Obsidian is now free for work - Obsidian
Obsidian is now free for work - Obsidian
Starting today, the Obsidian Commercial license is optional. Anyone can use Obsidian for work, for free. Explore organizations that support Obsidian on our new Enterprise page.
I just don't see the point of obsidian et al.
Just use a directory structure and save markdown files in it.
There are many apps that are great editors for this structure on every platform. IDK exactly what obsidian does but many editors have zettelkasten (fancy cross links) functionality, just no fancy graph.
Ghostty + helix is the sexxy RN.
Read whole page. Not sure what Obsidian even is?
It's like trillium, but not open source Here is an enthusiastic person talking about the state of the art of one year ago for 20 minute. https://youtu.be/XRpHIa-2XCE
It is a really good app. But was a pain in the ass to keep the archive in sync using multiple different platforms without paying for their sync addon in my experience. You can roll your own sync with stuff like Syncthing, cloud storage, etc. But the archive had a bad habit of seemingly finding ways to get out of sync.
I've had zero problems with Dropbox.
I just paid for the sync 🤷🏻♂️
It’s $4 a month, I drink one beer less a month and I actually save 3€ 😀
This post was how I learned about Obsidian.
For those of you that love it, how do you use it daily?
I fucking LOVE obsidian, one of my most used pieces of software.
I have two note vaults.
One is my personal "everything" not vault, Anything I might need to write down goes there. No random sticky notes, or half used notebooks for me. Game notes, such as what equipment I'm looking for, or solutions to puzzles I'll forget before I can use the information. More practically useful notes like conversion charts to use imperial measurements in blender and godot. Names of people I need to remember and what their handles are on social media, because most platforms don't help you with that. Everything can be interconnected, so some notes are just indexes of other notes.
More impressive is my lore wiki. There is a book series that I will never write, and these notes document the setting. Characters, events, locations, other authors who have helped over the years. Anything that is a proper noun or is otherwise special to the setting is a link to a note of that name.
Obsidian also has "graph view" which visually organizes notes so that things that are connected are physically closer together. I just wish I could give these notes icons on the graph view so that they'd be more visually distinct.
here's a bunch of possible applications:
- simple note taking. like notepad except you have your notes at a place where you can search through them and even link one from another.
- second brain. you can watch a video about it but basically to organize your thoughts, record things you learn, make connections between things to have a digital brain you can search or browse through.
- work or school. notes, to do lists, reminders, links to sources, etc all in one place with references via links
- journal. pretty straightforward, but you can imagine things you could do if you could link from your journal entry to a website, or another entry, or something from your movie collection.
- database. eg maybe you have a movie collection and want to document all the details, including which ones you watched, which ones you liked, and what you think about them. you can have a file for each movie but also files for directors, actors, etc that you can link to and from, in which you have info on those, including images, tags for easy search.
so you watched a movie and wonder what other movies you own have the same starring actor: search movie, click link to the star page, check backlinks.
obviously not the best use case because imdb exists but this is personal and could be extrapolated to any collection you have, maybe even all of them. why not have the movie adaptation link to the original book?
TLDR
you can think about it like: imagine if you could make a bunch of wiki pages. the formatting isn't quite as nice but essentially that's what you're doing. a bunch of pages with text, images, links and tags, that you can browse through. what would you use it for?
It's my trapper keeper. I feed everything into it. I've got vaults within vaults.
Weekly.
As a personal knowledgebase and todo list.I use Obsidian as a tool to help my shitty memory.
I want to have one single place where I can go search for a thing I know I saw somewhere but can't remember where or what it was exactly
"Did I watch movie X" -> Obsidian -> Watchlist -> Movies and there it'll be.
Same for tv-series, anime, books, games. Yes there are services that do it like Trakt, Imdb, Letterboxd, TVMaze and god knows how many for games. They all get enshittified eventually requiring you to pay for basic functionality (looking at you trakt...)
I'm building a tool for getting my data out from all those services into Obsidian markdown format, maybe It'll get finished some day :D (IMDB and Goodreads work, but you need to do a manual csv export)
"How did I install that finicky piece of software last time" -> Obsidian, I wrote something down because I knew I couldn't remember it. Then I'll improve the guide + refresh with new data.
Now I have a pretty good step-by step guide on how to set up a computer, no matter the OS, just how I like it - all in Obsidian. Mostly just commands I copy-paste and some manual steps that I can't be arsed to automate.
Same with my daily notes, I just write down what I did maybe with some tags so I can find them when I start wondering when did I visit X or put up the curtains in the bedroom.
For the movies I use Jellyfin/Trakt and for what I still want I use the *arrs.
I use it for note taking at work. I like that I can add code into markdown. But yeah post notes and paste screenshots. Useful when I want to go over my old tech notes when I've fixed stuff. A personal knowledge base. The fact it's markdown I could just upload this to somewhere like GitHub and it retains it's formatting
I use it to track everything..
Quick notes knowledgebase Follow up (personal and work)
The great thing about Obsidian is how flexible it is. The bad thing about Obsidian is how flexible it is.. 😀
I have seen may people comment, or outright leave, Obsidian because because there was too much to learn.. or too many plugins to explore..
Personally, I only look for plugins if I need something specific. Don't see the point of trying random plugins. Is like spending time finding solutions to a problem you may not have..
Also, I work on tech and many documents are in markdown. Obsidian makes it easier to read those. Specially the collapse / expand functionality is really great for exploring large docs.. as long as the creators properly used sections (basically # for level 1, ## for level 2..and so on)
I use it for pretty much everything. Any random crap i need to jot down go into the daily notes with a tag of some sort, Excalidraw extension for any sort of diagrams or a string board for connecting different notes/pictures together, code snippets, documentation etc.
I dont use their sync, but I have proton drive keeping the directory backed up in case of emergencies, and I have a git repo for when i want to officially keep something tracked.
I use it as a work journal and personal knowledge management (PKM). Each day I open a daily journal note (built from a template with an easy shortcut) that contain rough notes on what I did that day. From that note I link over to project notes for any project I worked on or complex issues, scratch notes, etc. I do split windows, one with a narrow view of the daily note and then a larger panel for content notes (like documenting the project or create a scratch note or searching for a note on a problem I had 2 years ago that I need to remember about). There are many useful plugins but Templater and "Various Complements" are my favorite. Templater allows me to configure a template for any note I want to configure, so I can create a new note then hit a shortcut that will prompt me for a page title and auto fill the note with my template (that includes tags, headings, etc) for a meeting or new project or scratch note. Templater can also organize the note and move it around on my filesystem. Various Complements plugin allows me to build a dictionary of anything I want that will then fill in like an IDE when I'm typing in a note. So I use it for all my coworker names, I type 4 letters of someone's name and it pops up suggestions where I can tab-complete their full name.
It's truly a great program, better for me than all the others I've tried: OneNote, TiddlyWiki, DocuWiki, Dendron, and emacs. I used TiddlyWiki for years and had to bend it to my will in many wonky ways, then Obsidian came around and did 90% what I wanted out of the gate and the 3 or 4 plugins I use did the rest. I've been using it for a few years now.
Not daily, but their canvas feature has a feature that lets you embed previews of your files into the flow charts you make. It's pretty nice, since you can have shorter files entirely visible with everything else. Makes it pretty good for software development and project management, in my experience.
Careful not to go overboard with it, though. I feel like a lot of people fall down the "productivity pipeline" when using it, where they end up procrastinating by trying to optimize every little thing and end up doing nothing at all.
it is fantastic for both lil notes and grand projects! and you can even link to those little notes and slowly evolve them into a grand projects
you can basically create a personalised Wikipedia! and Obsidian will help you with it, as it can detect when you write in plain text a word or phrase that also is another note's title, then you just click and bam, it's linked. And if you change a note's title, all mentions will update too!
you can also make conspiracy boards with the canvas note type, all usual formatting works within them
it's a great tool to keep a lot of information organised and linked together, without having to open a billion files and cross reference them (you can also open notes in split screen).
learning how to use it will only take an hour or so, and then you'll be zooming
i've recently been using it to collect and organise information for a big project i'm working on, and being able to link mentions of things to bigger topics and themes as i'm doing the data collection is just wonderful, no more "(IMPORTANT LOOK HERE!!!)"
Project management
Anything I want to plan out goes into it
I truly is evolving with me. I'm no power user, but I've been using it for the last two years. Eh e I am at school it's where I take my classes notes. When I needed to write to myself it was also there. I have it synched between my two computers and my phone. And it is where I put my documents like CV's and Excels I share. It's not directly Obsidian doing all of this. But basically it becomes a Hub of all I do.
Recently I started saving more pages online that are important as notes in Obsidian and still find new usage of Obsidian
Daily journal Task list / project management Note taking Mind mapping Resource archive
I've got my vault automated pretty well at this point. I honestly don't know what I would do without it.
For those of you that are wondering, everything is markdown independent, all of my plugins address UI or vault automation processes that leave all of my information entirely portable.
Cool. Available for windows, linux and iOS. I tried to use todoist, but it has some real problems syncing and arranging data. I spent hours creating a worflow only to lose more than half of it when trying to sync it across devices. I hope Obsidian will do better.
Obsidian is a note taking app. Todoist specializes in creating tasks and scheduling them. They are different tools for different jobs.
Obsidian is very capable of handling tasks and scheduling them. That's a solid portion of what I use it for, while also conveniently having my notes directly linked to from these tasks.
You can extend obsidian to basically do anything.
That doesn’t change the problems I had with todoist. I was using it in a note taking format, the scheduling part wasn’t really relevant to my use.
I use Obsidian between Ubuntu and IOS.. Sync is a bit erratic.. It always... eventually, refreshes, but have not been able to find how to force sync on IOS. Sometimes end up doing trivial changes to see if can get the sync on IOS to trigger.
Ubuntu client shows when it does sync and it does appear to do it fairly quick.
Good to know. Thanks for the real world use info.
It's interesting that a closed-source app has good reputation among FOSS enthusiasts. Surely they are not a Microsoft or Apple, but still who controls your computer, you or them?
least paranoid foss nut
I just cant wrap my head around why they're willing to go so far to gain good will from people by having such a generous free tier, but somehow licensing the code under a FOSS license is out of the question??
Why not just go all the way and make sure everyone who cares about reading the souce could also give you free contributions?
Yep and the Android app is full of small things to improve, for sure someone would put in contributions for free
Well, the good news? A wider audience most certainly means a FLOSS suite that can parse the data from it. It doesn't seem very opaque, but more like Markup++.
It stores your data in plaintext, and simply uses the program to parse special formatting characters. There are no attempts at obfuscation or encryption, and it doesn’t lock you into a walled garden that refuses to play nice with other programs. The program itself is closed-source, but anyone could write an open source version to parse the same info… There just hasn’t been a good reason to do so. Even if Obsidian as a company and program ceases to exist overnight, your data is still safe on your machine and can be read by anyone who cares enough to dig into the file. Hell, you can even open it as the plaintext file and dig through it manually.
True. The other day I uploaded a photo that should be portrait instead of landscape. I opened Nemo ( Linux file explorer), right clicked to edit image, fixed it, and automatically my note picked up the change.
Similar thing when storing a 1000 line json in the notes
There in fact are FOSS alternatives like Joplin. Personally, I actually switched from Joplin to Obsidian due to a larger community (and therefore community-driven plugins) and overall a more polished UX. That being said, I have the security of switching back if Obsidian ever becomes evil or unusable.
Another aspect is that the entire source code is technically viewable (partially obfuscated) since it's a web app. Having written plugins for Obsidian, you're very much interacting with the source code itself. Feels like open source with extra steps and I wish one day they will finally make the switch to true FOSS.
And the old version you have on the pc still works, since there is no cloud communication needed to run it.
I just wish the price of having the publish feature was slightly lower. They’d get much more subscribers, including me.
I've been really enjoying trilium as an open source alternative but fair warning it's not as polished as Obsidian
I think the big difference is that you can use it for free without any account needed, and all your data is stored locally in a format that remains accessible to alternative apps.
So the moment they start doing questionable stuff you are not a hostage to their app. There are alternatives, they are just not as nice as this currently.
Obsidian stores the notes in a well known plaintext format on your computer. They can't easily hold you hostage like with other closed source apps.
I like the Markdown-based approach but Sync is way to expensive for my use-case..
You could use regular Syncthing for any device other than iOS. And for iOS you could use Sushitrain/Synctrain: https://github.com/pixelspark/sushitrain
$4 a month?
There are sync plugins that use git, s3, WebDAV etc. Or you can use Dropbox or google drive or iCloud or sync thing.
It’s just a bunch of markdown files and unless you edit with multiple devices at the same time it’s easy to sync
I like obsidian specifically because you don't need to rely on some built-in sync tool. The files are right there and in a sane format, you can sync them however you want. I use syncthing for this at home, but the choice is yours
Neat, I didn't know that. I currently use Joplin this way, synced across my devices with Syncthing. Joplin also supports directly syncing to Google Drive or Dropbox (with optional encryption).
I tested it at work (we used Obsidian for a while to build an IT Knowledgebase but since moved away from it) and it really couldn't be simpler.
The main thing that keeps me from trying it is that in order to pay with PayPal you have to use some janky workarounds... As soon as they figure that out I'll absolutely consider it
I've heard about syncthing but fear that it won't be compatible with all my devices
Have you looked at AnyType? Their free version includes 1gb of cloud storage. It's far less mature than Obsidian, but may suit your use case.
I've been using it for a little over a year, and love it.
Looks interesting, I'll check it out
I don't necessarily like a few takes in the comments here.
Vibes wise the Obsidian team seems to be great and they don't seem to have shown any reason why I should distrust them. I love FOSS but gifting others my work doesn't put food on my table, so in that sense they need to have a lucrative business model which they seem to have established.
I could use SyncThing, Git or other solutions to do synchronisation between my devices but I choose to buy their Sync offer, since I want to support them (they also have EU servers, which need to be GDPR compliant by law afaik).
The closest comparison I could make is NextCloud. NextCloud open sources their software, but they sell convenience. Sure, you could self host it, but paying them to do so for you may be more attractive. In comparison Obsidian is not really complicated to set up or maintain. It's literally just a MD-editor. So the only convenient thing to sell is synchronisation if you don't want to put a price tag on the software.
If they open source all their code, some tech wizard will implement a self hosted obsidian sync server with the same convenience as theirs in a day, and the company will lose their revenue stream.
We've all been burned by tech bros in one way or another, but I think it's ok for people to profit off of their IP. And they seem to be doing so with a positive vision. Feel free to let me eat my words if they ever go rogue, but that's my 2 cents.
If they open source all their code, some tech wizard will implement a self hosted obsidian sync server with the same convenience as theirs in a day, and the company will lose their revenue stream
Obsidian is storing everything as plaintext files. Those convenient selfhosted sync solutions have been out there for years.
Thanks for the rare, rational comment regarding Obsidian. Many people here seem to think releasing software as closed source automatically means you have something to hide; seemingly forgetting we live in a capitalist system in which you must constantly sell your services to survive. (I am saying this as someone who adores FOSS and donates to most of my homelab software on a regular basis).
I think a more productive way to look at is: is the closed source dev friendly (or at least non-hostile) to the open source community? In the case of Obsidian, they haven't done anything egregious, and regularly contribute to open source plugins. Furthermore, the notes are stored as markdown files. This gives the user strong resistance against potential enshittification, so even if they did go rogue you can just move to some other text editor lol. Granted, you would miss out on plugins but otherwise that's a good reason to keep your plugin usage light and plan your Obsidian vault accordingly.
it's ok for people to profit off of their IP
Absolutely. I just have trust issues with closed source software and platforms. Burned too many times.
Joplin is more directly comparable. The apps are open source and it offers sync with all kinds of targets. It monetises through a source available sync server (i.e you can run your own but you arent allowed to run it commercially) hosted by Joplin (Joplin Cloud)
For transparency im directly involved with Joplin as a volunteer (less so in recent months admittedly) so yeah, im a bit biased.
One thing that keeps me really calm about obsidian is the plaintext database. I can live with a proprietary db if the code is foss and I can fudge my data out if I need to. If code and db are proprietary, I'm not putting my data there if I can help it.
I think it’s ok for people to profit off of their IP
I absolutely agree. That doesn't mean the software has to be closed source though, a lot of software works well when sold with paid support, especially to companies.
If the price is low enough, companies will often just pay even if they don't need the support.
That's a bit naive imho. Remaining closed source is a form of IP protection and that's really ok for what Obsidian is (a markdown editor). There's just not any benefit for them other than appreciation from FOSS enthusiasts. Also maintaining an open source repository causes a higher workload and they lose a lot of freedom.
If privacy is your concern you don't need source code anyway. It's quite easy to sandbox an application like that and analyse network traffic and such. Also Obsidian is built using Electron. That means with enough motivation one could quite easily reverse engineer most of the app. Most of the applications behaviour can also be observed via the integrated dev console, which lets you view source code.
In short I don't really see the need, unless I want to build or maintain it myself. And I think the negatives far outweigh the positives from the perspective of Obsidians team.
Saw this, super cool. Hope they make tons of money with Obsidian Sync
They do, because they don’t offer others easy sync options in the iOS app (only iCloud or Sync, no webDAV, no onedrive, no googledrive, etc. )
Why would they offer another sync option when the Sync subscription is the one thing you make money on? You could easily just put the notes in your iCloud or any other cloud service.
Holy shit this is huge. I can finally use obsidian at work! I was avoiding it due to the license and using Logseq. Which, to be fair, did admirably. But it's much more and Outliner or journaling system than a knowledge base I feel.
Me too! I've been having a blast with it today. It's so much more fluid and intuitive. I already have Syncthing set up everywhere (for Logseq) so there's been almost no friction at all.
I'm unreasonably happy about this
Can you elaborate on this? I use logseq as an information dump and use tags and hashtags to associate the individual entries with a certain topic. I love that i do not have to think about the file structure (where do i have to put it?) and instead can just write it down immediately.
E.g: had a meeting with #name with regards to #project Z. We have a set of new requirements that need to be implemented in by Q3 2025….
Would this be significantly different in obsidian?
Yeah Logseq is actually a much better knowledge management tool than obsidian. It’s literally built for that, whereas obsidian requires you to force structure onto it.
I couldn't get work to pay for it so I found a better, cheaper alternative, Notesnook. It's open source (client and sync server), you can publish notes, and it's end-to-end encrypted.
It says it's free, but then there's a pricing and plans page?
A lot of alarm bells ringing for me about that app.
Thanks for sharing I didn't know about this one and it's robust as keep
Can you selfhost a sync server? Be completely independent of them?
technically yes. they just recently made the sync server open source - https://github.com/streetwriters/notesnook-sync-server - but their documentation for it is still pending.
I've been following their progress for a while and can say that they appear to be following through on all their goals. and are very responsive to issues on GitHub. but don't take my word for it, check out their roadmap to see when they release the self hosting documentation- https://notesnook.com/roadmap/
i use notally for quick notes and reminders but i needed another organizer for longer text
i started trying notesnook after reading your comment and it looks like what i needed. I really like its customizability. I wish there was an option to choose fonts from file.
The only problem is that constant login reminder. Is there a way to get rid of it?
The community plugin “Google Drive Sync” is free, open source, and lets you (clunkily but effectively) bypass Obsydian Sync. One less server to manage.
Switched from Onenote to obsidian. There was a small learning curve and I had to install some plugins, but I love it. It looks amazing and runs so much faster than OneNote ever did.
So does obsidian support nonlinear spatially organised notes the way onenote does? I've been using joplin but without that onenote feature it's been a bit underwhelming tbh, and I can't find any software that does it.
You mean like the obsidian canvas?
Note linking is what did it for me a few years back. It’s possible in OneNote, and clunky as hell.
I was sold the moment I read links can be wiki style in Obsidian.
I would love to move off OneNote but the lack of alternatives that support inking is disappointing.
For sure. I've been looking for a solid OneNote replacement for a few years now. Inking is the only major barrier.
I really like OneNote, and I've been using it for more than 10 years. But in recent years, my dislike for Microsoft has grown to the point where I feel I need to stop using all their products.
Right now I'm using xournal++ a lot. It has really excellent drawing functionality; but zero organisational functions. (I'm organising my xournal notes using just file names and folder structure.)
What I really want is integrated xournal support with Obsidian, or Joplin. In Joplin, I've tried inserting a pdf into my notes, and telling Joplin to open the pdf by launching xournal++. That sort of works; but the viewing of the pdf in Joplin shows a window-within-a-window; and the creating of new notes is fiddly; so I decided it wasn't quite good enough.
Obsidian has a plug in for this... here is an announcement from the plugin author: https://www.reddit.com/r/ObsidianMD/comments/1bsa6dy/alpha_release_of_my_handwriting_plugin_ink/ (sorry for a reddit link)
Whoo, some good news. Time to ask "Central IT" for it and get ready for another six month rodeo.
The android app want to quit when you hit the back button and it drives my nuts
Now that it's free, are its users the product?
Nothing else is changing. No account required, no ads, no tracking, no strings attached. Your data remains fully in your control, stored locally in plain text Markdown files. All features are available to you for free without limits.
Seems they'll just keep making money on sync.
Doesn't appear so but there is that potential in a future update as they're in control of what the software actually does. If data is indeed stored in plain text files then hopefully an alternative software could be made to display that data.
Essentially, just a giant W.
I thought this was about a different obsidian lol
Same. I've never heard of the Obsidian in the OP, so I was hoping they somehow left Microsoft and were looking for a game designer or something.
This is the same conversation they had with reddit for years. It's being developed for everyone and we'll make it open some day. Now look what happened.
I use obsidian but only with the bare minimum knowing that I may have to jump ship at any moment.
It's regrettable that Obsidian isn't open source. But the nice thing about it is that its data store is just a bunch of markdown files in a folder structure, and very easily migrated to any other application. They may have the code but they don't take the data hostage like a lot of commercial software does.
It’s insane obsidian isn’t open source, since it’s just a fancy vscode plugin or fork basically (idk how they developed it obviously but that’s all you’d need to do). That’s why I don’t use it. It’s too simple not to be OSS
Yeah they even say if you don't like what they do in the future you can easily pickup your md files and take them elsewhere.
Agreed, I use it with as few options and extensions as possible. I don't want to start creating a complex system of notes that will rely on anything specific. I try to stick to the core functions without any extras because of the worry of eventually falling into a proprietary black hole. I keep my foot in just enough to get my uses but not so much that I might get stuck with the software.
I assume this means free for local use? Not any kind of backups?
I mean all the plug-ins should work
Why would they donate server space to you on top of giving you free (beer) software?
The way some of you think is very odd to me.
Back up your own shit or pay for sync.
I said absolutely nothing to indicate that I felt that way so I don't know WTF you're on about.
It’s always been free for me using Mobius Sync…
Not the point here. Using it in a commercial environment for free was a violation of the terms, now it's not anymore.
Ah got it, thanks for the clarification.
SyncThing for me, but yeah.
Yup! I should have been more specific, Mobius Sync uses syncthing on iOS.