Obsidian

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Obsidian is a free, multi-platform application for writing and maintaining plain text notes (for longevity) as markdown files that provides a modest paid hosting service one can use with a personal-domain.

While not (yet) an open source project, the application encourages users to own their own data locally in a way that allows the use of alternate applications.

As of 2021-01-19 in version 0.10.9, the service provides a paid option for (selectively) hosting one's notes on a personal-domain allowing it to be used as an IndieWeb service. Using the Digital Obsidian Garden plugin from Ole Eskild Steensen there's also a free option for such a setup.

IndieWeb Examples

• Chris Aldrich has been using Obsidian as a daily note taking tool since 2020-08-25 with the explicit intention of publishing portions of it online as part of his digital commonplace book/digital garden/zettelkasten.

• Others in the wild have used the raw text notes to publish their notes as a website online using static site generators.
  • “Obsidian+Github Pages” for digital gardeners? also includes links for other services and platforms as well as plugins, tools, and methods for creating SSG-based websites

Silo Examples

Examples of sites published using Obsidian's Publish feature (without custom or personalized domain names):

• Quantum Well
• Alexis Rondeau
• LYT kit
• Anthony Agbay
• Andy Matuschak (duplicate)
• Santi Younger
• David Drysdale
• Eric Gregorich (protected)

Resources

• Forum
• Discord
• Github repositories of release, API, documentation, etc. https://github.com/obsidianmd
• YouTube
  • Obsidian Office hours: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCJKoNPnBdCSloJ2wlKnV2Fw
  • Linking Your Thinking: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC85D7ERwhke7wVqskV_DZUA/playlists
  • Obsidian focused playlist for personal knowledge management & zettelkasten: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL5fd4SsfvECy0zzf8Cyo20ZoipEt6YeL3

See Also

• commonplace book
• zettelkasten
• notes
• longevity
• Project for publishing an Obsidian vault using GitHub Pages: https://github.com/jobindjohn/obsidian-publish-mkdocs
• Apparently supports some frontmatter features per discussion in chat ( Ben Werdmüller, Manton Reece may have citations)"
• Quartz is a static site generator that converts Obsidian's markdown files into a digital garden.