It appeals to me as a minimalistic version of the Bear[1] notes app.
A few years ago I played around with copying the Bear app interface for the web, the idea was to create a visually identical mockup of the app so you could immediately visualise changes made when customising various theme values. I stalled with the implementation of the last part, but the rest of it is up at bear.christippett.dev
I've been using TrilliumNext (fork of Trillium project that is archived) and haven't been able to find an alternative I liked more. Only thing I don't really like is that it's not really stored in Markdown and since you have the ability to have notes in multiple trees it can get a bit messy when trying to move to other systems.
I tried moving to Obsidian Notes and found myself missing Trillium. It's nice to be able to just open the web browser and have access to your own self-hosted notes with an editor anywhere. You also can set it up so if you add a sharing tag to a note you can easily share a link to the note. I believe Obsidian allows similar but only if you pay, and it's also not self-hosted.
I've tried a wiki style approach before like Tiddlywiki, but I feel like it is a whole different concept of taking and making notes that often is a bit more cumbersome, but maybe it works better with how some people think.
This made me realize that obsidian is *not* opensource, but in a way obsidian made me feel like it was opensource. Obviously now that I researched it, it is quite obvious that it is not, but still it 'feels' like it should be opensource.
To be fair, Obsidian is an Electron app with no obfuscation, so it's pretty easy to get its code. I think I even remember the official Obsidian team telling people to do that on their support forum if they distrusted the app.
I don't think that was my impression, but their API is pretty open for creating plugins. In support of the Obsidian model, its a dedicated engineering team, a free tool, notes are stored as .md and not something proprietary, and if you want you can pay them for their sync tool which I find both pretty reasonable and a nice way to support their efforts. Also they keep on improving the product in interesting ways, the new plugin marketplace with all of its verification policies is really nicely done, aspirational even.
But in any case, this is also a nice project, but I guess I'm also an Obsidian evangelist.
Why should it be opensource? Obsidian gives you complete control of your data, which it stores in an open standard.
Please explain to me why developers should act like monks who've taken a vow of poverty? The devs built something valuable, they should profit from it.
The data is open and stored in markdown format. Plugins are open source. The core product is not open source, but it's also just an electron app. I've always viewed Obsidian as the inverse of an open core product.
I don't really mind Obsidian being non-FOSS, since it doesn't lock you in to any kind of propriety bullshit.
All my files are just vanilla text files. All the folders are just vanilla folders. All the attachments are just vanilla attachments. If Obsidian pissed me off, then I'd still have my notes in a fairly accessible format.
So, this comes up pretty much every time Obsidian is mentioned... to the point where I'm curious as to where the idea that it's open source comes from in the first place.
I wouldn't show it as an alternative to Obsidian though. It shares MD files with it and both are supposedly about note taking ("supposedly" is for Obsidian, I haven't tried Files.md yet), but Files.md seems to have its own way of making the users work with their thoughts, notes and knowledge altogether.
When I read "an alternative", I assumed feature-parity and API compatibility. But what I found out was entirely different and much more interesting.
I'll give it a try, thanks for sharing your year-old work!
Maybe something like "self-hosted markdown notes you fully own" or "personal knowledge server"? Leans into the ownership angle instead of competing with Obsidian on features.
Thank you! I am long time obsidian user looking for something that will work decently on Android and this looks promising.
I only really struggle with one basic feature - I want to be able to write note within 1-2 seconds of clicking the app icon. Obsidian makes it 10-15 seconds at best. The HelixNotes sometimes can get this in under 10, still looking for better options.
I'm having the same issue with Standard Notes. It's almost 30 seconds now and becoming an issue, especially with Android's aggressive memory freeing. It wasn't so bad early on but it gets worse as notes accumulate.
I'm really glad you mentioned this --- I've been looking for a Rust or Tauri-based Obsidian replacement for years, and this is almost everything I want (and much closer to what I want than Files.md).
Now that I'm playing with it, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more traction on HN or Reddit.
I use .MD files, helix terminal editor with a markdown LSP called markdown-oxide that replicates the obsidian feature set (like bidirectional links, tags, making new notes automatically, two keys get you from a in-line footnote to the definition and back again, etc), and rumdl which is a super efficient and customizable markdown linter and formatter (semantic line breaks far the win!) . Since it is all helix I can jump around a huge web of interlinked files very quickly with only a few key presses, as well as inside a document and manipulate them en masse or in minute detail all with only a few taps. All of your standard open source terminal tools work with it, difftastic, bat/cat, zoxide/CD, ripgrep, fzf, git, LLMs, encryption, sync, etc etc. I use yazi for a visual filepicker and zellij for tabs. Run it on a server and connect from any computer in the world without downloading a single thing. I sometimes make use of two tools called rucola and tree-md for looking at prettier versions of the texts and seeing stats about how they interact. All open source of course!
There is no better interface for text than a terminal, and we are in the golden age. Despite being extremely powerful, this setup will run on resource constrained machines.
Glad I read about this! I love helix and have been looking for some bonus features for note organisation without having to ditch my favourite editor, will defi
Glad I read this! I love Helix and have been looking for a way to have some extra note taking features without loosing my favourite editor. Will definitely give markdown-oxide a try!
This is a great setup. I just tried it (markdown-oxide + rumdl) on Helix also -- super nice. I'd been using Obsidian for the inter-linking not knowing it could be done with Helix, so thanks for sharing this
The one thing I need in a solution like this is multi-player mode that includes a simplified review/track-changes system that I can collaborate with my AI on these docs. Proof.sdk from Every Inc has an interesting approach on this. If I had more free time, I'd build it myself!
That markdown mirror is a pretty neat feature. I've been using Trillium for my notes and the way they save/store the notes is actually one of the things I dislike about it even though I love the application itself. I tried at one point exporting everything to markdown and it worked... but Trillium allows you to have notes in multiple places but they exist essentially as just a pointer in the backend to that note. So it made the export a bit wonky as some instances of a note are just an empty shell and don't have the actual contents. So you have to try and move notes around to get their markdown files in the right places.
I've ended up still sticking with Trilium however as I like being able to have notes in multiple locations like this.
I am a Logseq user and I was under the impression that development had stalled or better, stabilized (frankly, most software does NOT need a constant stream of updates). Based on this post, it looks like they're back - and they've chugged some vibe juice.
This looks awesome, and I've been waffling about moving from Notion to something local/markdown based for a while. My only issue is that I really like using "databases"/tables, specifically for moving through processes ticket-style, in Notion. Does anyone know if there's something similar elsewhere? I'm not familiar with the knowledge-base/wiki space, I just kinda fell into notion.
1) Very nice implementation 2) Very nice domain! Did you always own "files.md"? 3) Re storing things on your server, what is the security layer around that?
I have been building a slightly different solution to the same problem. So far I’m pretty happy with the results and I have enough returning users that I think others are too (https://sdocs.dev/analytics).
SDocs is cli (`sdoc file.md`) -> instantly rendered Markdown file in the browser
When you install the cli it gives you the option to add a note in your base agent file (`~/.claude/CLAUDE.md`, etc.). This means every agent chat knows about SDocs and you can say “sdoc me the plan when you’re done with it” and the file will pop open instead of you having to find that terminal session to know it’s done.
Going browser first means you’re not required to install anything to get a great experience.
Despite being in the browser, the content of SDocs rendered Markdown files remain entirely local to you. SDoc urls contain your markdown document's content in compressed base64 in the url fragment (the bit after the `#`):
The sdocs.dev webapp is purely a client side decoding and rendering engine for the content stored in the url fragment.
This also means you can share your .md files privately by sharing the url.
I've enjoyed exploiting the HTML rendering side of things which is possible by displaying Markdown in a browser. I’ve added tagged code blocks that the agent is given documentation on how to use. Eg ```chart or ```mermaid (for mermaid diagrams). These then become interactive elements on the page (mermaid is best example of this currently). See live renderings of these options here - charts gallery: https://sdocs.dev/s/yO3WbxFf#k=arcDBnizla5n437VFAeiQcwlu8kh_..., diagrams gallery: https://sdocs.dev/s/B_Ux11DV#k=KsvheEkiBFai6acnoIJnrOdfVRS5u...
Looks really slick!
I've been using Obsidian with git, and am thinking of moving back to the OG solution of simply using a text editor with a git repo. I'm wary of using cloud like google drive or dropbox for sync, especially if I'm using both phone and mobile to edit the same file throughout the day. I doubt using an external cloud really takes care of consistency and there's a possibility of losing data. Me being a developer can take the pain of a button click to git pull and resolve occasional conflicts.
To me this is fully solved solution for note taking with tools I already know and trust. Having said that, I'm gonna try Files.md for some inspiration on what I could be missing.
122 comments
[ 0.23 ms ] story [ 80.5 ms ] threadA few years ago I played around with copying the Bear app interface for the web, the idea was to create a visually identical mockup of the app so you could immediately visualise changes made when customising various theme values. I stalled with the implementation of the last part, but the rest of it is up at bear.christippett.dev
[1] https://bear.app
I tried moving to Obsidian Notes and found myself missing Trillium. It's nice to be able to just open the web browser and have access to your own self-hosted notes with an editor anywhere. You also can set it up so if you add a sharing tag to a note you can easily share a link to the note. I believe Obsidian allows similar but only if you pay, and it's also not self-hosted.
I've tried a wiki style approach before like Tiddlywiki, but I feel like it is a whole different concept of taking and making notes that often is a bit more cumbersome, but maybe it works better with how some people think.
So that your files and tools can grow together, fully under your ownership, through the ages.
The app can be easily tweaked for your own needs via an LLM - code is optimized for that.
P.S. And Golang seems to be great fit for this kind of software.
But in any case, this is also a nice project, but I guess I'm also an Obsidian evangelist.
Please explain to me why developers should act like monks who've taken a vow of poverty? The devs built something valuable, they should profit from it.
All my files are just vanilla text files. All the folders are just vanilla folders. All the attachments are just vanilla attachments. If Obsidian pissed me off, then I'd still have my notes in a fairly accessible format.
When I read "an alternative", I assumed feature-parity and API compatibility. But what I found out was entirely different and much more interesting.
I'll give it a try, thanks for sharing your year-old work!
"TextBundle brings convenience back - by bundling the Markdown text and all referenced images into a single file."
We had those already more than a decade ago. Personally, I fondly remember Mou.
Obsidian has heavy Electron vibes, and Files.md is several steps more into the wrong direction.
The name is also bad. It feels like it was chosen because someone already had the domain.
I only really struggle with one basic feature - I want to be able to write note within 1-2 seconds of clicking the app icon. Obsidian makes it 10-15 seconds at best. The HelixNotes sometimes can get this in under 10, still looking for better options.
Now that I'm playing with it, I'm surprised it hasn't gotten more traction on HN or Reddit.
There is no better interface for text than a terminal, and we are in the golden age. Despite being extremely powerful, this setup will run on resource constrained machines.
I've ended up still sticking with Trilium however as I like being able to have notes in multiple locations like this.
You don't need to spin up the server, only in case you want your own infra.
Optional sync is only working with chatbot auth for now, but I'll do something about it.
I have been building a slightly different solution to the same problem. So far I’m pretty happy with the results and I have enough returning users that I think others are too (https://sdocs.dev/analytics).
I’ve built SmallDocs (https://sdocs.dev; Show HN: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47777633).
SDocs is cli (`sdoc file.md`) -> instantly rendered Markdown file in the browser
When you install the cli it gives you the option to add a note in your base agent file (`~/.claude/CLAUDE.md`, etc.). This means every agent chat knows about SDocs and you can say “sdoc me the plan when you’re done with it” and the file will pop open instead of you having to find that terminal session to know it’s done.
Going browser first means you’re not required to install anything to get a great experience.
Despite being in the browser, the content of SDocs rendered Markdown files remain entirely local to you. SDoc urls contain your markdown document's content in compressed base64 in the url fragment (the bit after the `#`):
https://sdocs.dev/#md=GzcFAMT...(this is the contents of your document)...
The url fragment is never sent to the server (see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/URI/Reference/F...: "The fragment is not sent to the server when the URI is requested; it is processed by the client").
The sdocs.dev webapp is purely a client side decoding and rendering engine for the content stored in the url fragment.
This also means you can share your .md files privately by sharing the url.
I've enjoyed exploiting the HTML rendering side of things which is possible by displaying Markdown in a browser. I’ve added tagged code blocks that the agent is given documentation on how to use. Eg ```chart or ```mermaid (for mermaid diagrams). These then become interactive elements on the page (mermaid is best example of this currently). See live renderings of these options here - charts gallery: https://sdocs.dev/s/yO3WbxFf#k=arcDBnizla5n437VFAeiQcwlu8kh_..., diagrams gallery: https://sdocs.dev/s/B_Ux11DV#k=KsvheEkiBFai6acnoIJnrOdfVRS5u...