Obsidian

What hackers pick instead

• Org modeA plain-text Emacs system for notes, TODOs, agendas, tables and literate programming that people find more capable than Markdown, though it's tightly bound to Emacs and poorly supported elsewhere.175recommend
• NotionRecommended for flexible live documents, wikis and collaboration despite bugs and slowness; the most common caveat is weak handling of security and privacy issues.91recommend
• LogseqRecommended as a free, open-source, local outliner with block structure and powerful queries. Critics say development is slow and sync is paid and closed source.52recommend
• Apple NotesRecommended for quick startup and reliable sync across Apple devices. Common caveat: it slows with very long notes and is weak on Windows, Linux and the web.39recommend
• TolariaOpen-source Markdown notes app with a clean interface and built-in git, liked as an Obsidian alternative. Critics cite sorting bugs and that it is a web wrapper.34recommend

Every quote

The 40 most detailed of 775 comments. Each links to the original.

1. 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.

   Recommends · Jul 2026 · in “Hubbele: Open-source notetaking app for you and your agents”

2. the "community plugins" settings pane seemed more concerned with assuring the user that community plugins were fine than actually explaining the risk

   Mixed · May 2026 · in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan”

3. 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

   Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Karpathy LLM Wiki pattern integrated into Obsidian agenic workflow”

4. 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

   Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Italy's Bending Spoons, Owner of AOL and Vimeo, Files for Nasdaq IPO”

5. 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."

   Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “Show HN: A Karpathy-style LLM wiki your agents maintain (Markdown and Git)”

6. 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

   Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “A practical guide for setting up Zettelkasten method in Obsidian”

7. 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

   Recommends · Oct 2026 · in “Tasks as Code: Move Your Tickets into the Repository”

8. 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.

   Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “An Introduction to Obsidian”

9. An opinionated workflow showcasing how I used Claude and Obsidian together to help with my personal tax filing in Canada

   Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Improving personal tax filing with Claude CLI and Obsidian”

10. there's just enough missing things around collaboration/permissions/sharing that makes Obsidian a non-starter for work

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “The Future of Obsidian Plugins”

11. Obsidian provides a way to structure the knowledge base in a way both agents and humans can interact with confortably

    Recommends · Mar 2026 · in “Show HN: Skill for structured deep research with Claude Code and Obsidian”

12. I switched to Obsidian last year, which while proprietary at least gives me the option to move my data somewhere else

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Notion leaks email addresses of all editors of any public page”

13. having multiple years worth of notes and todos in a tree of crosslinked markdown files is pretty handy in this AI era

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan”

14. wiki-links and backlinks work across all of it, and renaming a note automatically updates the references in my book

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Adding my blog and book to my Obsidian vault via symlinks”

15. My notes were _already_ a folder of markdown, so I pretty seamlessly moved from VS Code as my notes app to obsidian

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “Show HN: Files.md – open-source alternative to Obsidian”

16. great for LLMs (local markdown files), bad for collaboration (no multiplayer features like multi editor, comments)

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Show HN: OpenKnowledge – open-source alternative to Obsidian/Notion”

17. obsidian handles a lot of useful little things out of the box, like updating links when you move files/attachments

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “Obsidian Introduces Obsidian CLI”

18. It's literally just a folder of markdown notes with a handy search and file list if that's what you want it to be.

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “I Use Obsidian”

19. You don't lose anything from the proprietary nature of Obsidian because it's just markdown files all the way down.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “Notion leaks email addresses of all editors of any public page”

20. The insecurity is part of the benefit. Obsidian being so open, allowing easy customizing is what makes it great.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan”

21. Obsidian's plugin architecture is a real strength, ideal for niches like that w/out bloat for the core product.

    Recommends · Apr 2026 · in “An Introduction to Obsidian”

22. Obsidian Plugins are still incredibly vulnerable. A compromised plugin will essentially take over your machine.

    Mixed · May 2026 · in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan”

23. As notes organized by the limited number of well defined rules, they became easy to search and navigate by AI.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to turn them into actions?”

24. Has everything you want I think with plugins to do a ton more while still essentially being just Markdown.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Ask HN: What is your go-to solution for a personal wiki in 2026?”

25. performing security theatrics with sync e2ee while their users data is regularly at risk of mass exfiltration via their insanely dangerous community plugin ecosystem

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Obsidian Sync now has a headless client”

26. 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

    Criticizes · Mar 2026 · in “Good software knows when to stop”

27. Having godmode, RCE-capable plug-ins behind few safety warnings that most people will happily ignore to get shit done is not good engineering.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan”

28. I agree with the claim of negligence. I think they were more than happy to reap the benefits of a thriving community plugin ecosystem

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan”

29. "Hey users: don't do insecure things. Here's a button to do cool insecure things!" is not a plugin security model.

    Criticizes · May 2026 · in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan”

30. file it (eg in obsidian). tag it. next time you are interested in topic x, there are all the stuff you at least once thought might be relevant to it.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Ask HN: How do you keep up with HN these days?”

31. In Obsidian, because the unit is the note (not the block), you often have to be more intentional about creating/maintaining the links and structure.

    Mixed · Jan 2026 · in “Ask HN: Do you also "hoard" notes/links but struggle to turn them into actions?”

32. parts of the obsidian editor (the plain-text view, I never use preview mode) that just feels better than every other notes app I've tried so far

    Mixed · Mar 2026 · in “Glaze by Raycast”

33. Personally, I use an obisidan vault in a cloud folder...easy duplication on any device, easy review, easy search, easy cross reference

    Recommends · Feb 2026 · in “The surprising power of daily rituals”

34. I keep obsidian vaults mostly to augment recall, and often all it takes is a small cue to reveal that thing I couldn't remember.

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “It’s so hard to finish an idea that is not yours and is just suggested by AI”

35. I use it to have views over my to-do lists (daily routine items, tasks that are overdue, upcoming tasks, etc), make dashboards

    Mixed · Jun 2026 · in “Show HN: OpenKnowledge – open-source alternative to Obsidian/Notion”

36. All I want is a top-notch Markdown editor with a mobile app and trustworthy sync, and that's what Obsidian gives me.

    Recommends · May 2026 · in “Obsidian plugin was abused to deploy a remote access trojan”

37. The main problem I have with using different Vaults at the same time is that they all share the same taskbar icon.

    Mixed · Apr 2026 · in “An Introduction to Obsidian”

38. When I discovered Obsidian, I decided to fully switch to Markdown. It's very nice that it supports vi bindings.

    Recommends · Jan 2026 · in “How Markdown Took over the World”

39. The native replication and the Git integrations work well keeping it all synchronized across multiple harnesses

    Recommends · Jun 2026 · in “Show HN: OpenKnowledge – open-source alternative to Obsidian/Notion”

40. with easily indexable and searchable contents, has this invaluable perk of being accessible at a moments notice

    Recommends · Aug 2026 · in “Note-Taking and Personal Knowledge Management”