For me, the nice part about Obsidian is that they're just markdown files. So even if something happens to Obsidian, the notes still exist and are still easily transferrable to something else.

Fairly easily transferrable to something else. I assume that many of the plugins that power users use involve added non-standard stuff to the files. Like if you're adding a bunch of metadata to be consumed by the Dataview plugin, all that metadata might be worthless on a new app unless someone creates an equivalent plugin elsewhere.

It's open source, so they can. But people who want forward-compatibility should probably think about what their raw markdown files look like, and how useful they'd be in another program.

It’s not open source, just free as in beer.

Personally I do avoid add-ons that create special syntax in the md files so that if Obsidian ever goes shitty I’ll have an easier time migrating to whatever alternative.

Sorry, the plugins are generally open source, that's what I was referring to.

Gotcha, yeah.

If it ever comes to needing an Obsidian replacement I'd hope it can aim for compatibility with the plug-in ecosystem, at least initially. No idea how difficult a target that would be. Either way, I certainly worry about my data in Obsidian less than I worry about Evernote, OneNote, or Apple Notes, even with a couple of non-standard markdown additions.

Since it's not VC backed I'm hopeful about Obsidian building a long-term sustainable business without having to turn shitty, but who knows. I should sign up for Sync and give them some money.

> I assume that many of the plugins that power users use involve added non-standard stuff to the files. Like if you're adding a bunch of metadata to be consumed by the Dataview plugin, all that metadata might be worthless on a new app ...

The metadata is YAML frontmatter. Works with any frontmatter aware tools, which includes, for example, most static site generators.

It's all just markdown, the plugins layer on top of Markdown.

Your site basically works if you shove it in GitHub pages. With a touch of config matching, you can open an Obsidian "vault" in the VSCode plugin called Foam (like Roam but for a local folder structure of Markdown files).

Most add ons, like, say, Excalidraw for charting, are themselves tools with plugins in GitHub Pages, Hugo, MkDocs, etc., so are portable for static site gen (SSG).

The only thing it seems to be "missing" is the CRDT style multiplayer live editing of tools like Notion or Craft.

That's the theory, but it's not like they use strict markdown. Markdown in the first place is a very simple and limited format, so everyone has their own syntax-extensions and tweaks, and obsidian is no exception. So even if you lose the data themselves, you could lose a significant amount of ability to work with them, if somehow obsidian becomes unusable.

And if you build on plugins, this sometimes happens even now here and there. Plugins becoming unusable because of an update is still not uncommon. Their developing stopping for whatever reason is also a bit of a problem.

Markdown isn’t immune to deprecation in the Obsidian ecosystem - I have files with random junk in the headers leftover from failed attempts to integrate some data management plugin or regime.

Its called front matter and its supported in markdown

How does that change the point being made? Front matter is supported essentially as a bucket of metadata. Front matter has varying degrees of usefulness without supporting tooling.

Front matter is still a simple text based format that can easily be parsed by other programs, and there is already quite a bit of tooling to process it. Even without tooling, it’s human readable. The degree of usefulness just increases the more sophisticated the tool is that you’re using to read it. Compare this with the painful migration away from Evernote, which left me with a folder full of giant .enex files that I can technically use elsewhere, but at this point are realistically just an archive I’ll never touch unless I really need something.

So? Does it matter much for some reason? That doesn’t seem like a compatibility issue.

If you've invested time into adding metadata and app-specific markdown to your setup, you lose that when you move to another tool. Has happened to me before. It's about vendor lock-in when you go too deep into their ecosystem.

And instead of open text files with plaintext properties in the YAML frontmatter standard, you want to do.... what, exactly?

And the plugins are all OSS, on GitHub.

What do you imagine is more open with less lock-in?

Yeah, having a non-proprietary data format is a huge plus. I wish the Obsidian code itself was open source.

It’s hard to make a living with open source (saying from experience).

Obsidian is free to use, and they make their money from offering additional sync-service and good will of the users. I don't think open source would impact it much. Though, it would bear the risk of a hostile fork, maybe to include a free to sync or something. I mean the obsidian-devs have some bad history on that front.

But at least they should give some guarantee to Open Source it if there were no significant update in a while, similar to how Qt and KDE have their agreement. Or at least they should make the source available, so people can contribute or move away easier in case of problems.

Sadly, that's true, and my frustration with the constant churn of software is no reflection on the good people making Obsidian.

I used Evernote for well over a decade and I don’t regret that I did, despite the changes that eventually forced me to get rid of it and change my habits.

There is already a growing ecosystem of tools that are Obsidian-like, and if Obsidian ever went down an unpalatable path, those tools are ready and waiting.

If a no frills editor works for you, great. But at the same time, I don’t think a future problem with Obsidian is a good reason to avoid it. In a worst case, that no frills editor will open your vault just fine. But I’d personally switch to something like Logseq, which is also coming along really nicely.

In the meantime, the value that Obsidian brings to my daily life is immense. And that’s worth the risk of eventually needing to find something new, especially when I know that the underlying data is completely portable.

> There is already a growing ecosystem of tools that are Obsidian-like

That very much depends on the definition of "like". Most are very different in their concepts and abilities or even foundation. They are mostly similar, if you compare it to cloud-tools, or old commercial tools.

I think this is fair, and maybe “Obsidian-compatible” would be a better way to describe it.

With that said, there are a few key tools that are extremely similar conceptually, e.g. Logseq/Roam. Logseq in particular feels like “Opinionated Obsidian”. And this is where most of the tooling growth has been occurring through plugins.

> There is already a growing ecosystem of tools that are Obsidian-like, and if Obsidian ever went down an unpalatable path, those tools are ready and waiting.

can you name a few? i have currently installed and enabled 65 plugins. Granted, that is mostly because the obsidian team does not know how to build a good product, leading me to use plugins. but even then, the functionality is not that bad (templater, book search, dataview, loom, custom file explorer/command palette etc)

The fact that the product is so extensible is a sign to me that they know how to build an excellent product.

I'm currently using 1 community plugin and have only enabled a handful of the core plugins.

I personally wish they would stop adding features to Obsidian. It feels complete to me.

i disagree. extensible is super duper but even that isn't great with Obsidian from a dev perspective. so the product "Obsidan Plugin API for devs" is also lacking.

and core features should be in core (dataview for example). what is most shocking though is that sync and publish are horrendous implementation of said features. i would kind of get it for other stuff but together they are 20 bucks plus tax per month. just now sync has 'merged' a note on my iphone (no changes on iphone though) and completely scrambled the note. same with another 3 notes. if i did not check the note by chance now, i would have missed it.

the entire UI around a sync feature is bad.

Check out: VSCodium + FOAM (VSCode plugin). Cross-linked markdown notes. You can then use MkDocs/MkDocs-Material and ROAMLinks (MkDocs plugin) to publish as a cross-linked HTML site.

FWIW, their CEO seems quite set on long-term growth instead of a quick sell, as evidenced by https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39336308

That may be the CEOs intent, but if they have share holders and someone shows up with money it isn’t entirely the CEOs call. They have a responsibility to produce returns and if an offer is better than what they can do without selling their obligation is pretty clear.

I’ve known some folks who I believe really wanted to grow a company but when faced with an offer to buy it they didn’t feel they could survive a legal challenge arguing that they should sell.

They are bootstrapped and committed not to take VC money[1].

[1] https://stephango.com/vcware

Obsidian does not have any shareholders. It's a team of 6 people, and the sole owners are the two original founders.

It’s 2024. By this point we all know how this ride goes. So if a founder states that they’re targeting sustainable long-term growth, and that intent isn’t reflected in how they’ve taken on investments, they’re flat-out lying. There’s simply no excuse to be that utterly naive. The Obsidian mob seem very switched on, and their public headcount isn’t remotely indicative of VC-funded hyper-growth. It looks like they’re doing everything right.

The Evernote CEO used to talk about how he was building a 100 year company.

As a matter of fact, Evernote still works and is improving fast.

For me Evernote peaked around 2014-2015. The native clients were fast and small and integrated well with the host platform. I haven't used it since around 2020, so I'm glad to hear they are actually working on it.

I subscribed on the Plus plan for 8 years at $35 / year. Now the personal plan is $130 / year. I used it maybe once a week so for me that would be $2 every time I launch it. It just isn't worth it.

Recent evolution? Do tell

Well, I suggest you check the Evernote product lead's X account.

https://x.com/fedesimio

You'll see that they are working on many improvements, some of them are already in the app.

>...leaving me to move to Yet Another Tool.

That's actually integral to the notetaking/productivity app market. Either the app soon dies out or you get bored with it and you move on to the next one.

Just like with self-help products. Targets of the self-help market are never intended to just read one or two books and get on with their lives. They're vulnerable to seemingly unending consumption of one self-help product after another. They're endlessly sold on regurgitated feel-good crap that keeps them coming back for more.

These productivity tools, like self-help books, become the ends in themselves, rather than the means.

I used to do the same thing with productivity & learning apps and systems. Kept procrastinating looking for that One Good Tool. I had this misconception that if I didn't have that one perfect notetaking tool or productivity app, then I'd be held back.

I ultimately realized that what was really holding me back was myself.

I eliminated my dependency on The One Perfect Tool, I replaced that dependency with more practical action, lightly supported by simple pen & paper and plain text files, and now I'm more productive and more learned than ever.

I started getting the same feeling and so switched to Logseq and have been very happy.