[HN Gopher] An Introduction to Obsidian
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An Introduction to Obsidian
Author : bryanhogan
Score : 99 points
Date : 2026-04-11 11:35 UTC (2 days ago)
(HTM) web link (bryanhogan.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (bryanhogan.com)
| tech_ken wrote:
| > Don't fall for FOMO marketing or feel anxious. Keep it simple.
| Obsidian should help you work on other things.
|
| Great advice, I tried to get into Obsidian a few weeks ago and
| could immediately feel myself getting pulled into the "Workflow
| Optimization Spiral". I love nothing more than fruitlessly
| tooling with workflow stuff, in place of actually, you know,
| working. I kind of just decided to set it aside, rather than
| parse through exactly which parts would be actually helpful for
| stuff I needed that day. Really appreciate this blog post to help
| me revisit the app from a more practical starting place.
| kccqzy wrote:
| The first time I got into Emacs and vim I also spent way too
| much time on the editor customization spiral. Then in 2015 I
| just picked and settled on Spacemacs while strictly limiting
| how much time I spend on customizing my editor. I've had three
| jobs since then and I brought basically the same editor config
| to all three jobs.
| bryanhogan wrote:
| Thank you for the kind words and that the post actually helped!
| It's exactly the kind of inspiration I wanted to achieve.
| on_the_train wrote:
| I'm just so bummed that multiple vaults are pretty much unusable.
| I can't sync my sensitive work notes. But I want to sync general
| programming notes between work and other PCs. But multiple vaults
| hardly work. The just open in a new window.
|
| Other than that, I love so many things about the program. Just
| linking and graphs are weird and strangely overrated. Search and
| tags still rules over everything imo
| fnordlord wrote:
| The Raycast Obsidian plugin makes vaults pretty easy for me.
| Cmd+Space > "Open Vault" and then pick which one you want.
| You'll still have a window per vault but it makes it really
| fast to get to where you want.
| joemi wrote:
| I think separate vaults being in different window is probably
| intentional behavior to clearly show that they're separate
| vaults, not something that needs to be fixed.
|
| If you want to sync only some of the things from a single vault
| and not other things, can't you just use different top-level
| folders? Have a "to-sync" folder and a "do-not-sync" folder,
| and only sync the to-sync one. I'm not sure if that's possible
| using Obsidian's paid sync, but it should be possible with
| other sync options.
| kepano wrote:
| What do you mean by "multiple vaults hardly work"?
|
| If it helps Obsidian has a newish command called "Change
| vault..." that switches vaults without opening a new window.
| kelvinjps10 wrote:
| for my obsidian is just my mobile markdown editor I just haven't
| been able find a better one, for desktop I use neovim and
| telekasten
| NicuCalcea wrote:
| It's the opposite for me, I use Obsidian on desktop but hate it
| on mobile, so I use Markor there.
| ubermonkey wrote:
| I have tried many times to migrate to Obsidian and DataView from
| OrgMode, but I just can't get there.
|
| Obsidian is appealing because it's available on iOS, but the
| whole approach ended up (for me) being more fiddly and less
| effective (again for me) than orgmode.
|
| OTOH & to be fair, I've been using Org for a really long time.
| echelon wrote:
| Three asks for Obsidian to make it my #1 tool (and I mean #1
| tool):
|
| - First-class multi-vault support. It's difficult to keep
| personal / business / team separate. I want to keep shared notes
| for my team, but it's really hard.
|
| - First-class git support. The git plugin is dangerous and will
| overwrite changes from other devices. The mobile git plugin
| (which requires hacks to even use) is deadly bad with blowing
| away your entire git history. Do not use. Obsidian sync is cool
| and good and all, but I want git. And the existing git isn't just
| bad, it's deleterious.
|
| - Spreadsheets. Literally just free-form tabular data would work
| too. Their "bases" thing isn't it. I just need to be able to sort
| data and keep it versioned. Google Sheets is a huge daily use
| product - if I had the same function in Obsidian, Gsuite would be
| dead to me.
| greymalik wrote:
| > It's difficult to keep personal / business / team separate
|
| I have one vault for personal, one for work. I open each one in
| a different window. They are both separate and easy to switch
| between.
| raincole wrote:
| For me, it's a Wolfram Engine plugin. My notes now scatter
| between Obsidian vault and Wolfram notebooks. It would be nice
| if I can unify them.
|
| But I understand that my use case is niche and I certainly
| don't want the Obsidian officially bloats itself into such
| feature creating.
| datadrivenangel wrote:
| What stops you from running git at the root level and doing a
| "git commit --all "notes" & git push" command?
| bryanhogan wrote:
| I would also love better Git support, especially syncing
| content from my Android phone to a GitHub repository, so faar
| it never worked well, I tried a few solutions here but wasn't
| satisfied with any of them.
| bryanhogan wrote:
| I have been having a similar need for some sheets data in
| Obsidian, I was gonna look into writing a plugin to represent a
| JSON file as a Obsidian Base, but didn't get to that yet.
|
| Have you tried some of the plugins that allow you to open CSV /
| TSV files within Obsidian?
| operatingthetan wrote:
| The only thing I use openclaw for is managing my obsidian vault.
| The flow is a series of crons that prompt me to fill out daily
| files and update projects as they progress. I also use it for
| calorie tracking and basic daily journaling. This is simple,
| secure, and very cheap 'life coaching.'
| dbvn wrote:
| Daily Notes feature is a lifesaver. Just throw things in there
| throughout the day. Never lose anything
| rockooooo wrote:
| I've tried obsidian so many times and want to love it but the
| sync situation - either the expensive official one, the approved
| options for mixed iOS/Windows clients (icloud) and third party
| tools like obsidain-livesync - were all way too issue-prone for
| me to ever trust it. I hope they figure this out
| tylerrobinson wrote:
| At $4 per month, I don't consider it expensive at all to have
| this whole category of problem solved for me. Mobile app,
| desktop, laptop synced flawlessly and quickly.
| simlevesque wrote:
| I recommend using syncthing. It's very easy to self host but I
| actually use a SaaS for it: syncding.com. It gets me 100gb to
| 1tb of disk in which I can create folders and keep them synced
| with my 2 laptops, my phone, my server etc... I have an
| Obsidian vault with Meld Encrypt to encrypt some files, a
| keepassxc file I share across my devices and my todo.txt
|
| It's simple to setup and will work forever instead of paying
| for different providers that might shut down or increase their
| prices.
| torben-friis wrote:
| I know it's probably no help on iOS, but for people on android
| or no mobile requirement, just push and pull to a git repo. You
| can probably even set up a cron or something to sync regularly.
| tombert wrote:
| I mostly use Obsidian for my blog nowadays (using Quartz and
| Cloudflare Pages). For that it's actually pretty great. It's
| super easy to write links to your own posts that automatically
| update, it's easy ensure that your attachments are handled
| correctly, it's easy to have whatever layout you want.
|
| I liked the notes stuff, but I found I was spending more time
| with the bureaucracy of it instead of actually doing work, so
| I've kind of stopped using it.
| iammjm wrote:
| The aura of complexity/difficulty around Obsidian seriously
| baffles me, because to me Obsidian from the go felt like the most
| intuitive thing in the world: Create a note. Write some lines of
| text. Organize some of those lines into - bulletpoints, #
| Headings, or ## Subheadings. Turn an some idea into a [[note of
| its own]]. Add a #tag for better organization. Check out your
| notes in the list of your notes or directly in the vault folder.
| And people sell courses for this??? Like I know you can add
| plugins, tweak css to your liking, and basically turn obsidian
| into an all-encompassing monstrosity to match your particular
| software kink, but the 80/20 of it all is really pretty basic to
| anybody who has ever used a personal computer.
| phil-martin wrote:
| It's interesting eh, it's a wonderfully straightforward tool to
| use, but it's scary.
|
| My theory is that those courses aren't selling you on how to
| use obsidian, but are instead selling "how do I organise
| knowledge and information. Oh btw we're using obsidian"
|
| They aren't marketed like that, but I think that is what
| they're really doing
|
| It's like taking a course of office organisation. I mean filing
| cabinets are easy right, it's just putting labels on folders
| and putting them places.
|
| Except I would absolutely be terrible at that job and would pay
| nearly anything to be good at it.
| torben-friis wrote:
| There is a subset of people that spend time developing complex
| setups as a hobby. It's the adult equivalent of the student who
| had school notes in perfect handwriting with 7 different colors
| and underlines.
|
| Nothing against it, you just need the warning early on to avoid
| the timesink if you want things done and follow the wrong
| guide.
| jonahx wrote:
| > There is a subset of people that spend time developing
| complex setups as a hobby. It's the adult equivalent of the
| student who had school notes in perfect handwriting with 7
| different colors and underlines.
|
| This is a perfect analogy.
| jdgoesmarching wrote:
| It really baffles me that a forum full of people who casually
| deep dive into all corners of tech regardless of its
| "usefulness" can't understand people might want to do the
| same with their personal notetaking or organization.
| nojito wrote:
| >There is a subset of people that spend time developing
| complex setups as a hobby.
|
| More than a hobby. There's an entire business that is just
| moving from one system to another and convincing your
| followers that they have to move too.
| forrestthewoods wrote:
| > Add a #tag for better organization.
|
| Honestly, you kind of lose me here. I want to spend exactly
| zero time organizing things like tags. Literally zero.
| well_ackshually wrote:
| Then don't. Obsidian's search is plenty good enough to find
| that note after.
|
| Obsidian is the simplest thing in the world. Write text.
| bryanhogan wrote:
| I also much rather use [[links]] for organization instead of
| #tags.
|
| I touched a bit on this in the bottom-up / smart notes
| section.
| kubb wrote:
| Honestly with LLMs you don't need an Obsidian anymore. You can
| just use neovim or emacs. Every feature you need, like search,
| or linking can be done via plugins or shell commands.
| Freedom2 wrote:
| Agreed. I definitely also had a few qualms with the app.
| raincole wrote:
| Because before LLMs you couldn't use neovim? Emacs's search
| feature was vide coded in 2024? How is the first half of your
| comment even related to the second half.
| packetlost wrote:
| This was the case before Obsidian existed, see Org-mode,
| vimwiki, etc.
| browningstreet wrote:
| Interfaces matter.
| j45 wrote:
| Tools like obsidian are text files, that you can increasingly
| connect and organize in different ways.
|
| It's easy to start with the detail when users are looking for
| their story to match the software.
|
| How people can grow into it can be different, sometimes it's
| good to just start, and then learn about implementing the other
| concepts.
| bryanhogan wrote:
| Not defending some of the not that amazing Obsidian courses or
| similar out there, but it sounds like you already have a lot of
| pre-existing knowledge and an approach that works for you, so
| as I said in the post, keep using that!
|
| You know about markdown syntax, about #tags, about [[linking]],
| but a lot of people who first hear of Obsidian don't.
|
| Part of what inspired my post was to help people who don't need
| the extra complexity of a bottom-up note system, Zettelkasten,
| ever-green notes, atomic notes or other areas of Obsidian, but
| also to give direction to someone wants to explore these.
|
| For example I'm very happy with my bottom-up approach for
| knowledge notes, I have been using it for multiple years now
| and I can still find the things I need, and it doesn't feel
| messy or anything.
| BeetleB wrote:
| > Like I know you can add plugins, tweak css to your liking,
| and basically turn obsidian into an all-encompassing
| monstrosity to match your particular software kink, but the
| 80/20 of it all is really pretty basic to anybody who has ever
| used a personal computer.
|
| Probably org-mode envy ;-)
|
| (To be clear, it's the same story - using simple plain org-mode
| is easy, but some people love to customize like crazy)
| nout wrote:
| My suggestions to new users are: Start small, just create notes
| for whatever you want to (actually) remember and create impromptu
| TODO lists. Ignore the whole Knowledge Database / second brain
| thing. Learn the obsidian keyboard shortcuts really well. You can
| build a structure in your notes later when you actually see
| what's good and what needs automation.
| saxelsen wrote:
| Shout out to Joplin (https://joplinapp.org/), which I use on a
| daily basis.
|
| It does most of what Obsidian does but has a free sync version
| where you just use your cloud drive as the storage.
|
| The main thing missing, from what I've found, is that it does do
| the "notes mind map". But I never really found that useful.
| Onawa wrote:
| Isn't it also missing nested folders? I tried Joplin, but no
| nested folders was a huge disappointment for me.
| yborg wrote:
| It has nested folders. But it will continue to have the
| problem of not being exactly whatever you are using now.
| highphive wrote:
| For folks interested, Obsidian also has a free sync option that
| just uses your cloud drive, you just have to set it up
| yourself.
|
| It's pretty simple. Just get Google Drive Desktop to mount your
| Google Drive to your filesystem, then point obsidian to work
| within that mounted directory.
| quibono wrote:
| Google Drive Desktop will only help if you're on macOS or
| Windows. I know it's technically possible to mount GDrive on
| Linux but it's neither pretty nor user-friendly.
| tomComb wrote:
| Joplin looks great, and is open source, but it appears to have
| one problem: the primary data store is SQLite, not files, and
| in this AI infected era having plain text files on the local
| filesystem is really important.
|
| So if I am correct the "cloud drive as the storage" option is
| syncing with a the local SQLite db and to get local files one
| would need to be syncing the local db with both the cloud drive
| and the local filesystem.
|
| With Obsidian I sync from local files direct to a cloud drive.
| philips wrote:
| Does joplin cloud have a merge algorithm for multi-user edits
| or does it just punt and do conflict files?
| __rito__ wrote:
| I have been using Obsidian for 3-4 years, and I will keep using
| it. I really love it.
|
| I have 0 community plugins. I use it for writing articles that
| becomes .qmd file for my quarto blog, I make lists, I track
| progress, and I have a standing file called scrip.md where I
| write tables, LaTeX equations, and screenshot and share them.
|
| I have some folders, and I link some files. That's it. It has
| first class Linux desktop and Android experience, and that's all
| I want. No web browser, no internet dependence, no black box data
| processing, and complete freedom. If it is ever bought by
| potential enshittifiers, I just stop using it!
|
| I don't use many Obsidian-only features to not be dependent on
| the benevolence of the creators.
| chaosprint wrote:
| I really like Obsidian, but its features are still too much for
| me. Are there any aesthetically pleasing, faster alternatives
| that simply render Markdown and LaTeX? It would be even better if
| it also supported mixed inputs like Obsidian.
| fer wrote:
| Logseq, it's geared to daily notes and visualizing everything
| in a graph, and support KaTeX. It also supports org-mode. If it
| fits your workflow I'd recommend it. Personally I feel like
| Obsidian does too many things and none too well.
| pythontongue wrote:
| Bear
| joemi wrote:
| You don't have to use _all_ the features. I don't.
| BeetleB wrote:
| pandoc?
| skeeter2020 wrote:
| I've used Flatnotes for about a year or so and if all you want is
| to write notes in markdown and search them it doesn't get much
| simpler. It has tags and decent search, but other than that
| nothing. Easy to sync or backup though with a single folder of
| text files.
|
| https://github.com/Dullage/flatnotes
| hgoel wrote:
| I recently setup Obsidian thinking of it as an easy note taking
| system with self-hosted sync that Claude can read from.
|
| I'm still building the habit for using it instead of scattering
| notes in text documents or self-DMs on various platforms, but
| during setup, the complexity was concerning, since I associate
| complexity in this kind of system with fragility. For now I am
| still in the exploring phase, so not ruling it out yet.
| lschueller wrote:
| I first struggled with it, gave it another try couple of years
| later and now using it on a daily basis as a key work tool to
| organize my knowledge, like code snippets, documentation,
| roadmaps...
|
| For me, the 2 most powerful aspects are: - as mentioned in the
| article, there is no pricing plan, no limits, no enshittification
| or feature creep... Fully usable from now to eternity
|
| - md format! So damn easy to export it to a proper pdf file, to
| copy it into a html page converter etc.
| philips wrote:
| I love Obsidian, have written a popular plugin, and my wife and I
| use it for TODO lists and various planning.
|
| However, every few weeks the official Obsidian sync makes an
| absolute mess of our shopping list (which has fairly frequent
| edits and deletions across our laptops and phones). I have no
| idea how to fix it.
|
| This thread shows other users having the exact same issue as us:
| https://forum.obsidian.md/t/obsidian-sync-incorrectly-duplic...
|
| If it wasn't for this one issue I would be able to strongly
| recommend the tool but as it is now I just tell people it sort of
| works and I am mildly happy.
|
| To be fair I don't think any of the popular alternatives like
| logseq or joplin even attempt to do automatic file merges and
| just dump files into a conflict mode.
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