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Show HN: Open-source obsidian.md sync server
416 points by acheong08 on Aug 24, 2023 | hide | past | favorite | 152 comments
https://github.com/acheong08/obsidian-sync

Hello HN,

I'm a recent high school graduate and can't afford $8 per month for the official sync service, so I tried my hand at replicating the server.

It's still missing a few features, such as file recovery and history, but the basic sync is working.

To the creators of Obsidian.md: I'm probably violating the TOS, and I'm sorry. I'll take down the repository if asked. It's not ready for production and is highly inefficient; Not competition, so I hope you'll be lenient.




(Obsidian CEO here)

Impressive! It's fun to see the diversity of ways people sync/backup their Obsidian files. The nice thing about storing all your notes on your device is that it makes it possible to move and edit your Markdown files in many different ways. That diversity of solutions is what makes the ecosystem of Markdown tools resilient over the long term.

There are already a handful of tools that allow you to sync your notes for free, including Git, Syncthing, and some other options more specialized for Obsidian (see community plugins).

Obsidian is a small company, we're not VC backed (100% user-supported), so the Sync pricing helps us stay in business and keep the lights on. We also have a 40% educational discount on all our services[1] so you could be paying $4.80 instead of $8 :)

Reverse engineering things is a fun technical challenge, and also helps us find potential holes in our system. The main problems I see with your solution: 1. it could easily break in a future update to the app, 2. "Obsidian Sync" is a trademark, so you should consider renaming the repo otherwise it can be confused for an official tool — that would be my only request

[1]: https://help.obsidian.md/Licenses+and+payment/Education+and+...


I don't see why you cant let people download and self-host the sync service if they want. Most people would probably pay to use yours but many people would want to self host as opposed to using fragile and feature-incomplete community supported plugins... people seem to replicate the sync server anyway, why not give them a better experience and live up to the "your notes" promise that is all over the website.


There is little benefit, but big harm in releasing the server. They would be responsible for supporting users in using the server, which could be little or big additional work. Releasing the server would also demand additional work for the release itself, like writing documentation, and fixing some errors. And it could also lower the little income they already have, and at least send the message that there are fewer reasons to financially support them and the development of Obsidian.

On the other side, the alternatives are working well enough, so there is not much reason to release the server.


> They would be responsible for supporting users in using the server, which could be little or big additional work.

From the MIT license (and similar with many others):

... THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.


Obsidian is not open source. And users don't care for this nitpick. For a company it's necessary to maintain an image; leaving your users alone with their problems with your software, is bad marketing.


I discovered Obsidian this year, and it's not an understatement to say that it helped restore my faith in local-first computing and humane tools. Obsidian has helped me reclaim my thought process and my writing, and I'm much happier using it.

Like others have mentioned, your approach and ethos are a large part of why I decided to go all in on Obisidian, and that ethos is reflected in Sync. With Sync, everything is end-to-end encrypted and can be unsynced at any time without having to "export" anything or jump through hoops. Configuration is file-based and can be selectively synced, including themes. Beyond that, I can rest easy knowing that if Sync is ever down, I have all of my files right there.

When I downloaded Obsidian for the first time, I thought it was a shame that I didn't need to pay for it. So I was more than happy to find Sync and pay for the service to help what I see as a good company.

Kudos, and please keep up the good work.


I'm a brand new user and thought all this time that Obsidian Sync was 100% cloud-only, so I spent a bunch of time trying to spin up a custom sync solution. This comment inspired me to look more carefully at it, and now I'm a paid user!

I only wish that https://obsidian.md/sync made it more obvious that you can sync a local vault to the cloud. Emphasis on "You still own your data, no vendor lock-in" is a huge sell for users like me who are typically forced to choose between seamlessness vs. owning our data. I'm delighted to learn that Obsidian offers both.


Time and again I keep being impressed with your selfless commitment to building and sharing things in the most humane and long-term way. A beautiful example to set, thanks.


> Time and again I keep being impressed with your selfless commitment to building and sharing things in the most humane and long-term way.

And yet they haven't open sourced the app. That would be truly humane and long-term. As it is, it's just another proprietary app that, if it dies, can't be continued by the community.

I don't think monetary issues should be a concern with open sourcing the app - companies like Bitwarden, Gitlab, and New Vector (the company behind Matrix) are doing just fine with their open source products.


The kind of comment really, really rubs me the wrong way.

Your data isn't locked up in a format. Just use logseq or something if obsidian disappears.

Those who write the code have the right to control its source code. They aren't "inhumane" or thinking "short-term" just because its not open source.


Well, I would agree that "humane" is a poor term to use when describing software in general, but especially for open vs. closed source. I also realize that my comment was a bit harsh on Obsidian. I think they have a fine thing going (although I personally don't need note taking software like that); I just would love to see more and more software become open source and I think this would be a prime candidate for open sourcing.


There are plenty open source md note taking apps you can chose from. I don’t see why the tantrum for a tool you don’t even use. Are you doing a guilt trip for every closed source app shown here?


If it dies I’ll still have all of my content in easily portable markdown though.


And especially awesome is that all their enhancements like properties and daily notes make use of markdown or json rather than closed binary/hard to reverse xml formats. Any app could replicate the functionality if it wanted to and it would be portable next minute. The only thing that is kind of locked is the plugin but that’s outside of scope.


Exactly this. I don’t really care if google drive or Dropbox is closed source. Why would I? I’ll just use syncthing (open sourced alternative) if shit hits the fan. Let them earn their money by providing bandwidth, safe storage and file versioning.


Under capitalism, it's reasonable to charge for products and services.

The jury is still out on "companies like Bitwarden, Gitlab, and New Vector". Kudos to them for pioneering novel business models.


I'd hardly say the jury is still out - Bitwarden has been around for 7 years, GitLab for 9, and New Vector for 6. Granted, they may not have reached the level of success that some software companies have, and they certainly could still fail, but 6-9 years of operation with a foreseeable future of success in the technology world seems like a pretty successful business to me.


Interesting. In regards to your first point, do you have justification to back your claim? I’d be interested in reading more, or perhaps seeing an example?


This attitude is in no small part the reason I'm happy to pay those $8 every month - support a great team building and continuously improving a package so useful it has become an integral part of my life and, as a bonus, get a slick and reliable sync service on top.


Same. Love Obsidian, and pay for Sync mostly to contribute to the fantastic work they do.


Came here to say this. Keep up the great work!


I'll join in with the others and say a few good words. It's unusual in 2023 for a company to focus on delivering a good customer experience while respecting the preferences of the customer. Imagine a company that builds a business around providing value to the customer.

Renewed for my third year of Sync yesterday. While I could use other tools to sync (I mostly have markdown files in my vaults, so there's not a lot of data moving around), the quality of the sync service, and the ease of setting it up, makes me renew without thinking about it. And it's not easy getting me to pay for anything these days due to subscription fatigue, scam fatigue, and price hike fatigue.


I've been using obsidian since last year, and I love it. After previously haven fallen in and then out of love with notion, obsidian has been just what the doctor ordered.

So I was excited to see a obsidian HN post, and really didn't expect to see the CEO as the top post. Kudos to you.

I've been a sync customer more or less since I started using obsidian, mostly because I use the same vault on my phone plus a couple PCs.

But honestly, the sync has been disappointing. When I restructure folders or rename stuff, half the time the next time I open on a different device, it deletes shit. I can usually figure it out and recover from the sync log, that's a big trustbreaker.


The rename issue is already solved and in the process of being rolled out across all the clients. Our original implementation of renaming for Sync was naive and slow. This was especially noticeable if you renamed a folder with lots of files. It would first delete the remote file on the Sync server and re-upload the local file to the new path. If you did this with a whole folder it meant waiting for all the remote files be deleted and then reuploaded. It's safe, just slow. Now we're tracking renames which is much better in every way :)


Super happy Obsidian Sync user here. I migrated over from Notion, here are the areas where Obsidian blows Notion out of the water:

- Insanely low input lag especially on mobile. Obsidian is FAST. When i'm out and about checking my shopping list, I have a tolerance for maybe 250ms of lag. That's it. You need to show me my data FAST. Notion is a basically a webapp which simply doesn't compete, asks you to re-login constantly. YOU DO NOT ASK A MOBILE USER to RELOGIN.

- Read-only mode: accidental taps instead of scrolls on mobile are a HUGE issue on Notion, especially when you're out and you're in a stressful situation and you need your notes fast. You can not afford an accidental edit. And you simply don't have to focus to carefully touch your smartphone to distinguish swipes from touches. Notion developers just don't get this. With Obsidian, when i'm ouside, i'm most likely in Read-only mode. You can still check checkboxes when in read-only mode, and that's perfect for a shopping list workflow.

- Standard format (markdown). I had tried for some time to automate my Notion backups and it just wasn't possible. With Obsidian, I have no issue using proprietary software because the backing store is Markdown. It integrates nicely with my storage practices. My obsidian files are backed up hourly to my rsync.net account which has 48 hourly snapshots. If I accidentally overwrite something 16 hours ago, I can recover it.

As long as Obsidian meets those 3 checkboxes for me, I'm happy to pay $10/month, $20/month, $30/month, whatever.


Small nit, Notion has been rewritten into a native app on Android and iOS in the last year or so and the performance is significantly better.

Haven’t had the logging out issue either on iOS.


OK do to hear. Did they add read-only mode ?


A response like this was exactly the reminder I needed to upgrade my Catalyst license. My opsec can be a little on the paranoid side, so while I believe y'all have the best of intentions and would build sync with the expectation that my data is safe, I would prefer to not use your sync service. But I use Obsidian so regularly that it's definitely worth supporting good work done by folks that align with me. Keep up the wonderful work, both as a software company and as a beacon for how to be a good steward in an increasingly cynical industry.


For reference, below is our blog post on how you can verify the Sync encryption. Most people don't have the time or skills to set up their own sync service, but if you do setting up a DIY solution can be a fun project.

https://obsidian.md/blog/verify-obsidian-sync-encryption/


I had never heard of your service until now but your reply has probably landed you $8/month.

Bootstrapped startups deserve my money and commendable leadership should be rewarded.


I don't usually comment but just wanted to say that I absolutely love Obsidian. I have been using it every day for about 2 years now and my life would not be the same without it. It's amazing. I also gladly pay for Sync, it's more than worth it.


This sync server project is pretty handy for a headless daemon I had been meaning to cobble together in the background.

The sort of thing that could say; pull down markdown files inside a CI pipeline from the sync server which is probably better handled using Git for sync but it seemed like a fun challenge.

I've got most of a working implementation from trawling through minified Obsidian code with the debugger, which of course is now a little moot given the OP's project basically captures everything needed.

Anyway, one core problem I ran into was how to decrypt file blobs. I was dreading the amount of time I would have to waste trawling through all the bits required and then they just... tweeted it out: https://obsidian.md/blog/verify-obsidian-sync-encryption/

I'm sure it would be possible to reverse engineer with enough time of course but it's nice to see some "unofficially official" user script type stuff. It gives the perception (and I'm sure it's accurate) that they dogfood and tinker with their own stuff as much as anyone else in the community.

EDIT: Ah, I missed that Kepano had already shared that blog post below already but it's still a neat writeup


I just want to say how much I love your product. So many of the best things never make it financially, but I really really hope you all make it. I'm 100% willing to support obsidian financially, just need to know where and how to do that. I don't want an account or a sync thing, I just wanna give you all money for the great product.


What a wonderful reply. Thank you and kudos!


Thank you. I’ll be renaming the repository. (Looks like a situation similar to vaultwarden)


I have been looking at building a self hosted implementation of this service because of compliance reasons.

The $$$ of the service isn't the issue but making sure there is a good compliance option and self hosted to ensure that data doesn't leave boundaries and is stored securely on company servers.

If there was an option to have a paid self hosted option I would happily look at paying for that.


Down the road we might make something like that for the commercial use case — makes sense.


+1. Many companies have policies against the use of 3P cloud services, so Obsidian Sync is a non-starter in those cases, irrespective of the data being e2e encrypted.

Having a paid option where you can plug your own cloud storage (e.g. a Google drive folder, Dropbox, AWS, etc) would be fantastic. I'd gladly continue paying for my Sync subscription, but be able to point to my own cloud storage instead of Obsidian's servers.

But I understand you'd have to push the syncing logic to the client, and that is non-trivial. Alternatively, you could offer an official self-hosting server option, although it might not solve the issue for corporate users.


I love Obsidian over all the other tools that I have tried. https://ashishb.net/all/why-i-prefer-obsidian-for-taking-not...


Like everyone else, I would like to express my absolute love for your product. Awesome response and I hope you can work at Obsidian and be happy for many years to come.


Great product, thank you. Really appreciate the way you handled the trademark issue here with a tactful request. Definitely earning points with open source community


Long-term paying user of Obsidian Sync here. It’s fantastic - more reliable than any other sync service I’ve tried (haven’t tried the one subject of this post) that has to interface with the iOS ecosystem.

Really like the fact that Obsidian itself is free and you charge for native sync (and publishing, which I also use) to support ongoing development of this fantastic editor and ecosystem. Thanks.


What a class act of a reply! I applaud this!


Honestly I just want a sync solution I can host on my NAS that the mobile app can still access, which unfortunately isn't something the app natively supports, and more or less all of the current community solutions come with one caveat or another ( like the otherwise lovely git solution having issues on iOS clients, for example )


You can't host the sync server on your NAS, but you can definitely synchronize your notes to your NAS, which means you still have them available in case your desktop goes down and your smartphone breaks or is lost or something.


Does Remotely Save not work on iOS? If it does, you can host a WebDAV server on your NAS.


While you’re here, a killer feature for me would be the ability to privately host obsidian sites (similar to publish). Even if it required subscribing to publish to download a tarball of the site (that isn’t public), it could still be worth it. My use case is sharing obsidian notes with non-users (eg coworkers) in a private way.


There are a few options for this already. A good one just came out a few days ago called Quartz: https://github.com/jackyzha0/quartz


I tried a few a while back. What I really want is as close to 1-1 to obsidian UI as possible. I found with some of the plugins that it could be hit/miss on working correctly. If I were doing only markdown notes, then wouldn’t need obsidian ;)


I was previously using a third party sync solution, but guess who just got a new subscription?


Just gotta say I absolutely love Obsidian. I've been using it for about 6 months now and I'm continuously blown away at how versatile it is. Canvases were such an incredible addition. The plugins from the community are top notch.


I love your reply here, and your product . Have you considered trying to implement a collaborative document editing tool? I would definitely pray for shared vaults that allow multiple users to modify files


Obsidian is a great product, thank you! And the optional Sync service works beautifully to keep my files synched between Windows, iPhone, and iPad.


Thank you kepano. I love this response and will continue to support Obsidian while cheering on this project that taps into your platform.


Your promise did not last very long.


Just wanted to say thank you for not attacking/threatening the creator!


I just bought a yearly sync subscription due to this comment. Kudos!


Give him sync for free! Or atleast let me sponsor the kid.


I don't want to reduce his motivation to learn how to reverse engineer things! I learned a lot from those kinds of projects. However, we do have a way to gift someone a subscription[1]

@acheong08 if you want a Sync subscription I'll be happy to cover it.

[1]: https://help.obsidian.md/Licenses+and+payment/Gifting


God you are so nice! Have a great day, love your product


Would love to get Dropbox support on iOS


Please consider regional prices. US$8 monthly is high for in-develop countries


This is very hard for us to do because we want to remain a small team — it will introduce a lot of complexity for payments/localization


I never tried Obsidian because the recurring price was too steep for me and I understand that localization will be a challenge. I do have to say, however, that your responses here actually sound sincere (and the reaction to OP's project is something I would not have expected) to the point that if I really need something similar to your product, I am definitely reconsidering.

I wish you and your team good luck.


> I never tried Obsidian because the recurring price was too steep for me

Obsidian is completely free, you only need to pay for Sync, and if you don't want to, you can use something like Syncthing to synchronize your files


You're prob not violating ToS since you're not doing it for commercial use, and you're actually reinventing the wheel as a couple of options for that are already available as community plugins. I've been using Remote-save for a while with a almost free private S3 bucket and encryption to sync between my computers and phone for a while.

https://github.com/remotely-save/remotely-save

It supports more than just S3 (as is listed in the README), its just what I use.

That said, what you made is pretty cool. I guess you're trying to replace the API/backend similar to Vaultwarden does with BitWarden paid service.

For me, its not that I can't afford $8 a month, its just that $8 is to me fairly steep for basic file storage and sync I get for free from some services. $12 a year would be a fair price to me. I get some of it goes to support Obsidian development, but still seems steep, $2-3 a month would be something I'd subscribe for.


Remotely save is excellent. I use it with WebDAV to work between my computers, phone and tablet.


If Obsidian stops acheong08, I'm done with Obsidian.

I want a durable way to edit, sync, and preserve my notes, not just a pretty interface.

I'm happy to pay Obsidian for sync, but if they PM this to only one distribution channel and subsequently enshittify it, I don't want it. Stopping acheong08 would be a bad signal forewarning what's to come.


CEO Reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37253639


Dude, just pay the $8, no reason to cluch your pearls like that.


I don't think my comment was uncalled for. The OP was worried they broke the TOS by writing their own service. I wanted to reassure them that any move by Obsidian to squash them would be met with incredible scrutiny.

I already pay Obsidian, both monthly and with the one-time donation. I mentioned it in my comment. My post was upvoted +3 until you responded with snark. Now it's at -4.

Not sure how I'm pearl clutching.


> would be met with incredible scrutiny.

i highly doubt that. maybe from you but that is of no consequence really (to obsidian). hence your strongly worded comments are a bit over the top


Syncthing actually works pretty well when you have a tool that automatically resolves sync conflicts: https://discuss.logseq.com/t/automatically-merge-syncthing-c...


I'm using Syncthing to keep in sync between a desktop and two Android phones over tailscale, and it works pretty good, but I have to occasionally open the Syncthing app on Android to "bump" it and get it to sync. It's in a git repo (which syncthing handles great even though there are some older posts online telling you not to do that), and on the desktop I can review and "sanity check" stuff and then commit it to ensure it is safe. Overall a good solution.


Why not exclude the .git directory from being synced, if you're not going to be committing on your mobile devices? This is what I do.


> .. I have to occasionally open the Syncthing app on Android to "bump" it and get it to sync.

Almost the same with me.

Turning WIFI off and on again is easier on my Android, it triggers syncthing to sync. But that might also require you to have set the run conditions of syncthing accordingly.


The great thing about syncthing is that it has public relays.


I'm using syncthing with Obsidian but of course i have regular conflicts which i just deal with manually. Thanks for pointing me to this!


FWIW, I get sync conflicts with Obsidian Sync pretty regularly. They're always pretty minor and not worth complaining about, but they happen nonetheless, and it may not be entirely SyncThing's fault.


FWIW - the sync service provided by Obsidian is really worth paying for. Dropbox / Github just aren't as slick and integrated. The mobile app doesn't work without sync (not without some really nasty workarounds), the option to "view sync version history", the fact that it's rock solid... all worth paying for IMO.


Yeah I can think of 30 different ways to make the sync work, but I can't be bothered to, Sync works really well, and I feel like financially supporting the Obsidian team in some way.

$8/month is a bit steep, but I snatched $5/month early bird pricing and I consider that to be a lot more acceptable of a price.

Edit: worth pointing out there's a 40% discount for non-profits and students: https://help.obsidian.md/Licenses+and+payment/Education+and+...


It kind of boggles my mind when people say 8$/month is steep. I get that we don't all live in rich countries, but still. If you are using a tool everyday this is really not much. I think we have been conditioned to expect software to be free. Maybe because there is nothing tangible?

It's also hard to do micro payments on the internet ironically, on that 8$ you can easily pay almost a dollar of fees. If that wasnt the case I expect we would have a much different internet...


Sure, $8 by itself isn’t much, but when everything costs $8/mo it starts to add up.

I just had similar sticker shock recently to the remote access service for Home Assistant, which is $6.50/mo. You still have to host and maintain HA locally, the service just allows you to easily access it remotely.

Or Kagi Search, which charges $25/mo for unlimited searches.

For me, if it’s more than $5/mo it better be something I really need.


> I get that we don't all live in rich countries, but still.

And I'm one of those people (there's dozens of us!), hence why I said it's a bit steep for me.

I can afford to spend some money on subscriptions (~$70-80/month last time I summed it up), but that sum means a lot more to me than it does to someone earning six figures. I have to budget it between dozens of different services that all want a small amount on a monthly basis.

But you're right, I do use it every day, which is why I have decided to allocate some of that amount to pay for a feature that I can absolutely replicate without paying. Similarly, some of that amount goes to NGOs even though I also don't get anything tangible out of it.


Of course not everyone uses the app every single day. That's a poor assumption to make.

I think nearly $100 a year is steep for something that doesn't meet my needs (I use a community sync plugin instead). So I made a one-time donation instead because I still want to support the core product. I only recently realised you can do this: https://help.obsidian.md/Licenses+and+payment/Catalyst+licen...


Dude you use ironically for no good reason, no wonder you don't understand how much $8 is in many countries. Utter ignorance.


also consider this is a note app to run your life with. 8/mo forever is a lot. is rather but 12 months and if I do use it buy it for life


I haven't tried Dropbox or Github or Syncthing like others have suggested but having tried Obsidian Sync I'm not as impressed as everyone else seems to be. Maybe I need to set my bar lower but especially on my phone, background sync doesn't work well and it usually takes a few seconds to load and a few more seconds to sync the data which feels like ages considering all the data required to load it is already on my phone and the diff is a few paragraphs at most.


> The mobile app doesn't work without sync (not without some really nasty workarounds)

You simply synchronize the folder as with the desktop apps. Works right of the box without any workarounds.


Yeah, not sure what this guy is talking about. I'm syncing my notes with my Nextcloud using the FolderSync App on Android which I used for other stuff anyways. Works like a charm, never had any problems.

Obsidian is great, but I'm not paying over 90 bucks a year for a simple file syncing service I can build in less than an hour.

Maybe the publish feature is worth it, but I'm content with the ObsidianPublisher workflow I set up for now.


It works great for me just using iCloud Drive.


I tried iCloud Drive and didn't mind it. I ended up moving to Sync, though, because 1) it's end-to-end encrypted and 2) I can sync any directory, not just subdirectories of iCloud Drive.


> view sync version history

Actively working on that. It’s a feature I’ll need since I mess up *very often*


just a friendly reminder as it bit me often: the version history is gone/gets wiped any time you rename a file/folder.


> I'm a recent high school graduate and can't afford $8 per month for the official sync service

What happened to the $47000 you got from Apple [1]?

[1]: https://medium.com/bugbountywriteup/how-i-earned-47000-usd-a...


That's about 1 year of tuition in NA; OP is probably saving it for that


Dang, if money isn't plentiful, there are way cheaper options in NA than that. A good school can definitely help you network with future successful people and to some orgs the name on the diploma can help open some doors, but the degree is less needed nowadays than it's ever been.


It covers 2 years of tuition and a bit of living costs in UK. However, I’ve now lost financial support from my parents since I can “just earn it yourself” and I’m in no hurry to go into debt. Will probably work part time during the first two years to cover whatever is missing.


that's smart. Working while going to school sucks (that's what I did), but not only is graduating without debt a fantastic feeling and great economic position to be in, but it also made me optimize the monetary consequence of my choices a lot more. When you don't have to pay it off for years, it's very easy for your mind to convince you that you need a new laptop, or a new car, or a generous nightlife budget, etc. Even just new vs. used books makes a big difference in cost.


The OP stated at the bottom that he was saving it for tuition.


I've been using the main Obsidian git extension, https://github.com/denolehov/obsidian-git. Took some work to set it up ergnonomically but it works great now. I enabled auto-commit and push on save, and auto-pull when you start the editor. No merge conflicts yet between two machines.

Should note I use Obsidian for a journal, so it's pretty much append-only.


Obsidian Git has been working great for me too. I use different configuration directories for each device to avoid configuration conflicts. It works very seamlessly once set up.


OP This is not addressed to you but to other folks in the comments.

The two obsidian itself is very open and it's free for use. Those making demands to reduce price or make the project open source are just thankless. How do you plan to make the business sustainable? Someone has to pay developer salaries, right?

You want open source? Use MarkText, Zettlr. The company is generous enough to offer the main product for free.


Whilst the reply from the CEO seems sound, their team promptly closed the path the plugin used to make self-hosted full-featured Sync & Publish work. "For Security" - ignoring the handful of other gaping security holes as less important I guess?

Anyway, I decided to fork and make it work with v1.4.5. Enjoy https://github.com/acheong08/obi-sync/issues/19#issuecomment...


i use https://github.com/vrtmrz/obsidian-livesync and self-host a couchdb instance for it...

this looks like it might be a bit cleaner once it's all fleshed out...


CouchDB is pretty nice, and gets less attention on HN than it deserves I think.

First time I heard about CouchDB was many years ago. I bought an O’Reilly book about it, even. At the time MongoDB was gaining a lot of traction, and I think because of that many people overlooked CouchDB.

I recently remembered CouchDB because I have some projects that could potentially benefit from replication between multiple machines. And in the case of my projects I think the database level would be an appropriate place to do replication. Hence CouchDB is an interesting proposition for my projects.

I installed CouchDB on my laptop for the first time in ages, and started inserting documents into it with a third party library for Rust. So far it is working nicely.


And CouchDB is still FOSS!

I have been obsessed by it the past months. Coming from MongoDB the querying is a bit more limited, but I'd use it over MongoDB in a heartbeat. Very simple to host and even to set up multiple instances. Also CouchDB was embracing serverless before it was cool with their HTTP API.


I use this as a docker instance running on my old laptop. It just took a minute to set up and works really well. The sync is as good as apple notes or whatever commercial software there is.

Only issue is i could not sync with an old iphone running iOS 12.


This answer of the Obsidian CEO just convinced me that it was time to subscribe to a Obsidian sync licence and I must admit that I'm more than happy with it. This software is really a gem for note taking !


I wish Obsidian had a better outliner mode/plugin so I could switch to it from Logseq, but I just love the outliner/block mode too much.


Yep; I switched from Obsidian to Logseq because Logseq works the way I always wanted to take notes. They are both great tools, even if Logseq lacks some in the polish department (and honestly, it's pretty good).


I really wish Logseq had better/more plugins, a less janky sync option, and publish. Maybe it'll get there, but I kinda doubt it. I've toyed with creating a plugin for neovim that parses Logseq formatted markdown and gives me a similar experience, but it would be a lot of work.


Their text editor is shit, their UI is shit (see e.g., their new right pane), and they keep going off and spending all their energy developing features that nobody is asking for, e.g., whiteboards. I assume most of this is bc they're trying to differentiate somehow after having taken VC funding. Frustrating.

Unfortunately, I expect Obsidian to have a serviceable outline mode before I expect Logseq to turn out a polished product. For god's sake, take on that Neovim project, and post about it!


I was suprised at how smooth Obsidian's vim-mode is.


What I've long been looking for is a sync service that handles syncing these directories of markdown, but then provides value added HTTP APIs on top of them.

I can sync my markdown files from place to place with ease, but what I really want is the ability to POST myserver.com/newpage and have it artificially inject a new Markdown file at the path I request.

This could be system agnostic, Obsidian, Logseq, and tons of other local markdown knowledge bases could benefit from this.


So you want WebDAV support?


This would be quite good if it also used SVN's autoversioning mode (essentially a webdav client can create new versions of a document in svn without knowledge of svn).


I'd like to take this opportunity to say that I've been using and following Obsidian's development since 2020 and I really appreciate the way your company supports the open source community!


What's wrong with using Dropbox or Github?


I can't speak for OP's motives, but one reason one might do this is because you can't sync via Dropbox or Github on iOS. You can only use iCloud or Obsidian Sync.


I use Obsidian on MacOS, iOS and Android, and keep my Vault on GitHub. I use Working Copy on iOS and PocketGit on Android to pull and commit/push changes.


GitHub works ok on iOS with Working Copy, but it seems a little more error prone than Sync, which Just Works. I use Sync for primary syncing, and Obsidian Git for secondary.


You’re right! It now works on all platforms natively via the plugin (which does nothing except for replace API endpoints.) works perfectly for me without any third party servers


What about MEGA?

Been using this way for years.


Please would you care to share your workflow? I, too, would love to sync my Obsidian vault via MEGA, but I have only recently switched to an iPhone. On Android, it works perfectly with the 3rd party Autosync for MEGA app (paid, I believe).


I had to shell out for another app[0] on the iPhone to allow for a fairly seamless GitHub workflow. Not sure if it’s changed in recent times. It works great, but I’d imagine something more tightly coupled with obsidian.md would eliminate that need?

0: https://workingcopy.app/


I did out together this blog post a while for doing this for free using ashell

https://cwoodall.com/posts/2022-01-02-obsidian-ios-sync/


They are still 3rd parties - only good if you're using E2E encryption. Additionally, Dropbox free version has a 3-device limit at any time. On Android you have to use something like DropSync to enable background syncing which may not be ideal.

Git(hub) may be an okay choice though. But there would be issues like no SSH support for Git on Mobile clients.


What's wrong with getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem?


Dropbox is a consumer product, while Github is a nerd's product. I put them both to indicate the range of options.

Dropbox or iCloud are solutions you could put on a blog for folks who have no interest in learning how to use a CLI.


Character by character sync. You type one letter on your desktop, it appears on the mobile app maybe a second later. Dropbox sync can't do that.


Does anyone know whether Obsidian can do this with some plugin, or whether there's another tool that can:

I'm looking for a documentation tool with a decent GUI for editing documentation in, which is backed by git for tracking changes, without having to have git configured locally (for non-engineers).


Oh sorry. I misread. Ignore my other comment. I forgot my password and can’t edit using the site. Using third party app for HN


I think there are a few plugins via git etc. Syncthing also seems to be recommended but doesn’t work on IOS


https://www.gitbook.com/


> I'm probably violating the TOS, and I'm sorry.

Reverse engineering is fine. It certainly is from a moral point of view, and also from a legal one in a lot of jurisdictions.

TOS depend more on the fact that you’ll behave than on whether they can actually be enforced (most have unenforceable clauses).


I think we should be careful when advising young or inexperienced people hacking for the joy of it, lest they make mistakes that are hard to recover. Time is precious -- better to choose wisely than learn from experience.

> Reverse engineering is fine...from a legal [perspective] in a lot of jurisdictions

Sorry, what jurisdiction permits one to violate a contract against reverse-engineering?

This is a pretty big problem that can't be hand-waved away. Companies everywhere have mere copyright on some materials that they make available if you agree e.g., not to reverse-engineer the interface or distribute the materials, essentially hoisting copyright to contract. This is how Java has worked for decades.

> Reverse engineering is fine. It certainly is from a moral point of view

In this case, the server is how Obsidian funds their work, offering free and paid parts. They're clear about it up front; they don't entice you and switch terms after you're committed. So how is it morally justifiable in this case?

> most have unenforceable clauses

The "enforcement" is not that they win their case, but the threat that they can take you to court and force you to pay a lot of money to escape the contract, especially in cases where you have significant investments or income. Unless you're dedicated to being so irrelevantly small that no one cares, why waste time building IP you can't benefit from, or telling the world that you don't care?

For people starting out, I would recommend picking viable projects, i.e., relevant to others, not illegal, not on dying technologies. They can exemplify not only your skills but also your judgment, and introduce you to the whole lifecycle of OS development if they have any legs.

And it may be best to find an unoccupied niche; in this case, there are alternatives already (better to invent than re-invent). (Unless you aspire to being a giant-killer :)

That's in part why the standard young-entrepreneur pattern is to pick new applications of emerging technologies, particularly those that irreversibly disrupt old industries or build new markets.

In this case there are many note-taking applications with syncing server. The unique project today e.g., might be to update an existing sync alternative to maintain a semantic model and then publish semantic cross-references, or publish a results of AI queries over the evolving set of highly-trafficked semantic topics.


I'm still looking for a way to securely store and sync my Obsidian or Logseq notes with iOS. By "securely" I mean data encrypted at rest on the device, but also encrypted on an external server. It seems impossible.


> To the creators of Obsidian.md: I'm probably violating the TOS, and I'm sorry. I'll take down the repository if asked. It's not ready for production and is highly inefficient; Not competition, so I hope you'll be lenient.

Brother, don't be a wimp. You're giving people an open-source plan B to a closed-source product. Do this with your head and middle fingers raised high. Do you think Richard Stallman apologized to HP for reverse-engineering their printer driver? No, he started the whole open-source movement.

If you're worried about legal consequences, learn what people used to do 20 years ago, which is use pseudonyms instead of their real names. Create a burner email, burner identity, new Github account, and give American tech corps the finger as you write what you want.


FWIW that’s the approach I took with OpenAI. However, Obsidian is a genuinely cool product especially considering that the client app is free. It’s not 100% justifiable to affect the business of a non-VC-backed company.


I work behind a firewall, Between the canvas and the kanban plugin, I have been able to manage some fairly complex software development coordination.


I sync my obsidian notes in a git repo!


Nice work, keep scratching itches and you'll go far, whether you take this as a career or just a hobby.


I just used with git plugin. So that enough.


Why nother, just use Syncthing.


Why bother, just use Syncthing


What is it that people love about Obsidian? (not trying to throw shade, genuine question as I never understood the hype)

Obsidian is not able to open a local folder on my machine stored in Windows Subsystem for Linux, which for me makes it a non-starter (my personal knowledge base is stored there).

I personally prefer the Notion UI but hate being locked into their cloud, so I created an offline-first Notion alternative [1]. Offline mode is totally free (no user registration required), and aiming to add cloud syncing tomorrow or so. Still in active dev so needs a lot of work, but wondering whether others might find this useful. Goal is to make it be able to seamlessly sync across multiple data sources, and also easily to publish files/folders (eg. can currently turn folders into APIs when synced to cloud).

[1] https://mindgarden.app


> What is it that people love about Obsidian?

When Obsidian launched, there was already a lot of hype building in the note-taking community around Zettelkasten and Roam Research. With Roam, basically any word in your note could immediately link to another note, and you could see backlinks in your notes prominently.

However, Roam was both expensive and online-only, so when Obsidian came out and it was: a) polished, b) provided most of the functionality of Roam, and c) was offline and plain-text (also unlike Notion), it was an immediate hit.

The other special feature Obsidian offered was easy and powerful customization. The major settings are actually core plugins that can be enabled or disabled (like daily journal, tagging, or slideshows). Plugins and themes are easily discovered and installed from inside the app, which has led to a vibrant and popular plugin community. All you need is one plugin to be indispensable for users to never leave.


For me, it's comments like this from the Obsidian CEO (from this very post):

> The nice thing about storing all your notes on your device is that it makes it possible to move and edit your Markdown files in many different ways. That diversity of solutions is what makes the ecosystem of Markdown tools resilient over the long term.

I had seen similar comments in the past, and it just made me like Obsidian even more.

I've been using Obsidian for a few months now and loving it, and I had been meaning to find a way to support them financially in their endeavors. They share the same values that I do about the longevity of my notes :) I just purchased a Catalyst license.


It's a bit subtle and I didn't get it for a long time either. But the features are great: I want the content available as portable simple text, I love the text representation for the extras like graphs and math, I love the offline apps. Look through the community plugins to see lots of other cool ideas. I started using it this year and I've not been that excited about basically a text editor in ages.


- it's simple

  - (it's also customizable so it doesn't _have_ to be, but I happen to like pretty much the default features)
- it's free if you don't need their sync

  - I just save my vault on an iCloud drive, which is convenient to me, and publish to the web with my own tool
- it allows me to keep my files where I want them

- it's available on every platform I use

- the UI is not distracting, and is Good Enough™


> What is it that people love about Obsidian? (not trying to throw shade, genuine question as I never understood the hype)

Tribalism.




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