Thread by @roamhacker

1/ Over a year ago I tried out Obsidian. At the time I found it to just be another Markdown editor. I was actually frustrated with the @obsdmd devs because it seemed like a shift from @DynalistHQ which is a fabulous product, but needing love. Well I was wrong, they were right

2/ In recent months I have seen many dear friends move to @obsdmd from @NotionHQ, @RoamResearch and other such tools. I honestly thought they are crazy (Ok they are and they know it.) But they are so happy with Obsidian and brag about it like teenagers in love, it is irritating.

3/ But I have to say, these friends, some former Roamans, are really good, smart, hard working and caring people. I told myself, there must be something to @obsidian if these individuals are so happy. They know me, I know them. They would not waste my time.

4/ With that in mind I have been giving Obsidian a spin. Which is a shock for me, I am a "one note app type of guy". But out of respect for these dear ones, I wanted to see what excited them and I have to say so far I am surprisingly impressed.

5/ Many try to sell you on @obsidian with its strong plugin community (163 available inside product). There are some very good ones. Lots of overlap with Roam42 and tools from De' Vargas (that's his french name.) But I spent most of my few days without plugins. Virgin Obsidian.

6/ After this brief test I have concluded Obsidian is now a tool in my toolbox, at least for a few aspects of my work, not for everything, but in some key areas. If this interests you, read further. If not, thanks for sticking with me to this point & I wish you a pleasant weekend

7/ With Obsidian it is possible for full ownership of your data. The idea is TNO (Trust no one Security. more info here: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trust_no_… Trusting our data to cloud services is based on trusting them. TNO says you have some things in life that you can't trust with anyone.

8/ This usually means that you personally encrypt your data, it leaves your system encrypted, is stored in cloud encrypted and returns to you encrypted. With TNO, no one except you can unlock the bits. With Obsidian it is possible to do this kind of encryption with little effort.

9/ Some data I work with cannot be shared publicly due to legal reasons and of course personal reasons. So TNO is a big deal and a very nice option. Therefore, for some of the data in my life, it will live in Obsidian in a TNO vault.

10/ To make this super easy, Obsidian offers a sync service for 40 USD a year, with e2e encryption, but also one step further, you can encrypt the data before its encrypted for wire transfer. 40 for TNO. Not TNT as in dynamite security, rather "Trust No One" security & privacy.

11/ Another reasons is they have a great mobile app that also allows for desktop and mobile sync. I have Obsidian on my Windows PC, Mac, Chromebook, iPad and iPhone. All synced together. Sync happens in just a few seconds between devices. I hear Android is just as reliable.

12/ Since obsidian in an application, it leverages the local power of your CPU, memory & SSD. Its lightening fast. It has a powerful search engine that can traverse large note collection quickly. You can save your searches. Searches can be embedded as queries inside your notes

13/ The mobile app is in beta. While it doesn't do everything the desktop app can do, it does almost everything & way more than I expected. Their mobile app isn't some crippled notepad. It is a 1st class citizen in their product line, with strong feature parity with the desktop.

14/ Mobile loads fast. Search is fast. A fellow Roaman told me they recently started to exclusively do their mobile notes on Obsidian because of speed. I think he is on too something. With the sync I have these notes everywhere & can import them into Roam, if its necessary.

15/ For the record, this is how mobile apps should be done. Almost full feature parity with the desktop (including plugins). It's a joy to use on the iPad and iPhone. Their last update added some nice "mobile" like gestures for navigating the richness of their feature set.

16/ The sync is not perfect, but close. Also their sync services includes full version control (every change saved for up to a year). So even if something goes bonkers, you dont lose anything.

17/ By the way, for this test, I dug out of sorage some old hardware, 6 year old laptop, with windows 10, i5 processor, 4GB memory and SSD. My iPad is 2 years old. Everything fast fast fast. Did I mention fast? I forgot fast is a feature.

18/ I decided, for confidential data, I will use Obsidian. (TNO BABY). Also using Obsidian for mobile "on-the-go". I also have a project I have wanted to do for a year (large data set ) that Roam can't handle yet until their DB upgrade, so will probably give it a try in Obsidian.

19/ One other thing I like about Obsidian is its development possibilities. I am not just talking plugins, I am talking about an API that allows you to manage data, query data, modify the UI, talk to the editing layer. Powerful possibilities for a programmable tool of thought.

20/ The pricing model is good. Its free, with some inexpensive services (sync & publishing). For some of my work with students and non-profits, this is a good fit, no friction due to pricing. I would say they are too cheap. It takes money to grow, add staff, and equipment.

21/ Their community is probably the biggest star of the show. They have a solid strategy for community interactions via Discord and Discourse. Clear message of where to report bugs and feature requests. Like Roam community, always ready to help, but organized so more effective.

22/ In recent days I spoke with the owners/engineers at Obsidian about technical stuff. They are always kind, helpful & even show respect for me. Remember: at least for now, I am RoamHacker, potential enemy in their backyard. They also use cute & cuddly gravatars.

23/ So what don't I like???? DISCLAIMER: I hope people don't get offended, this is just my opinion and I am allowed that. So don't yell at me. If you don't like criticism, stop reading and go here for some inner peace: google.com/search?q=cute+…

24/ I am an outlining type of guy. This is a Markdown editor and I miss true outlining. Lovely lovely bullets and indenting. However, you can emulate this experience and many Obsidianatics claim you will come to love this in time. We will see. But it works sufficiently.

24/ They have no web client. But it is built on Electron, html, css & JS. Truly it can adapted to web. Rumor has it this is on the roadmap (oh yeah, they have one of those too, probably a sign of unavoidable doom). If they add a web client.... not good for competitors.

hah.. that was 25

26/ The app has a "programmers" feel to it. Some new users might struggle to be at home in the beginning. But I think there are simpler tools for those not wanting advanced functionality. Obsidian is kind of like VSCODE made babies with Apple notes.

27/ They are not a graph database. I know Markdown offers many benefits (i am a software engineer with database background), so you don't need to explain it to me. Files and folders are not the future, they are so 1990s. But in the present its might a more realistic architecture

28/ Having poked around in their global memory in the dev console, seems they are generating database of sorts from MD. Everything needs to be a DB in the end. So possibly the best of both worlds: human readable files with a meta db floating on top.

29/ so I Obsidian is now in my world. I encourage you to explore it as a tool to your existing code base. If you are a note taking Jedi master, not afraid of advanced editing tools, you will be intrigued by Obsidian.

THE END

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I started writing this tweet storm in Obsidian on my PC, continued on my iPhone, then on iPad, finished on ChromeBook, all via SYNC. Smooth.