Show HN: Open-source obsidian.md sync server

I don't see why you cant let people download and self-host the sync service if they want. Most people would probably pay to use yours but many people would want to self host as opposed to using fragile and feature-incomplete community supported plugins... people seem to replicate the sync server anyway, why not give them a better experience and live up to the "your notes" promise that is all over the website.

I discovered Obsidian this year, and it's not an understatement to say that it helped restore my faith in local-first computing and humane tools. Obsidian has helped me reclaim my thought process and my writing, and I'm much happier using it.

Like others have mentioned, your approach and ethos are a large part of why I decided to go all in on Obisidian, and that ethos is reflected in Sync. With Sync, everything is end-to-end encrypted and can be unsynced at any time without having to "export" anything or jump through hoops. Configuration is file-based and can be selectively synced, including themes. Beyond that, I can rest easy knowing that if Sync is ever down, I have all of my files right there.

When I downloaded Obsidian for the first time, I thought it was a shame that I didn't need to pay for it. So I was more than happy to find Sync and pay for the service to help what I see as a good company.

Kudos, and please keep up the good work.

I'm a brand new user and thought all this time that Obsidian Sync was 100% cloud-only, so I spent a bunch of time trying to spin up a custom sync solution. This comment inspired me to look more carefully at it, and now I'm a paid user!

I only wish that https://obsidian.md/sync made it more obvious that you can sync a local vault to the cloud. Emphasis on "You still own your data, no vendor lock-in" is a huge sell for users like me who are typically forced to choose between seamlessness vs. owning our data. I'm delighted to learn that Obsidian offers both.

Time and again I keep being impressed with your selfless commitment to building and sharing things in the most humane and long-term way. A beautiful example to set, thanks.

This attitude is in no small part the reason I'm happy to pay those $8 every month - support a great team building and continuously improving a package so useful it has become an integral part of my life and, as a bonus, get a slick and reliable sync service on top.

I'll join in with the others and say a few good words. It's unusual in 2023 for a company to focus on delivering a good customer experience while respecting the preferences of the customer. Imagine a company that builds a business around providing value to the customer.

Renewed for my third year of Sync yesterday. While I could use other tools to sync (I mostly have markdown files in my vaults, so there's not a lot of data moving around), the quality of the sync service, and the ease of setting it up, makes me renew without thinking about it. And it's not easy getting me to pay for anything these days due to subscription fatigue, scam fatigue, and price hike fatigue.

I've been using obsidian since last year, and I love it. After previously haven fallen in and then out of love with notion, obsidian has been just what the doctor ordered.

So I was excited to see a obsidian HN post, and really didn't expect to see the CEO as the top post. Kudos to you.

I've been a sync customer more or less since I started using obsidian, mostly because I use the same vault on my phone plus a couple PCs.

But honestly, the sync has been disappointing. When I restructure folders or rename stuff, half the time the next time I open on a different device, it deletes shit. I can usually figure it out and recover from the sync log, that's a big trustbreaker.

Super happy Obsidian Sync user here. I migrated over from Notion, here are the areas where Obsidian blows Notion out of the water:

- Insanely low input lag especially on mobile. Obsidian is FAST. When i'm out and about checking my shopping list, I have a tolerance for maybe 250ms of lag. That's it. You need to show me my data FAST. Notion is a basically a webapp which simply doesn't compete, asks you to re-login constantly. YOU DO NOT ASK A MOBILE USER to RELOGIN.

- Read-only mode: accidental taps instead of scrolls on mobile are a HUGE issue on Notion, especially when you're out and you're in a stressful situation and you need your notes fast. You can not afford an accidental edit. And you simply don't have to focus to carefully touch your smartphone to distinguish swipes from touches. Notion developers just don't get this. With Obsidian, when i'm ouside, i'm most likely in Read-only mode. You can still check checkboxes when in read-only mode, and that's perfect for a shopping list workflow.

- Standard format (markdown). I had tried for some time to automate my Notion backups and it just wasn't possible. With Obsidian, I have no issue using proprietary software because the backing store is Markdown. It integrates nicely with my storage practices. My obsidian files are backed up hourly to my rsync.net account which has 48 hourly snapshots. If I accidentally overwrite something 16 hours ago, I can recover it.

As long as Obsidian meets those 3 checkboxes for me, I'm happy to pay $10/month, $20/month, $30/month, whatever.

A response like this was exactly the reminder I needed to upgrade my Catalyst license. My opsec can be a little on the paranoid side, so while I believe y'all have the best of intentions and would build sync with the expectation that my data is safe, I would prefer to not use your sync service. But I use Obsidian so regularly that it's definitely worth supporting good work done by folks that align with me. Keep up the wonderful work, both as a software company and as a beacon for how to be a good steward in an increasingly cynical industry.

I had never heard of your service until now but your reply has probably landed you $8/month.

Bootstrapped startups deserve my money and commendable leadership should be rewarded.

I don't usually comment but just wanted to say that I absolutely love Obsidian. I have been using it every day for about 2 years now and my life would not be the same without it. It's amazing. I also gladly pay for Sync, it's more than worth it.

This sync server project is pretty handy for a headless daemon I had been meaning to cobble together in the background.

The sort of thing that could say; pull down markdown files inside a CI pipeline from the sync server which is probably better handled using Git for sync but it seemed like a fun challenge.

I've got most of a working implementation from trawling through minified Obsidian code with the debugger, which of course is now a little moot given the OP's project basically captures everything needed.

Anyway, one core problem I ran into was how to decrypt file blobs. I was dreading the amount of time I would have to waste trawling through all the bits required and then they just... tweeted it out: https://obsidian.md/blog/verify-obsidian-sync-encryption/

I'm sure it would be possible to reverse engineer with enough time of course but it's nice to see some "unofficially official" user script type stuff. It gives the perception (and I'm sure it's accurate) that they dogfood and tinker with their own stuff as much as anyone else in the community.

EDIT: Ah, I missed that Kepano had already shared that blog post below already but it's still a neat writeup

I just want to say how much I love your product. So many of the best things never make it financially, but I really really hope you all make it. I'm 100% willing to support obsidian financially, just need to know where and how to do that. I don't want an account or a sync thing, I just wanna give you all money for the great product.

What a wonderful reply. Thank you and kudos!

Thank you. I’ll be renaming the repository. (Looks like a situation similar to vaultwarden)

I have been looking at building a self hosted implementation of this service because of compliance reasons.

The $$$ of the service isn't the issue but making sure there is a good compliance option and self hosted to ensure that data doesn't leave boundaries and is stored securely on company servers.

If there was an option to have a paid self hosted option I would happily look at paying for that.

I love Obsidian over all the other tools that I have tried. https://ashishb.net/all/why-i-prefer-obsidian-for-taking-not...

Like everyone else, I would like to express my absolute love for your product. Awesome response and I hope you can work at Obsidian and be happy for many years to come.

Great product, thank you. Really appreciate the way you handled the trademark issue here with a tactful request. Definitely earning points with open source community

Long-term paying user of Obsidian Sync here. It’s fantastic - more reliable than any other sync service I’ve tried (haven’t tried the one subject of this post) that has to interface with the iOS ecosystem.

Really like the fact that Obsidian itself is free and you charge for native sync (and publishing, which I also use) to support ongoing development of this fantastic editor and ecosystem. Thanks.

What a class act of a reply! I applaud this!

Honestly I just want a sync solution I can host on my NAS that the mobile app can still access, which unfortunately isn't something the app natively supports, and more or less all of the current community solutions come with one caveat or another ( like the otherwise lovely git solution having issues on iOS clients, for example )

While you’re here, a killer feature for me would be the ability to privately host obsidian sites (similar to publish). Even if it required subscribing to publish to download a tarball of the site (that isn’t public), it could still be worth it. My use case is sharing obsidian notes with non-users (eg coworkers) in a private way.

I was previously using a third party sync solution, but guess who just got a new subscription?

Just gotta say I absolutely love Obsidian. I've been using it for about 6 months now and I'm continuously blown away at how versatile it is. Canvases were such an incredible addition. The plugins from the community are top notch.

I love your reply here, and your product . Have you considered trying to implement a collaborative document editing tool? I would definitely pray for shared vaults that allow multiple users to modify files

Obsidian is a great product, thank you! And the optional Sync service works beautifully to keep my files synched between Windows, iPhone, and iPad.

Thank you kepano. I love this response and will continue to support Obsidian while cheering on this project that taps into your platform.

Your promise did not last very long.

Just wanted to say thank you for not attacking/threatening the creator!

I just bought a yearly sync subscription due to this comment. Kudos!

Give him sync for free! Or atleast let me sponsor the kid.

Would love to get Dropbox support on iOS

Please consider regional prices. US$8 monthly is high for in-develop countries

I can't speak for OP's motives, but one reason one might do this is because you can't sync via Dropbox or Github on iOS. You can only use iCloud or Obsidian Sync.

I had to shell out for another app[0] on the iPhone to allow for a fairly seamless GitHub workflow. Not sure if it’s changed in recent times. It works great, but I’d imagine something more tightly coupled with obsidian.md would eliminate that need?

0: https://workingcopy.app/

They are still 3rd parties - only good if you're using E2E encryption. Additionally, Dropbox free version has a 3-device limit at any time. On Android you have to use something like DropSync to enable background syncing which may not be ideal.

Git(hub) may be an okay choice though. But there would be issues like no SSH support for Git on Mobile clients.

What's wrong with getting an FTP account, mounting it locally with curlftpfs, and then using SVN or CVS on the mounted filesystem?

Character by character sync. You type one letter on your desktop, it appears on the mobile app maybe a second later. Dropbox sync can't do that.

Yeah I can think of 30 different ways to make the sync work, but I can't be bothered to, Sync works really well, and I feel like financially supporting the Obsidian team in some way.

$8/month is a bit steep, but I snatched $5/month early bird pricing and I consider that to be a lot more acceptable of a price.

Edit: worth pointing out there's a 40% discount for non-profits and students: https://help.obsidian.md/Licenses+and+payment/Education+and+...

I haven't tried Dropbox or Github or Syncthing like others have suggested but having tried Obsidian Sync I'm not as impressed as everyone else seems to be. Maybe I need to set my bar lower but especially on my phone, background sync doesn't work well and it usually takes a few seconds to load and a few more seconds to sync the data which feels like ages considering all the data required to load it is already on my phone and the diff is a few paragraphs at most.

> The mobile app doesn't work without sync (not without some really nasty workarounds)

You simply synchronize the folder as with the desktop apps. Works right of the box without any workarounds.

It works great for me just using iCloud Drive.

> view sync version history

Actively working on that. It’s a feature I’ll need since I mess up *very often*

just a friendly reminder as it bit me often: the version history is gone/gets wiped any time you rename a file/folder.

I'm using Syncthing to keep in sync between a desktop and two Android phones over tailscale, and it works pretty good, but I have to occasionally open the Syncthing app on Android to "bump" it and get it to sync. It's in a git repo (which syncthing handles great even though there are some older posts online telling you not to do that), and on the desktop I can review and "sanity check" stuff and then commit it to ensure it is safe. Overall a good solution.

I'm using syncthing with Obsidian but of course i have regular conflicts which i just deal with manually. Thanks for pointing me to this!

> What is it that people love about Obsidian?

When Obsidian launched, there was already a lot of hype building in the note-taking community around Zettelkasten and Roam Research. With Roam, basically any word in your note could immediately link to another note, and you could see backlinks in your notes prominently.

However, Roam was both expensive and online-only, so when Obsidian came out and it was: a) polished, b) provided most of the functionality of Roam, and c) was offline and plain-text (also unlike Notion), it was an immediate hit.

The other special feature Obsidian offered was easy and powerful customization. The major settings are actually core plugins that can be enabled or disabled (like daily journal, tagging, or slideshows). Plugins and themes are easily discovered and installed from inside the app, which has led to a vibrant and popular plugin community. All you need is one plugin to be indispensable for users to never leave.

For me, it's comments like this from the Obsidian CEO (from this very post):

> The nice thing about storing all your notes on your device is that it makes it possible to move and edit your Markdown files in many different ways. That diversity of solutions is what makes the ecosystem of Markdown tools resilient over the long term.

I had seen similar comments in the past, and it just made me like Obsidian even more.

I've been using Obsidian for a few months now and loving it, and I had been meaning to find a way to support them financially in their endeavors. They share the same values that I do about the longevity of my notes :) I just purchased a Catalyst license.

It's a bit subtle and I didn't get it for a long time either. But the features are great: I want the content available as portable simple text, I love the text representation for the extras like graphs and math, I love the offline apps. Look through the community plugins to see lots of other cool ideas. I started using it this year and I've not been that excited about basically a text editor in ages.

- it's simple

  - (it's also customizable so it doesn't _have_ to be, but I happen to like pretty much the default features)

- it's free if you don't need their sync

  - I just save my vault on an iCloud drive, which is convenient to me, and publish to the web with my own tool

- it allows me to keep my files where I want them

- it's available on every platform I use

- the UI is not distracting, and is Good Enough™

> What is it that people love about Obsidian? (not trying to throw shade, genuine question as I never understood the hype)

Tribalism.

Remotely save is excellent. I use it with WebDAV to work between my computers, phone and tablet.

If Obsidian stops acheong08, I'm done with Obsidian.

I want a durable way to edit, sync, and preserve my notes, not just a pretty interface.

I'm happy to pay Obsidian for sync, but if they PM this to only one distribution channel and subsequently enshittify it, I don't want it. Stopping acheong08 would be a bad signal forewarning what's to come.

That's about 1 year of tuition in NA; OP is probably saving it for that

The OP stated at the bottom that he was saving it for tuition.

CouchDB is pretty nice, and gets less attention on HN than it deserves I think.

First time I heard about CouchDB was many years ago. I bought an O’Reilly book about it, even. At the time MongoDB was gaining a lot of traction, and I think because of that many people overlooked CouchDB.

I recently remembered CouchDB because I have some projects that could potentially benefit from replication between multiple machines. And in the case of my projects I think the database level would be an appropriate place to do replication. Hence CouchDB is an interesting proposition for my projects.

I installed CouchDB on my laptop for the first time in ages, and started inserting documents into it with a third party library for Rust. So far it is working nicely.

I use this as a docker instance running on my old laptop. It just took a minute to set up and works really well. The sync is as good as apple notes or whatever commercial software there is.

Only issue is i could not sync with an old iphone running iOS 12.

Oh sorry. I misread. Ignore my other comment. I forgot my password and can’t edit using the site. Using third party app for HN

I think there are a few plugins via git etc. Syncthing also seems to be recommended but doesn’t work on IOS

Yep; I switched from Obsidian to Logseq because Logseq works the way I always wanted to take notes. They are both great tools, even if Logseq lacks some in the polish department (and honestly, it's pretty good).

So you want WebDAV support?

Obsidian Git has been working great for me too. I use different configuration directories for each device to avoid configuration conflicts. It works very seamlessly once set up.

I think we should be careful when advising young or inexperienced people hacking for the joy of it, lest they make mistakes that are hard to recover. Time is precious -- better to choose wisely than learn from experience.

> Reverse engineering is fine...from a legal [perspective] in a lot of jurisdictions

Sorry, what jurisdiction permits one to violate a contract against reverse-engineering?

This is a pretty big problem that can't be hand-waved away. Companies everywhere have mere copyright on some materials that they make available if you agree e.g., not to reverse-engineer the interface or distribute the materials, essentially hoisting copyright to contract. This is how Java has worked for decades.

> Reverse engineering is fine. It certainly is from a moral point of view

In this case, the server is how Obsidian funds their work, offering free and paid parts. They're clear about it up front; they don't entice you and switch terms after you're committed. So how is it morally justifiable in this case?

> most have unenforceable clauses

The "enforcement" is not that they win their case, but the threat that they can take you to court and force you to pay a lot of money to escape the contract, especially in cases where you have significant investments or income. Unless you're dedicated to being so irrelevantly small that no one cares, why waste time building IP you can't benefit from, or telling the world that you don't care?

For people starting out, I would recommend picking viable projects, i.e., relevant to others, not illegal, not on dying technologies. They can exemplify not only your skills but also your judgment, and introduce you to the whole lifecycle of OS development if they have any legs.

And it may be best to find an unoccupied niche; in this case, there are alternatives already (better to invent than re-invent). (Unless you aspire to being a giant-killer :)

That's in part why the standard young-entrepreneur pattern is to pick new applications of emerging technologies, particularly those that irreversibly disrupt old industries or build new markets.

In this case there are many note-taking applications with syncing server. The unique project today e.g., might be to update an existing sync alternative to maintain a semantic model and then publish semantic cross-references, or publish a results of AI queries over the evolving set of highly-trafficked semantic topics.

FWIW that’s the approach I took with OpenAI. However, Obsidian is a genuinely cool product especially considering that the client app is free. It’s not 100% justifiable to affect the business of a non-VC-backed company.