full passes of your vaults and ask it to look for connections you might have missed or to reorganize it after some time if the original purpose has drifted. You can also just open a terminal in the ", "context": "", "use_case": "notes vault with LLM", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}, {"id": 782349056, "item_id": 48896816, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48896816", "by": "AbstractH24", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've finally been able to dive into Obsidian and build out the second brain I've always wanted.", "excerpt": "I love the concept of logseq, but the userbase is just too small and in turn the speed of change is too slow. . Over the last few weeks, with the help of Claude Code I've finally been able to dive into Obsidian and build out the second brain I've always wanted. With the power to auto-sort small thoughts jotted down on my phone with minimal interruption and some automated maintenance & sorting. CC has really reduced t", "context": "", "use_case": "second brain notes", "switched_from": "Logseq", "story": "Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here"}, {"id": 778863872, "item_id": 48678992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678992", "by": "rnxrx", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The native replication and the Git integrations work well keeping it all synchronized across multiple harnesses", "excerpt": "There is at least one MCP server in Obsidian's community plugins, plus the REST API access capability which is already addressed in several open source MCP plugins. I use Obsidian as a persistent context store and knowledge graph (..loosely defined, i.e. link/back-link) for both Claude Code and Hermes, while also using it to generate live Wiki pages for working documentation. The native replication and the Git integr", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent context store and knowledge graph for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: OpenKnowledge \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian/Notion"}]}, {"text": " The main complaint is sync and data-integrity bugs, with note content duplicated or silently overwritten.", "cites": [{"id": 764142161, "item_id": 47758885, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47758885", "by": "philips", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every few weeks the official Obsidian sync makes an absolute mess of our shopping list", "excerpt": "I love Obsidian, have written a popular plugin, and my wife and I use it for TODO lists and various planning. However, every few weeks the official Obsidian sync makes an absolute mess of our shopping list (which has fairly frequent edits and deletions across our laptops and phones). I have no idea how to fix it. This thread shows other users having the exact same issue as us: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-syn", "context": "", "use_case": "syncing notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}, {"id": 764145776, "item_id": 47759111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759111", "by": "hadik", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I cannot recommend Obsidian as it is right now.", "excerpt": "For me, Obsidian started to silently and (seemingly) randomly replace the whole content of a note with the content of another random note. This has been happening to other people as well for some time now [1]. What makes this issue really terrifying is its silent nature. I only noticed one of the notes having had its content replaced while casually exploring my library. It took me an hour to restore the original cont", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}]}], "praise": [{"label": "Plain Markdown files", "summary": "Notes are ordinary Markdown files, so commenters see low lock-in and easy migration in or out.", "quotes": [{"id": 801198528, "item_id": 50074908, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50074908", "by": "jshaqaw", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Obsidian makes a good product and frankly barely charges for it.", "excerpt": "I love open source. But Obsidian exists. Cloning existing apps to open source is almost push-button in the age of Claude. Obsidian makes a good product and frankly barely charges for it. Yes it's closed source but since all your files are markdown there is no lock-in risk. I guess I'd rather see people in open source make new things than copy existing products especially when those products are made by small scrappy ", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Opensidian"}, {"id": 770978528, "item_id": 48186158, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48186158", "by": "humanfromearth9", "date": "2026-05-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "its file format is definitely more open than Joplin's. Which is why I switched to it.", "excerpt": "Obsidian may not be open source, but its file format is definitely more open than Joplin's. Which is why I switched to it. Synchronizing with Syncthing works well enough both on desktops and smartphones.", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "Joplin", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}, {"id": 771225440, "item_id": 48201590, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201590", "by": "Macha", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I pretty seamlessly moved from VS Code as my notes app to obsidian and could move back to a text editor if obsidian turns evil.", "excerpt": "You can use standard markdown links in obsidian, and even wikilinks are often supported (e.g. pulldown-cmark supports them). Or you can configure obsidian to prefer standard markdown links (https://obsidian.md/help/settings#Use%20Wikilinks) My notes were _already_ a folder of markdown, so I pretty seamlessly moved from VS Code as my notes app to obsidian and could move back to a text editor if obsidian turns evil. Th", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown notes", "switched_from": "VS Code", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}]}, {"label": "AI agent integration", "summary": "Users point Claude Code and other agents at their vaults to organize, search and maintain notes.", "quotes": [{"id": 764163232, "item_id": 47760202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47760202", "by": "harmoni-pet", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That's the killer feature of Obsidian imo.", "excerpt": "I'm surprised there's nothing about using this with Claude (or whatever LLM). That's the killer feature of Obsidian imo. My original friction of keeping up with a style or format of notes is taken care of. You can also do full passes of your vaults and ask it to look for connections you might have missed or to reorganize it after some time if the original purpose has drifted. You can also just open a terminal in the ", "context": "", "use_case": "notes vault with LLM", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}, {"id": 782349056, "item_id": 48896816, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48896816", "by": "AbstractH24", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've finally been able to dive into Obsidian and build out the second brain I've always wanted.", "excerpt": "I love the concept of logseq, but the userbase is just too small and in turn the speed of change is too slow. . Over the last few weeks, with the help of Claude Code I've finally been able to dive into Obsidian and build out the second brain I've always wanted. With the power to auto-sort small thoughts jotted down on my phone with minimal interruption and some automated maintenance & sorting. CC has really reduced t", "context": "", "use_case": "second brain notes", "switched_from": "Logseq", "story": "Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here"}, {"id": 778863872, "item_id": 48678992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678992", "by": "rnxrx", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The native replication and the Git integrations work well keeping it all synchronized across multiple harnesses", "excerpt": "There is at least one MCP server in Obsidian's community plugins, plus the REST API access capability which is already addressed in several open source MCP plugins. I use Obsidian as a persistent context store and knowledge graph (..loosely defined, i.e. link/back-link) for both Claude Code and Hermes, while also using it to generate live Wiki pages for working documentation. The native replication and the Git integr", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent context store and knowledge graph for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: OpenKnowledge \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian/Notion"}]}, {"label": "Plugins and customization", "summary": "Commenters call it customizable and build or adapt plugins to fit their workflows.", "quotes": [{"id": 783471872, "item_id": 48966992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966992", "by": "iammjm", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Generally I\u2019m a big fan of Obsidian because it\u2019s very intuitive and customisable.", "excerpt": "I digitise some of my handwritten stuff, but not all of them, just what I really want to keep or be searchable. For that I created a simple Shortcut on my iPhone: take a photo > rotate it > resize by 20% > save file > rename > share with Obsidian and add it to either Daily Note or a specific note. In Obsidian I have a Claude integration (Claudian Plugin) with an /ocr skill, which runs optical character recognition on", "context": "", "use_case": "notes with digitised handwriting", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Started a \"Dirt Notebook\""}, {"id": 775327360, "item_id": 48457960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48457960", "by": "HSO", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now obsidian works for me like I want, and still every day I use it Im still in awe", "excerpt": "transitioned from my OmniOutliner 3(!) based system last year finally to modern macOS and obsidian. 1 year later, with no js/ts skills at all, i got 10 custom plugins, several forks where i fixed bugs and some custom adapations, dozens of scripts and snippets and what not Now obsidian works for me like I want, and still every day I use it Im still in awe It is a bit hard to describe until I make a video but basically", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with custom plugins", "switched_from": "OmniOutliner", "story": "Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI"}, {"id": 782278449, "item_id": 48892403, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48892403", "by": "TheBestTvarynka", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Obsidian was a great decision.", "excerpt": "I'm working on the Obsidian plugin for building and rendering family graphs [1]. I started my own genealogy research in 2025 and did not want to store data on a 3rd-party platform. Obsidian was a great decision. The only thing I needed is a tree (graph) viewer for family members relationships (something like myheritage.com has). So, I built my own with a lot of interactivity on top. [1]: https://github.com/TheBestTva", "context": "genealogy researcher", "use_case": "genealogy research notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: What Are You Working On? (July 2026)"}]}, {"label": "Fast, focused daily driver", "summary": "Several use it every day and value fast navigation and a simple core that works even without plugins.", "quotes": [{"id": 769571024, "item_id": 48098189, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48098189", "by": "schaefer", "date": "2026-05-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Obsidian stands beside the terminal and Firefox as one of the pieces of software I use the most every single day.", "excerpt": "Obsidian stands beside the terminal and Firefox as one of the pieces of software I use the most every single day. Thank you for all you're doing. - I've read the article describing the attack, and my very first thought was utter surprise that the entire attack chain started with someone accepting a shared vault from a stranger via social media (linked in and similar). That seems really, really strange to me. I've nev", "context": "", "use_case": "daily note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan"}, {"id": 763708224, "item_id": 47731764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47731764", "by": "Leomuck", "date": "2026-04-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Obsidian, because it does what it does great - taking notes, easy and fast navigation, no bullshit.", "excerpt": "What I'm taking issue in is the many opinions on how to build something really useful yourself. I love Obsidian, because it does what it does great - taking notes, easy and fast navigation, no bullshit. What I don't like is the urge to do so many things with it, todos, libraries, etc. Obsidian wasn't built for this. I had spent months improving my Obsidian setup when finally I realized I don't want to spend all this ", "context": "developer", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "A practical guide for setting up Zettelkasten method in Obsidian"}, {"id": 769436640, "item_id": 48089790, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48089790", "by": "hresvelgr", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Am I the only one who thinks Obsidian is perfect without plugins?", "excerpt": "Am I the only one who thinks Obsidian is perfect without plugins? Half the reason I switched to it from Anytype was that it was rather spartan in its offerings. If they announced tomorrow they would ban plugins, I would not care.", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "Anytype", "story": "Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan"}]}, {"label": "Paid Sync", "summary": "Some happily pay for Obsidian Sync, calling it fast and more reliable than iCloud Drive.", "quotes": [{"id": 794883040, "item_id": 49680190, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49680190", "by": "fuckinpuppers", "date": "2026-09-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it does exactly what I need\u2026 and their sync engine is fast as hell. I pay for sync.", "excerpt": "Same. Obsidian is a bit more DIY feeling, not as polished of an interface but it does exactly what I need\u2026 and their sync engine is fast as hell. I pay for sync. I know I don\u2019t need to if I really wanted to run it for free, but it\u2019s worth it (and 50% cheaper than Evernote soon, while supporting the company)", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with sync", "switched_from": "Evernote", "story": "My last six months at Evernote"}, {"id": 771245088, "item_id": 48202818, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48202818", "by": "skrtskrt", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "It\u2019s the sole reason I use Obsidian over anything else - and happily pay for the sync service.", "excerpt": "This will probably get buried but here\u2019s my shot at a feature or extension request: The Daily Note. It\u2019s the only extension I use in Obsidian. I love opening my phone (or on desktop on any platform) and automatically getting a templated note with some of my daily ToDos as a checklist: stretching, exercises, language practice, etc. With a space for adding that day\u2019s one-off ToDos ad priorities. It\u2019s the sole reason I ", "context": "", "use_case": "daily notes with templated checklists", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}, {"id": 772605792, "item_id": 48287862, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48287862", "by": "jekbao", "date": "2026-05-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "they are not quite reliably as Obsidian\u2019s paid sync service", "excerpt": "I\u2019m curious what specific problem Files.md aims to solve as an open-source alternative to Obsidian. Since Obsidian already uses open data stored as Markdown of my choice as well as plugins are open-source - my only real pain point is seamless online & offline syncing between my laptop and mobile phone. I\u2019ve tried a few options, including iCloud Drive, but they are not quite reliably as Obsidian\u2019s paid sync service. W", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with sync", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}]}, {"label": "Web clipper", "summary": "The official clipper saves web pages straight into a vault.", "quotes": [{"id": 804115568, "item_id": 50257223, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257223", "by": "KJs6ZxELzQM37O", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For terrible sites, I use https://obsidian.md/clipper", "excerpt": "I find myself using print on a lot of sites. For terrible sites, I use https://obsidian.md/clipper", "context": "", "use_case": "printing/saving unprintable sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Websites Should Be Printable"}, {"id": 800315344, "item_id": 50019709, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50019709", "by": "vincent-uden", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use https://obsidian.md/clipper to download them straight into my vault.", "excerpt": "That is partially what I do! I don't favourite stuff at all really on HN/X/whatever. I use https://obsidian.md/clipper to download them straight into my vault. Then there is https://pi.dev/packages/pi-obsidian which I use to give an agent access to my vault for searching/organising tasks", "context": "", "use_case": "saving bookmarks to vault", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Any solution for bookmarks on various services?"}]}], "caveats": [{"label": "Sync and data bugs", "summary": "Users report Sync duplicating sections of a file and a note's content being silently replaced by another note's.", "quotes": [{"id": 764142161, "item_id": 47758885, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47758885", "by": "philips", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every few weeks the official Obsidian sync makes an absolute mess of our shopping list", "excerpt": "I love Obsidian, have written a popular plugin, and my wife and I use it for TODO lists and various planning. However, every few weeks the official Obsidian sync makes an absolute mess of our shopping list (which has fairly frequent edits and deletions across our laptops and phones). I have no idea how to fix it. This thread shows other users having the exact same issue as us: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-syn", "context": "", "use_case": "syncing notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}, {"id": 764145776, "item_id": 47759111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759111", "by": "hadik", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I cannot recommend Obsidian as it is right now.", "excerpt": "For me, Obsidian started to silently and (seemingly) randomly replace the whole content of a note with the content of another random note. This has been happening to other people as well for some time now [1]. What makes this issue really terrifying is its silent nature. I only noticed one of the notes having had its content replaced while casually exploring my library. It took me an hour to restore the original cont", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}]}, {"label": "Plugin permissions", "summary": "One user avoids community plugins because their permissions and sandboxing are inadequate.", "quotes": [{"id": 769439920, "item_id": 48089995, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48089995", "by": "jjice", "date": "2026-05-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I really like Obsidian. I use it every day", "excerpt": "I really like Obsidian. I use it every day and I don't use any community plugins because the permissions aren't up to snuff. I hope for a day where a plugin defines what it will need and that gets presented to me as a user. I have to imagine the Obsidian team is going to respond seriously to this and I look forward to seeing what they do. They have my full confidence. I'm surprised the system was initially designed a", "context": "avoids community plugins", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan"}]}, {"label": "DIY setup effort", "summary": "Some describe it as less polished and say tuning it for tasks beyond note-taking costs a lot of time.", "quotes": [{"id": 794883040, "item_id": 49680190, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49680190", "by": "fuckinpuppers", "date": "2026-09-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it does exactly what I need\u2026 and their sync engine is fast as hell. I pay for sync.", "excerpt": "Same. Obsidian is a bit more DIY feeling, not as polished of an interface but it does exactly what I need\u2026 and their sync engine is fast as hell. I pay for sync. I know I don\u2019t need to if I really wanted to run it for free, but it\u2019s worth it (and 50% cheaper than Evernote soon, while supporting the company)", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with sync", "switched_from": "Evernote", "story": "My last six months at Evernote"}, {"id": 763708224, "item_id": 47731764, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47731764", "by": "Leomuck", "date": "2026-04-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love Obsidian, because it does what it does great - taking notes, easy and fast navigation, no bullshit.", "excerpt": "What I'm taking issue in is the many opinions on how to build something really useful yourself. I love Obsidian, because it does what it does great - taking notes, easy and fast navigation, no bullshit. What I don't like is the urge to do so many things with it, todos, libraries, etc. Obsidian wasn't built for this. I had spent months improving my Obsidian setup when finally I realized I don't want to spend all this ", "context": "developer", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "A practical guide for setting up Zettelkasten method in Obsidian"}, {"id": 782349056, "item_id": 48896816, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48896816", "by": "AbstractH24", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've finally been able to dive into Obsidian and build out the second brain I've always wanted.", "excerpt": "I love the concept of logseq, but the userbase is just too small and in turn the speed of change is too slow. . Over the last few weeks, with the help of Claude Code I've finally been able to dive into Obsidian and build out the second brain I've always wanted. With the power to auto-sort small thoughts jotted down on my phone with minimal interruption and some automated maintenance & sorting. CC has really reduced t", "context": "", "use_case": "second brain notes", "switched_from": "Logseq", "story": "Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here"}]}, {"label": "Multiple vaults", "summary": "One user finds multiple vaults nearly unusable because each opens in a new window.", "quotes": [{"id": 764118032, "item_id": 47757377, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47757377", "by": "on_the_train", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Other than that, I love so many things about the program.", "excerpt": "I'm just so bummed that multiple vaults are pretty much unusable. I can't sync my sensitive work notes. But I want to sync general programming notes between work and other PCs. But multiple vaults hardly work. The just open in a new window. Other than that, I love so many things about the program. Just linking and graphs are weird and strangely overrated. Search and tags still rules over everything imo", "context": "", "use_case": "programming and work notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}]}, {"label": "Hosted AI tools", "summary": "One user found it did not work well with hosted tools like claude.ai.", "quotes": [{"id": 774277715, "item_id": 48392357, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48392357", "by": "ksajadi", "date": "2026-06-03", "stance": "warn", "quote": "for a while i used Obsidian but it was not very good with hosted tools like claude.ai", "excerpt": "I tend to agree with the rest of the commenters that the most likely outcome is that harnesses will include features like this. I had a slightly different issue and that was 'project-level memory' that i can use across models or harnesses (chat, claude code, etc). for a while i used Obsidian but it was not very good with hosted tools like claude.ai then i moved to a combination of Linear and Notion. Still using Linea", "context": "", "use_case": "project memory across LLMs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Mnemo \u2013 local-first AI memory layer for any LLM (Rust, SQLite,petgraph)"}]}, {"label": "Not a database", "summary": "It supports queries and tables, but users with real database needs may want a db-driven tool.", "quotes": [{"id": 785133360, "item_id": 49070835, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070835", "by": "chrisweekly", "date": "2026-07-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I love using Obsidian for ~everything.", "excerpt": "(sigh) I was replying to: >\"If you\u2019re a small shop and have a need for a little database, what do you use?\" not the rest of the comment. mea culpa for not quoting that specific Q. Edit: as for the rest of it, I love using Obsidian for ~everything. It's not a database, but it does support queries and rendering of tabular data, which meets all my admittedly modest needs. (if a true db is required, some ppl like logseq ", "context": "small shop with modest database needs", "use_case": "queries and tabular data", "switched_from": "", "story": "Decker"}]}], "who": [{"by": "coffeethursday", "context": "VC", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313325", "date": "2026-10-31"}, {"by": "chrisco255", "context": "uses a foldable phone", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50283976", "date": "2026-10-29"}, {"by": "tim-projects", "context": "late ADHD diagnosis", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593137", "date": "2026-09-07"}, {"by": "taude", "context": "former heavy Emacs user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49465830", "date": "2026-08-27"}, {"by": "schnake", "context": "writing a thesis", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49347669", "date": "2026-08-18"}, {"by": "chrisweekly", "context": "small shop with modest database needs", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49070835", "date": "2026-07-27"}, {"by": "TheBestTvarynka", "context": "genealogy researcher", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48892403", "date": "2026-07-13"}, {"by": "desireco42", "context": "Author writing books", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48253862", "date": "2026-05-23"}, {"by": "trinsic2", "context": "New to AI as of February", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48242296", "date": "2026-05-22"}, {"by": "jjice", "context": "avoids community plugins", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48089995", "date": "2026-05-10"}, {"by": "philips", "context": "plugin author", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47758885", "date": "2026-04-13"}, {"by": "__rito__", "context": "Linux and Android user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47758021", "date": "2026-04-13"}], "tags": ["for AI agent workflows", "for daily notes", "works with Git sync", "for personal CRM", "for Linux and Android users"], "use_cases": ["note-taking", "markdown notes", "notes", "personal notes", "note-taking with custom plugins", "markdown note-taking"], "compared": [{"slug": "notion", "name": "Notion", "co": 14, "switched_from": 3, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "logseq", "name": "Logseq", "co": 10, "switched_from": 2, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "evernote", "name": "Evernote", "co": 6, "switched_from": 3, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude-code", "name": "Claude Code", "co": 11, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "claude", "name": "Claude", "co": 11, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "apple-notes", "name": "Apple Notes", "co": 9, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "visual-studio-code", "name": "Visual Studio Code", "co": 7, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "emacs", "name": "Emacs", "co": 5, "switched_from": 1, "switched_to": 1}], "makers": [{"id": 769836064, "item_id": 48114754, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48114754", "by": "kepano", "date": "2026-05-12", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "It was a known limitation and something that we set out to revamp with the new system.", "excerpt": "Huh? The old review process has always been well-documented and occurred via PRs on GitHub completely in the open. It was a known limitation and something that we set out to revamp with the new system. From the docs: > The Obsidian team is small and unable to manually review every new release of community plugins. Instead, we rely on the help of the community to identify and report issues with plugins. https://github", "context": "Obsidian team member", "use_case": "note-taking plugin review", "switched_from": "", "story": "The Future of Obsidian Plugins"}, {"id": 769517920, "item_id": 48094870, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48094870", "by": "kepano", "date": "2026-05-11", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Obsidian is a free app made by seven people.", "excerpt": "Consider a quick search. I have answered this question many times over the years, e.g. https://x.com/kepano/status/1701359669791670416 If you look at my GitHub profile[1] you'll see that the majority of my time is spent on open source. But my priority is open sourcing the tools and libraries I would want if I were building an alternative to Obsidian (Defuddle, JSON Canvas, Web Clipper, Importer, Flexoki, etc) because", "context": "Obsidian team member", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan"}, {"id": 747780112, "item_id": 46736257, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46736257", "by": "juanpabloaj", "date": "2026-01-23", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "", "excerpt": "Inbox Processing Workflow - GTD-style system to keep your inbox at zero, with AI classification of notes to projects, resources, or someday/maybe lists. Incomplete Tasks Review Workflow - weekly review that analyzes your tasks, identifies gaps, detects duplicates, and generates a focused \"plan of attack\" with your highest-priority actions. Both workflows combine classic productivity principles (GTD, weekly reviews) w", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with AI workflows", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Obsidian Workflows with Gemini: Inbox Processing and Task Review"}], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47729694", "title": "An Introduction to Obsidian", "mentions": 12}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47054369", "title": "I Use Obsidian", "mentions": 10}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48675435", "title": "Show HN: OpenKnowledge \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian/Notion", "mentions": 8}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47197267", "title": "Obsidian Sync now has a headless client", "mentions": 6}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49084324", "title": "Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management", "mentions": 5}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48179677", "title": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian", "mentions": 5}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 3, "recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {"compare": 1, "neutral": 4}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 9, "recommend": 5, "warn": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-02": {"recommend": 13, "neutral": 8}, "2026-03": {"neutral": 8, "recommend": 7, "compare": 2}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 12, "neutral": 5, "warn": 1, "compare": 1}, "2026-05": {"recommend": 10, "neutral": 2}, "2026-06": {"neutral": 8, "warn": 2, "recommend": 8, "compare": 2}, "2026-07": {"recommend": 7, "neutral": 11, "compare": 2}, "2026-08": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 6, "warn": 1}, "2026-09": {"recommend": 5, "neutral": 5, "compare": 3}, "2026-10": {"warn": 1, "recommend": 7, "compare": 1, "neutral": 8}}, "quotes": [{"id": 805013203, "item_id": 50313325, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50313325", "by": "coffeethursday", "date": "2026-10-31", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "bandwagoned onto Notion and Obsidian", "excerpt": "If it's not obvious from the title, I'm a VC and I spend a ton of time in meetings with founders. What's less obvious is all the other things. After treading water for at least a decade, I am deeply suspect of any VC's organizational capabilities. Mostly my own. Believe it or not, for the longest time, my notes lived in saved (and unsaved) text files in Sublime Text. At some point I've tried using TiddlyWiki, bandwag", "context": "VC", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: How I take notes as a VC, and the app I built for it"}, {"id": 804543616, "item_id": 50283976, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50283976", "by": "chrisco255", "date": "2026-10-29", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Obsidian, having more real estate is really important for long, detailed notes", "excerpt": "For me, I'm reading more books because my e-reader is with me everywhere I go. The unfolded mode is fantastic for reading. It's obviously great for video too, a nearly 8 inch screen in your pocket is a big upgrade. Honestly it's big enough to comfortably use a terminal app like Termux as well. It's excellent for any note taking app you use. I use Obsidian, having more real estate is really important for long, detaile", "context": "uses a foldable phone", "use_case": "long detailed notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "MacBook Pro with PROLED XDR Display and Touch"}, {"id": 804385512, "item_id": 50274094, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50274094", "by": "cyrialize", "date": "2026-10-28", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I sometimes venture out to other apps (like Joplin, Obsidian, Apple Notes, Apple Reminders, etc)", "excerpt": "About 10+ years ago I found a guide on Helm [0] and a guide on Org-mode [1] when I was just getting into Emacs. This helped me move on from using Spacemacs to making my own configuration. I no longer use Helm (I'm doing Vertico/Orderless/Consult), but I've stuck with Org-mode since then. I sometimes venture out to other apps (like Joplin, Obsidian, Apple Notes, Apple Reminders, etc), but Org-mode just works best for ", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs Turns 50"}, {"id": 804237857, "item_id": 50264866, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50264866", "by": "scblock", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "are directly markdown based (Obsidian)", "excerpt": "I used to use nvALT extensively, and I waited and waited for nvUltra to come out of beta, but it's been Coming Real Soon Now for more than 5 years, and I don't even use macOS as my primary OS anymore. Fortunately, we are spoiled for high quality note taking and knowledge management apps these days, and many of those either support markdown syntax in writing (e.g. Outline, Trilium) or are directly markdown based (Obsi", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "nvALT", "story": "Notational Velocity and nvALT, classic macOS note-taking apps, are back"}, {"id": 804174912, "item_id": 50260932, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50260932", "by": "clord", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "for personal stuff obsidian and markdown", "excerpt": "I don\u2019t really use off the shelf agents. Usually just string together what I need. In this case I give the lead agent an mcp tool and tell it to use the service to track all work, and what should count and not. For work I use private GitHub project board and for personal stuff obsidian and markdown. I don\u2019t like big fat agents that try to do too much. Better to keep it lean, each agent prompt is really just a short b", "context": "", "use_case": "personal work tracking", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI promised less work. I've never worked more"}, {"id": 804174322, "item_id": 50260895, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50260895", "by": "brightball", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "like an Obsidian bot that writes logs of daily bot activity", "excerpt": "A lot of things. The UX for non-code related activities is excellent. They've removed the friction from setting things up by giving each agent their own machine which can give you remote desktop. The process of creating and working with each agent is as simple as naming it and then explaining it's job. You can keep feeding them information, ask them to train themselves, etc. They can access anything you can, whether ", "context": "", "use_case": "activity logs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Anthropic S-1"}, {"id": 804115568, "item_id": 50257223, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50257223", "by": "KJs6ZxELzQM37O", "date": "2026-10-27", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "For terrible sites, I use https://obsidian.md/clipper", "excerpt": "I find myself using print on a lot of sites. For terrible sites, I use https://obsidian.md/clipper", "context": "", "use_case": "printing/saving unprintable sites", "switched_from": "", "story": "Websites Should Be Printable"}, {"id": 804037526, "item_id": 50252345, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50252345", "by": "xp84", "date": "2026-10-26", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Open on my desktop right now: Slack, Outlook, Zoom, Windows Terminal, Edge, Claude, Obsidian, whatever the Windows image viewer is called, Cursor, and VS Code", "excerpt": "> I use lots Oh really? I, sadly, use nearly none. Open on my desktop right now: Slack, Outlook, Zoom, Windows Terminal, Edge, Claude, Obsidian, whatever the Windows image viewer is called, Cursor, and VS Code. Only the last 2 have menu bars. And I can\u2019t be certain that I didn\u2019t dig through the preferences of one or both of them when I first installed them to tell them to knock off the bullshit and give me back the m", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Oldest GUI application that still runs on Windows 11"}, {"id": 803086960, "item_id": 50192935, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50192935", "by": "1dom", "date": "2026-10-22", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "If you want it, install a an application that does markdown rendering, I use Obsidian.", "excerpt": "Markdown is a plaintext format, that's what makes it great and got it adoption, it works without formatting! Rendering markdown is a nice to have, a luxury that gets very complex very quickly when done properly. If you want it, install a an application that does markdown rendering, I use Obsidian. The fact that a file can't be opened as plaintext in a plaintext editor is not a problem with Markdown, it's an OS proble", "context": "", "use_case": "rendering Markdown", "switched_from": "", "story": "A Markdown File Should Just Open"}, {"id": 802954976, "item_id": 50184686, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50184686", "by": "sejje", "date": "2026-10-21", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "keep an obsidian vault of things you need to remember.", "excerpt": "I did too: \"keep an obsidian vault of things you need to remember. make a skill for it\" I don't even know how obsidian works. And I use a harness where the agents can easily look up & search other sessions, or past sessions.", "context": "", "use_case": "agent memory notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Open-source, cross-harness memory for AI agents"}, {"id": 802067553, "item_id": 50129222, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50129222", "by": "mejutoco", "date": "2026-10-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Even Obsidian I use with vim mode (obsidian plugin).", "excerpt": "Vim has plugins/extensions for all of those. Vim is a setting now. Even Obsidian I use with vim mode (obsidian plugin).", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with vim mode", "switched_from": "", "story": "My old job feels distant now"}, {"id": 801845170, "item_id": 50115323, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50115323", "by": "GeneralMaximus", "date": "2026-10-16", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Think shell scripts, Alfred workflows, Elisp functions, and Obsidian plugins.", "excerpt": "These numbers make a lot of sense to me. When the November 2025 coding agent inflection point happened, the first thing I did was to solve all the niggling little problems I have with the software I use on the daily. Think shell scripts, Alfred workflows, Elisp functions, and Obsidian plugins. Claude Code/Codex has made my entire macOS environment as malleable as Emacs. That\u2019s huge! Everyday automation continues to b", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with custom plugins", "switched_from": "", "story": "AI is driving a boom in modestly successful software projects"}, {"id": 801238560, "item_id": 50077410, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50077410", "by": "revolvingthrow", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "compare", "quote": "What\u2019s the benefit of tools like Obsidian vs using whatever code editor you have on hand?", "excerpt": "What\u2019s the benefit of tools like Obsidian vs using whatever code editor you have on hand? Why would I use it over vs, say, vs code?", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Opensidian"}, {"id": 801198528, "item_id": 50074908, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50074908", "by": "jshaqaw", "date": "2026-10-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Obsidian makes a good product and frankly barely charges for it.", "excerpt": "I love open source. But Obsidian exists. Cloning existing apps to open source is almost push-button in the age of Claude. Obsidian makes a good product and frankly barely charges for it. Yes it's closed source but since all your files are markdown there is no lock-in risk. I guess I'd rather see people in open source make new things than copy existing products especially when those products are made by small scrappy ", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Opensidian"}, {"id": 800504336, "item_id": 50031521, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50031521", "by": "Icarusfoundyou", "date": "2026-10-10", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Obsidian with links set to \"path from current file\" and disabled wikilinks.", "excerpt": "I use Obsidian with links set to \"path from current file\" and disabled wikilinks. I then sync the files to a git repo (selfhosted forgejo) and with these settings, the links keep working even when looked at through forgejo's web-interface.", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 800315344, "item_id": 50019709, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50019709", "by": "vincent-uden", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use https://obsidian.md/clipper to download them straight into my vault.", "excerpt": "That is partially what I do! I don't favourite stuff at all really on HN/X/whatever. I use https://obsidian.md/clipper to download them straight into my vault. Then there is https://pi.dev/packages/pi-obsidian which I use to give an agent access to my vault for searching/organising tasks", "context": "", "use_case": "saving bookmarks to vault", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Any solution for bookmarks on various services?"}, {"id": 800313008, "item_id": 50019563, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50019563", "by": "vincent-uden", "date": "2026-10-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use obsidian with obsidian sync to keep track of most things.", "excerpt": "I use obsidian with obsidian sync to keep track of most things. Among these notes I have tiny notes which are basically just a title and a url, possibly linked to some concept or other note. Easily searchable and navigable too.", "context": "", "use_case": "notes and bookmarks", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Any solution for bookmarks on various services?"}, {"id": 799202257, "item_id": 49950141, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49950141", "by": "mcdoolz", "date": "2026-10-04", "stance": "warn", "quote": "why in the nine circles are folks using Obsidian or markdown files or whatever to build their 'brain'?", "excerpt": "Markdown files aren't a memory system!!!!! I started SULCUS a year and some ago because I got tired of waiting on compaction processes. I fell down a rabbit hole and over engineered a system that uses an integral postgres to provide a memory system for my LLM agent. Openclaw happened so I started engineering a plugin for it and started leveraging the harness lifecycle to proactively populate the context window. This ", "context": "", "use_case": "agent memory", "switched_from": "", "story": null}, {"id": 798610290, "item_id": 49913143, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49913143", "by": "joshstrange", "date": "2026-09-30", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I can put the transcripts in my Obsidian Vault which I already expose to the various agents I use.", "excerpt": "Tried this out, and it might be due to other apps on my computer or something but the audio it records has a echo. When I go to play back a speaker's voice it sounds I can hear what sounds like 2 audio streams, slightly offset. Maybe it's something to do with SoundSource/ARC or my other meeting transcribing app. One more feature I'd love is the ability to export the text/transcript in markdown automatically. I have a", "context": "", "use_case": "storing transcripts", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Parrot \u2013 Open-Source Smart Meeting Recorder with Co-Pilot on Mac"}, {"id": 797988385, "item_id": 49874274, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49874274", "by": "librasteve", "date": "2026-09-28", "stance": "compare", "quote": "I do not want to pay $$ per month just to sync notes between iPhone and Mac", "excerpt": "ok \u2026 I\u2019ll play ball. I really like your idea and the demo is very convincing. I already use Apple Notes as my daily driver over Obsidian, Bear and the others because I do not want to pay $$ per month just to sync notes between iPhone and Mac. However, I would much prefer a native md option over whatever proprietary rtf stuff that Notes does. So I am your perfect target user. Show me a well designed md centric notes t", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Building a Markdown editor for Mac, iOS and web"}, {"id": 797909456, "item_id": 49869341, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49869341", "by": "Jaxan", "date": "2026-09-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Most people i know that write more then just some notes use obsidian, zettlr", "excerpt": "Indeed, and also: > and like most I used Apple Notes. Most people i know that write more then just some notes use obsidian, zettlr, \u2026 or one of many other markdown editors. A comparison with existing apps would be nice.", "context": "", "use_case": "writing notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Building a Markdown editor for Mac, iOS and web"}, {"id": 797333008, "item_id": 49833313, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49833313", "by": "orbital-decay", "date": "2026-09-24", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Obsidian has a tree", "excerpt": ">Now the biggest difference between desktop and mobile is that the first one is (was?) file oriented while the second one is software (application) oriented. Is this really a meaningful distinction or just your preference? I find myself reaching for a file manager on desktop a lot less than 30 years ago, because when a file structure is necessary it's nearly always handled by a specialized app, and I don't need that ", "context": "", "use_case": "notes with tree structure", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ideas on modernizing the open-source desktop"}, {"id": 797164449, "item_id": 49822778, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49822778", "by": "dariusmonsef", "date": "2026-09-23", "stance": "compare", "quote": "Other robust knowledge wikis like Obsidian have very good brain maps and knowledge node explorer views", "excerpt": "What does a digital brain look like? How do you visualize its activity? I thnk there is little utility in a digital brain visualization\u2026 but hey, they\u2019re fun so here\u2019s how I decided to do take a crack at it for OzBrain.com! Other robust knowledge wikis like Obsidian have very good brain maps and knowledge node explorer views\u2026 but I can\u2019t imagine many people who are looking for a file would try and navigate the tree o", "context": "", "use_case": "knowledge wiki", "switched_from": "", "story": "How would you visualize a digital brain?"}, {"id": 796289475, "item_id": 49768092, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49768092", "by": "tonyarkles", "date": "2026-09-19", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I\u2019ve done a bunch of planning in Obsidian", "excerpt": "As a quick WIP update: - The first board, which I had already done manual schematic capture, floor planning, and some routing on (but then I lost steam and it\u2019s been sitting at 90% for 6 months) was finished quite readily by Opus + KiCadRoutingTools. - A second significantly more complex board that has been sitting at the \u201cI\u2019ve done a bunch of planning in Obsidian but haven\u2019t started schematic capture yet\u201d stage\u2026 Fab", "context": "", "use_case": "planning notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "This PCB is brought to you by Fable 5"}, {"id": 795374705, "item_id": 49710919, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49710919", "by": "blater", "date": "2026-09-15", "stance": "compare", "quote": "does word perfect give you anything that markdown in obsidian doesn't?", "excerpt": "In the 80's in business non-verbal communication was by physically moving printed pieces of paper from desk to desk. Producing these was noisy and laborious. Laser printers in were an absolute breakthrough technology and together with print focussed word processors optimized that paradigm to its peak. In today's world, does word perfect give you anything that markdown in obsidian doesn't? (other than weird key bindin", "context": "", "use_case": "writing in markdown", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Why haven't people vibe coded popular 80s word processors as TUI apps?"}, {"id": 794958176, "item_id": 49684886, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49684886", "by": "swiftcoder", "date": "2026-09-13", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "These days it's an Obsidian vault in git", "excerpt": "Putting your writing in version control turns out to buy you a lot of metadata for free. These days it's an Obsidian vault in git, but I used to just keep plain markdown files for notes/writing/etc", "context": "", "use_case": "notes and writing", "switched_from": "plain markdown files", "story": "Ode to Metadata"}, {"id": 794883040, "item_id": 49680190, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49680190", "by": "fuckinpuppers", "date": "2026-09-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "it does exactly what I need\u2026 and their sync engine is fast as hell. I pay for sync.", "excerpt": "Same. Obsidian is a bit more DIY feeling, not as polished of an interface but it does exactly what I need\u2026 and their sync engine is fast as hell. I pay for sync. I know I don\u2019t need to if I really wanted to run it for free, but it\u2019s worth it (and 50% cheaper than Evernote soon, while supporting the company)", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with sync", "switched_from": "Evernote", "story": "My last six months at Evernote"}, {"id": 794823904, "item_id": 49676494, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49676494", "by": "runjake", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Everything else goes into Obsidian normally.", "excerpt": "Same. I usually sketch diagrams and jot down quick pieces of info. Everything else goes into Obsidian normally. Though its kind of funny, with my frequent use of agents, my communication skills and ability to articulate ideas has improved quite a bit, so now I use voice dictation a lot more and it's beginning to be faster than keyboard.", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Is it time for a Luddite Renaissance?"}, {"id": 794797664, "item_id": 49674854, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49674854", "by": "runjake", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "OTOH, I practically live in Obsidian.", "excerpt": "I love and use a few of those products and would agree, but I think a bigger component is our relationship to technology. IMHO, calm technology is both a property of a product and a way of relating to a product. And I think it's quite personal. For example, digital note-taking tablets are anything but calm for me (but I recognize they may be for others!). OTOH, I practically live in Obsidian. I ask myself: - Can I ha", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Is it time for a Luddite Renaissance?"}, {"id": 794781600, "item_id": 49673850, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49673850", "by": "PunchTornado", "date": "2026-09-12", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I remember i switched from evernote to obsidian in a few hours", "excerpt": "I remember i switched from evernote to obsidian in a few hours", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "Evernote", "story": "My last six months at Evernote"}, {"id": 793490192, "item_id": 49593137, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49593137", "by": "tim-projects", "date": "2026-09-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I now use obsidian and a digital peice of paper style.", "excerpt": "I have a late ADHD diagnosis. For years I tracked my habits. I read get shit done and many habit books in my 20s. I obsessed over my tracking, believing on some level it would elevate my life. Around 5 years ago, during covid I stopped. Looking back I can comfortably say that habit tracking caused me considerable distress and the benefits are mostly not there. I now use obsidian and a digital peice of paper style. I ", "context": "late ADHD diagnosis", "use_case": "lists and journalling", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: Kad\u014d \u2013 open-source habit tracker, with non-binary habit score, for iOS"}, {"id": 792433376, "item_id": 49527086, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49527086", "by": "Goofy_Coyote", "date": "2026-09-01", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Obsidian as my personal CRM", "excerpt": "I use Obsidian as my personal CRM, and I get this a lot. It feels like people put more value on memorizing facts than writing them down, as if it\u2019s somehow more noble to remember something about someone, but if you write it down to not forget it, it\u2019s suddenly not as valuable a gesture. I never understood that. I had a problem (bad memory), I cared enough to find, and create a solution, and consistently use and maint", "context": "", "use_case": "personal CRM", "switched_from": "", "story": "We are rebuilding Monica"}, {"id": 791900160, "item_id": 49493760, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49493760", "by": "system2", "date": "2026-08-29", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I got sick of Obsidian", "excerpt": "Isn't being creative a requirement to create things? The author complains that he can't do the basic things that LLMs now take care of. And I am saying that if you really have a creative mind, you can come up with 1000s of projects every day and enjoy bringing them to life very fast. For example, I wanted to build my own note-taking app for a long time because I got sick of Obsidian. Now I built my own, and it is mag", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "LLMs are making me lose my savviness"}, {"id": 791453280, "item_id": 49465830, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49465830", "by": "taude", "date": "2026-08-27", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I don't totally love Obsidian, which is what I've setup and configured now.", "excerpt": "One of the biggest reason I've stopped using Emacs, and I was a pretty heavy user before was that org-mode files weren't fully native Markdown files, which caused annoying friction when collaborating with others. It would be interesting for me to have a new markdown-centric org-mode thing. I'd love to vibe lisp to customize my workflows, and I don't totally love Obsidian, which is what I've setup and configured now. ", "context": "former heavy Emacs user", "use_case": "Markdown notes", "switched_from": "Emacs", "story": "Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode"}, {"id": 791263152, "item_id": 49453947, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49453947", "by": "nelsonfigueroa", "date": "2026-08-26", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I use Obsidian but I don't follow the whole \"second brain\" thing, I just organize my notes by directories.", "excerpt": "I use Obsidian but I don't follow the whole \"second brain\" thing, I just organize my notes by directories. You can use Obsidian however you want and adapt to the way your actual brain works. The \"second brain\" thing doesn't work for everyone. Even taking digital notes doesn't work for everyone (for example, it looks like you prefer paper notes). If you haven't tried Obsidian at all I think you should give it a shot a", "context": "", "use_case": "notes organized by directories", "switched_from": "", "story": "It\u2019s so hard to finish an idea that is not yours and is just suggested by AI"}, {"id": 790353136, "item_id": 49397071, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49397071", "by": "jen729w", "date": "2026-08-22", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I use an Obsidian vault and my system.", "excerpt": "I'm Johnny.Decimal. [0] I use an Obsidian vault and my system. \"It's at 23.16\", I tell Claude. From that it can instantly find my notes and files. No extra software needed. Just some basic structure. Claude loves it. [1] Oh yeah, and to keep conversation context contained so you can /resume and so on, just $ cd 23.16 $ claude [0]: https://johnnydecimal.com [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mZAT0Ft--wE", "context": "", "use_case": "notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: OzBrain, a shared brain for knowledge between agents and your team"}, {"id": 789562705, "item_id": 49347669, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49347669", "by": "schnake", "date": "2026-08-18", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "I built Mark2TeX while writing my thesis in Obsidian.", "excerpt": "This is very close to the philosophy behind something I've been building: https://github.com/simonschnake/Mark2Tex I built Mark2TeX while writing my thesis in Obsidian. I wanted to write the prose in Markdown, but keep a normal LuaLaTeX document for math, citations, cross-references, etc. So Mark2TeX lets me use Markdown-like files and drop into real LaTeX whenever I need it. I deliberately didn't try to build a comp", "context": "writing a thesis", "use_case": "writing thesis", "switched_from": "", "story": "How I Under-Engineered My Book"}, {"id": 789319120, "item_id": 49332445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49332445", "by": "Igrom", "date": "2026-08-17", "stance": "neutral", "quote": "native equivalents to Obsidian's Graph View appear", "excerpt": "I suppose that, for fans of information management, the need for external utilities such as org-roam-ui will be obviated once native equivalents to Obsidian's Graph View appear. The sooner this supersedes GraphViz-based stopgaps such as the one in grove.el, the better (I'm guessing that graph-fa2 renders to SVG and then rapidly swaps the image in an Emacs buffer). Other ideas: osm.el (https://github.com/minad/osm). P", "context": "", "use_case": "graph view of notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Emacs canvas patch is on master"}, {"id": 788692384, "item_id": 49293274, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49293274", "by": "carimura", "date": "2026-08-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Obsidian is like the shared knowledge base that everyone has access to", "excerpt": "Obsidian is like the shared knowledge base that everyone has access to and that I can easily read/review (although I try not to too often). It has architecture stuff, go-to-market section, howtos (setting up new agents, dns backups, etc.), info on my main projects, writing, etc. It gets synced between my machine and the VPS. I also store in github as a backup occasionally (thx for reminder!). I use the actual Buzz io", "context": "", "use_case": "shared knowledge base for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "My Agent Setup"}, {"id": 787493196, "item_id": 49218324, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49218324", "by": "ragequittah", "date": "2026-08-07", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Most of the stuff I use is free and excellent.", "excerpt": "Most of the stuff I use is free and excellent. Linux, Firefox, libreoffice, xcp-ng, bottles, steam, playnite, opnsense, docker, dockhand, immich, freshrss, obsidian, tailscale, calibre, caddy, docker, pi-hole, signal, audiobookshelf I could probably keep going for a long while. I'm very glad most good software creators I've come across do not have your mindset.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Improving GPT-5.6 Sol in ChatGPT\u2014and expanding access for free users"}, {"id": 783471872, "item_id": 48966992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48966992", "by": "iammjm", "date": "2026-07-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Generally I\u2019m a big fan of Obsidian because it\u2019s very intuitive and customisable.", "excerpt": "I digitise some of my handwritten stuff, but not all of them, just what I really want to keep or be searchable. For that I created a simple Shortcut on my iPhone: take a photo > rotate it > resize by 20% > save file > rename > share with Obsidian and add it to either Daily Note or a specific note. In Obsidian I have a Claude integration (Claudian Plugin) with an /ocr skill, which runs optical character recognition on", "context": "", "use_case": "notes with digitised handwriting", "switched_from": "", "story": "I Started a \"Dirt Notebook\""}, {"id": 782349056, "item_id": 48896816, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48896816", "by": "AbstractH24", "date": "2026-07-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've finally been able to dive into Obsidian and build out the second brain I've always wanted.", "excerpt": "I love the concept of logseq, but the userbase is just too small and in turn the speed of change is too slow. . Over the last few weeks, with the help of Claude Code I've finally been able to dive into Obsidian and build out the second brain I've always wanted. With the power to auto-sort small thoughts jotted down on my phone with minimal interruption and some automated maintenance & sorting. CC has really reduced t", "context": "", "use_case": "second brain notes", "switched_from": "Logseq", "story": "Logseq 2.0 Beta (DB version) is here"}, {"id": 778863872, "item_id": 48678992, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678992", "by": "rnxrx", "date": "2026-06-25", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "The native replication and the Git integrations work well keeping it all synchronized across multiple harnesses", "excerpt": "There is at least one MCP server in Obsidian's community plugins, plus the REST API access capability which is already addressed in several open source MCP plugins. I use Obsidian as a persistent context store and knowledge graph (..loosely defined, i.e. link/back-link) for both Claude Code and Hermes, while also using it to generate live Wiki pages for working documentation. The native replication and the Git integr", "context": "", "use_case": "persistent context store and knowledge graph for agents", "switched_from": "", "story": "Show HN: OpenKnowledge \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian/Notion"}, {"id": 775327360, "item_id": 48457960, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48457960", "by": "HSO", "date": "2026-06-09", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Now obsidian works for me like I want, and still every day I use it Im still in awe", "excerpt": "transitioned from my OmniOutliner 3(!) based system last year finally to modern macOS and obsidian. 1 year later, with no js/ts skills at all, i got 10 custom plugins, several forks where i fixed bugs and some custom adapations, dozens of scripts and snippets and what not Now obsidian works for me like I want, and still every day I use it Im still in awe It is a bit hard to describe until I make a video but basically", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking with custom plugins", "switched_from": "OmniOutliner", "story": "Ask HN: What are tools you have made for yourself since the advent of AI"}, {"id": 771225440, "item_id": 48201590, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201590", "by": "Macha", "date": "2026-05-19", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I pretty seamlessly moved from VS Code as my notes app to obsidian and could move back to a text editor if obsidian turns evil.", "excerpt": "You can use standard markdown links in obsidian, and even wikilinks are often supported (e.g. pulldown-cmark supports them). Or you can configure obsidian to prefer standard markdown links (https://obsidian.md/help/settings#Use%20Wikilinks) My notes were _already_ a folder of markdown, so I pretty seamlessly moved from VS Code as my notes app to obsidian and could move back to a text editor if obsidian turns evil. Th", "context": "", "use_case": "markdown notes", "switched_from": "VS Code", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}, {"id": 770978528, "item_id": 48186158, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48186158", "by": "humanfromearth9", "date": "2026-05-18", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "its file format is definitely more open than Joplin's. Which is why I switched to it.", "excerpt": "Obsidian may not be open source, but its file format is definitely more open than Joplin's. Which is why I switched to it. Synchronizing with Syncthing works well enough both on desktops and smartphones.", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "Joplin", "story": "Show HN: Files.md \u2013 open-source alternative to Obsidian"}, {"id": 764163232, "item_id": 47760202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47760202", "by": "harmoni-pet", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "recommend", "quote": "That's the killer feature of Obsidian imo.", "excerpt": "I'm surprised there's nothing about using this with Claude (or whatever LLM). That's the killer feature of Obsidian imo. My original friction of keeping up with a style or format of notes is taken care of. You can also do full passes of your vaults and ask it to look for connections you might have missed or to reorganize it after some time if the original purpose has drifted. You can also just open a terminal in the ", "context": "", "use_case": "notes vault with LLM", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}, {"id": 764145776, "item_id": 47759111, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47759111", "by": "hadik", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "I cannot recommend Obsidian as it is right now.", "excerpt": "For me, Obsidian started to silently and (seemingly) randomly replace the whole content of a note with the content of another random note. This has been happening to other people as well for some time now [1]. What makes this issue really terrifying is its silent nature. I only noticed one of the notes having had its content replaced while casually exploring my library. It took me an hour to restore the original cont", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}, {"id": 764142161, "item_id": 47758885, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47758885", "by": "philips", "date": "2026-04-13", "stance": "warn", "quote": "every few weeks the official Obsidian sync makes an absolute mess of our shopping list", "excerpt": "I love Obsidian, have written a popular plugin, and my wife and I use it for TODO lists and various planning. However, every few weeks the official Obsidian sync makes an absolute mess of our shopping list (which has fairly frequent edits and deletions across our laptops and phones). I have no idea how to fix it. This thread shows other users having the exact same issue as us: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-syn", "context": "", "use_case": "syncing notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "An Introduction to Obsidian"}]}