# Obsidian 447 Hacker News commenters recommended Obsidian and 145 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 12 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 1 years (13 owners). It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule. **Verdict:** A note app built on a local folder of plain Markdown files, with backlinks and a rich plugin ecosystem that works well with AI agents; critics flag risky community plugins and weak collaboration. ## Why people recommend it - Plain local Markdown files (6 comments): "Obsidian is just a client that uses markdown files stored locally, so yes, since the files are typically on the same machine as the agent harness" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48352684)) "I switched to Obsidian last year, which while proprietary at least gives me the option to move my data somewhere else" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47829230)) "My notes were _already_ a folder of markdown, so I pretty seamlessly moved from VS Code as my notes app to obsidian" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48201590)) - Great knowledge base for AI agents (7 comments): "I can tell my agent to edit the Obsidian Markdown just like that, but I can also tell it to create a full-on notebook with backlinks and DataView queries." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49094391)) "for a DevOps team of 4 it has gone very well and it has made an massive improvement for giving our AI agents up to date docs" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50244013)) "It's a low-friction way to have it remember things about me without having to re-provide a bunch of context on new chats." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47771955)) - Powerful plugin ecosystem (4 comments): "I haven't updated for a quite long while, all my plugins still work correctly and I've had no trouble adding another one recently" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47771658)) "The insecurity is part of the benefit. Obsidian being so open, allowing easy customizing is what makes it great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48094203)) "Obsidian's plugin architecture is a real strength, ideal for niches like that w/out bloat for the core product." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47760474)) - Automatic link updates and backlinks (2 comments): "wiki-links and backlinks work across all of it, and renaming a note automatically updates the references in my book" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48367507)) "obsidian handles a lot of useful little things out of the box, like updating links when you move files/attachments" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46965358)) ## What people warn about - Dangerous community plugin security (6 comments): "the "community plugins" settings pane seemed more concerned with assuring the user that community plugins were fine than actually explaining the risk" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48096235)) "Obsidian Plugins are still incredibly vulnerable. A compromised plugin will essentially take over your machine." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48089793)) "performing security theatrics with sync e2ee while their users data is regularly at risk of mass exfiltration via their insanely dangerous community plugin ecosystem" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47250750)) - Poor collaboration and sharing (3 comments): "Obsidian is a single-user editor. It does not have the concept of "agent A drafted this, agent B promoted it, the team approved it."" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47901876)) "there's just enough missing things around collaboration/permissions/sharing that makes Obsidian a non-starter for work" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48110984)) "great for LLMs (local markdown files), bad for collaboration (no multiplayer features like multi editor, comments)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48682303)) - Feature creep and bloat (2 comments): "both of them bolt so much stuff on top that the files themselves (markdown or org) become incredibly coupled and hard to use by themselves" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48457785)) "I think Obsidian is heading down the same path Evernote did. They keep adding more and more features to it when I wish they would call it complete" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47263757)) ## Alternatives hackers recommend - [Org mode](https://hackerapproved.com/p/org-mode.md): 175 recommend - [Notion](https://hackerapproved.com/p/notion.md): 91 recommend - [Logseq](https://hackerapproved.com/p/logseq.md): 52 recommend - [Apple Notes](https://hackerapproved.com/p/apple-notes.md): 39 recommend - [Tolaria](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tolaria.md): 34 recommend ## Where to get it - [Visit the official site](https://obsidian.md/) ## Cite as Hacker Approved, "Obsidian", https://hackerapproved.com/p/obsidian/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).