Org mode
Emacs major mode for outlining, notes, task management and literate programming in plain text.
Loved as a plain-text system for notes, tasks and agenda-based planning1234, and for writing and exporting blogs, books and documents.567 The most common complaint is that it is tied to Emacs8910, with few tools that handle it outside Emacs and little support for team use.1112
Why people recommend it
Notes and tasks · 3
Commenters use it daily for notes, task tracking and time management, some for a decade or more.
“I've been using Org Mode for organizing my life in plain text for the past 10 years now.”
“Today I use it for all my project, task and knowledge management needs, with some files going over 15MB in size. And I'm still loving it.”
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“I use Org mode everyday for note-taking and time management.”
Plain text · 3
Commenters value that their data stays in local plain-text files without ties to third parties.
“Emacs org-mode is like this but 100x more powerful and it's just plain text and self-hosted.”
“I use Emacs/org-mode to do the same and much more, without tying myself to specific third parties”
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“I use org-mode for pretty much everything, which has all of these features I think”
Writing and export · 3
Commenters use it to write blogs and books and export them to HTML, PDF and other formats.
“I find Org-mode a lot more expressive and natural to write than my previous blogs which were in Markdown.”
“I love writing blog posts with org mode.”
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“Plus org-mode agenda is just superior and awesome.”
Zettelkasten notes · 3
Several commenters keep Zettelkasten-style atomic notes in Org files.
“All my notes are in Org (Zettelkasten style).”
“I use Tiago Forte's method of organizing as needed within a loose org mode confederation of atomic notes.”
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“I use an org mode Zettelkasten (currently migrating to https://iwe.md for reasons) every day”
Flexibility · 3
Commenters describe it as easy to start with yet powerful and flexible as needs grow.
“Today I use it for all my project, task and knowledge management needs, with some files going over 15MB in size. And I'm still loving it.”
“Started because I wanted to try out org mode and stayed for the extreme flexibility it offers.”
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“I love Org-mode and use it for many things”
Code blocks · 2
Its code block handling and org-babel are praised for literate programming and evaluating code in documents.
“I find Org-mode a lot more expressive and natural to write than my previous blogs which were in Markdown.”
“org-mode and org-babel are what I use”
Caveats and dissent
Emacs lock-in · 3
Commenters say Org is fully usable only inside Emacs, and its tooling elsewhere is limited.
“you can't write a parser for org-mode.”
“Would I say that org mode is strictly inferior to markdown? No. But I don't think it is strictly superior either.”
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“I love org mode and used eMacs for years.”
Team use · 2
Commenters note it lacks collaborative features for use on a team.
“Almost as good as Emacs Org mode. I use Org mode with Evil, to get VIM keybindings.”
Learning curve · 2
Commenters say its options and keybindings are hard to remember, and that ease of use depends on Emacs and Lisp familiarity.
“I use org-mode (mainly for vocabulary-building in English and other languages)”
“make emacs and org-mode as easy for him as WordPress is for you”
HTML export · 1
One commenter says its HTML export made it impossible to get good diffs, though this may have been fixed since.
“Orgmode also does this on HTML export. Makes it impossible to get good diffs”
Often compared with
Who recommends it in their own words
Threads where it came up
- Org Mode Syntax Is One of the Most Reasonable Markup Languages to Use for Text 8 mentions
- Blogging with Gleam, Org-Mode and Pandoc 3 mentions
- Emacs 31: An unofficial guide to Markdown-ts-mode 3 mentions
- Emacs 31 Is Around the Corner: The Changes I'm Daily Driving 2 mentions
- Hello Worg, the Org-Mode Community 2 mentions
- Show HN: I built a system for active note-taking in regular meetings like 1-1s 2 mentions
Also written as Org-mode, org-mode, Org Mode, Emacs Org mode. Data: org-mode.json. Quotes are verbatim; the verdict and theme labels are written by a model from these comments, and every clause links to its sources.
All comments 43
“Org-mode just works best for me.”
“I've used Emacs and org-mode for about half a decade now and I find it inescapable.”
“I use org-mode (mainly for vocabulary-building in English and other languages)”
“Would I say that org mode is strictly inferior to markdown? No. But I don't think it is strictly superior either.”
“make emacs and org-mode as easy for him as WordPress is for you”
“I use Org mode everyday for note-taking and time management.”
“Organizer with Org-Mode.”
“I sort of fell out love with org mode”
“I use Emacs org mode a lot”
“I love Org-mode and use it for many things”
“Orgmode also does this on HTML export. Makes it impossible to get good diffs”
“Ended up with Org-mode.”
“org mode is awesome.”
That's plausible and isn't too hard to imagine. The value of Emacs is not the concrete implementation of it - let's be honest, GNU Emacs is not void of enormously annoying warts. The value of Emacs is the nice foundational Lisp layer - something Lem does provide. One side of me wants to remain skeptical - knowing how much stuff there exists in Org-mode and Magit - piles and piles of different workflows thousands of u
“Started because I wanted to try out org mode and stayed for the extreme flexibility it offers.”
“All my notes are in Org (Zettelkasten style).”
“That, org-mode, and magit is about all I use for coding and text editing.”
“why would I use typst over org-mode or $your_fave_markdown + pandoc?”
“that's where something like org-mode and Emacs inch ahead because it's FOSS”
“I use Tiago Forte's method of organizing as needed within a loose org mode confederation of atomic notes.”
“I use gptel and org mode when I was to be really hands on driving the development.”
“gnus, org, wgrep/wdired, occur, consult all work together to improve each other.”
“The tools I use are a scale, loseit, and org-mode.”
“I have vibe-coded a note/task management system using it that's by far the best one I've ever used.”
“you can't write a parser for org-mode.”
“I use org-mode for pretty much everything, which has all of these features I think”
“I use Emacs/org-mode to do the same and much more, without tying myself to specific third parties”
“I used org aggressively to track tasks and as a Roam alternative”
“GTD in https://orgmode.org/”
“I use an org mode Zettelkasten (currently migrating to https://iwe.md for reasons) every day”
“I use LaTeX when orgmode is insufficient. And I can use LaTeX from within orgmode too.”
“I love writing blog posts with org mode.”
“I've been using Org Mode for organizing my life in plain text for the past 10 years now.”
“This has been a killer feature for me”
“some people do want things to look just so, and for them, few tools come close to Emacs orgmode.”
“I've used the following, in addition to the "escape character" method”
“I love org mode and used eMacs for years.”
“Today I use it for all my project, task and knowledge management needs, with some files going over 15MB in size. And I'm still loving it.”
“Also an orgmode user who uses it for all things longform”
“Emacs org-mode is like this but 100x more powerful and it's just plain text and self-hosted.”
“Plus org-mode agenda is just superior and awesome.”
“I find Org-mode a lot more expressive and natural to write than my previous blogs which were in Markdown.”
“Can I use it on a team? Get real.”