# OpenKnowledge

20 Hacker News commenters recommended OpenKnowledge and 10 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 2 of 13 months.

**Verdict:** Open-source markdown editor with local files and git sync, seen as an open alternative to Obsidian and Notion; critics say it is macOS-only and team-oriented.

## Why people recommend it

- Local markdown files in open formats (3 comments): "It's exactly what we aimed to solve (files are markdown and local, sync and team sharing happens via git/GitHub but is abstracted away from user)." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48682881)) "What's good is that everything is pretty open formats/source and complimentary." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678737)) "markdown files on your local machine is indeed the way for being AI friendly" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678903))
- Open alternative to Obsidian (2 comments): "Currently its probably just a less good obsidian copilot (but at least its open source)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48685352)) "Looks like a really good alternative of obsidian" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48683929))
- Notion-style editor (2 comments): "Our bar was "Notion-grade", i.e. drag and drop blocks, slash commands, select to highlight/bold, etc." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48680183)) "Editor should already be pretty "Notion-grade", more to do though." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48680446))
- Wikilinks and backlinks for agents (2 comments): "We support wikilinks and forward/backward links are presented to the agent through the MCP server" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48685378)) "Making the skills/MCP specific to OpenKnowledge allows us to optimize experiences like that." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48678884))

## What people warn about

- Little beyond Obsidian or VS Code (4 comments): "Currently its probably just a less good obsidian copilot (but at least its open source)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48685352)) "it does feel like "yet another KM app" without significant innovations" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48683852)) "couldn't see how it improves my experience over Obsidian or VS Code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48680870))
- Deletes or trashes user files (2 comments): "It nuked a substantial portion of the file, unfortunately, not just the comments." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48683751)) "when I started this, it trashed my Codex config.toml file" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48682833))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [SmallDocs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/smalldocs.md): 21 recommend
- [Typora](https://hackerapproved.com/p/typora.md): 19 recommend
- [Margin Markdown editor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/markdown-editor-for-mac-ios-and-web.md): 15 recommend
- [iA Writer](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ia-writer.md): 14 recommend
- [Ferrite Markdown editor](https://hackerapproved.com/p/ferrite.md): 14 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "OpenKnowledge", https://hackerapproved.com/p/openknowledge/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).