# obsidian: history

> the company, sourced and dated — dynalist, the 2020 beta, and building in public without vc.

## the dynalist years (2015–2019)

shida li and erica xu meet at waterloo, build the outliner dynalist as students, and learn exactly what a notes product costs — before obsidian exists.

- 2015-03 — omniflow begins: shida li and erica xu — waterloo students — start 'omniflow,' a web outliner, as a side project. it is the direct ancestor of both dynalist and obsidian. (reported; sources: [about the makers](https://talk.dynalist.io/t/about-the-makers/98), [projects: dynalist](https://ericaxu.com/Projects/Dynalist))
- 2015-07 — omniflow becomes dynalist: after a hacker news front-page post and a product hunt top-ten, omniflow is renamed dynalist — partly over potential conflict with the omni group. (reported; sources: [about the makers](https://talk.dynalist.io/t/about-the-makers/98), [projects: dynalist](https://ericaxu.com/Projects/Dynalist))
- 2015 — dynalist becomes the runway: dynalist grows into a freemium outlining saas run by two people — and its revenue later lets them build obsidian without outside money. (inferred; sources: [about the makers](https://talk.dynalist.io/t/about-the-makers/98), [dynalist](https://dynalist.io/))
- 2019-05 — the local-first paper: ink & switch publishes 'local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud' — kleppmann, wiggins, van hardenberg, mcgranaghan — naming the architecture obsidian is about to ship as a product. (reported; sources: [local-first software: you own your data, in spite of the cloud](https://www.inkandswitch.com/local-first/), [ink & switch](https://www.inkandswitch.com/))

## the beta (early–mid 2020)

a quarantine project becomes a private discord alpha, then a public beta — local files, backlinks, a graph view, and the plugin registry repo created before launch.

- 2020-01 — conceived in quarantine: obsidian is conceived during covid quarantine — erica had carried the idea for about two years; a fan wiki claims the first line of code was written january 31, 2020, which is plausible but single-source and weak. (reported; sources: [exploring the power of note-making with the co-founder of obsidian](https://nesslabs.com/obsidian-featured-tool), [obsidian gems of the year winners](https://all-in-obsidian.li3huo.com/obsidian/gems-of-the-year-winners/))
- 2020-03-30 — v0.0.1: desktop v0.0.1 — the earliest release in the official changelog, and the first distributable electron build. access stays limited to alpha testers. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v0.0.1](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2020-03-30-desktop-v0.0.1/))
- 2020-04-10 — rapid alpha iteration: v0.1.0 ships inside two weeks of v0.0.1; the obsidian.md homepage is live and archived the same day. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v0.1.0](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2020-04-10-desktop-v0.1.0/), [obsidian.md homepage](https://web.archive.org/web/20200410075559/https://obsidian.md/))
- 2020-05-08 — plugin registry pre-staged: the obsidian-releases github repo — later home of the community plugin and theme registries — is created three weeks before the public beta. the plugin economy was planned, not emergent. (confirmed; sources: [obsidianmd/obsidian-releases](https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-releases))
- 2020-05-19 — the forum goes live: the obsidian forum's first topics are timestamped may 19–20 — licat is user #1, silver user #2, invited by him. the community infrastructure is populated in the final days of the private beta. (confirmed; sources: [obsidian forum](https://forum.obsidian.md/), [u/licat.json](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/Licat.json), [u/silver.json](https://forum.obsidian.md/u/Silver.json))
- 2020-05-24 — catalyst insider builds: changelog v0.6.4 notes catalyst license holders can enable insider builds — the early-access paid tier exists before the public launch. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v0.6.4](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2020-05-24-desktop-v0.6.4/))
- 2020-05-27 — the show hn launch: erica posts 'show hn: obsidian — a knowledge base that works on local markdown files.' it reaches ~1,087 points. in the thread she names the three values: local-first, plain-text markdown, and 'linking like an ide.' publish is already planned but 'not yet available.' (confirmed; sources: [show hn: obsidian — a knowledge base that works on local markdown files](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23324598), [obsidian on product hunt](https://www.producthunt.com/products/obsidian))
- 2020-05-30 — dynalist hands its users over: the dynalist blog tells its users the public beta 'was launched two days ago' — 'obsidian values connections more, whereas dynalist values structures more… we will develop and maintain dynalist as usual.' (confirmed; sources: [dynalist & obsidian](https://blog.dynalist.io/obsidian/), [dynalist & obsidian](https://talk.dynalist.io/t/dynalist-obsidian/6736))

## building in public (late 2020–2021)

publish before sync, catalyst before launch, mobile within fourteen months — the no-vc business model assembles itself in public while the plugin economy takes off.

- 2020-07-18 — the pricing menu: the wayback pricing snapshot already shows the whole business model: personal use free, catalyst from $25 one-time, commercial $50/user/year, sync early-bird $4/month, publish early-bird $8/month/site — services pre-sold before sync shipped. (confirmed; sources: [obsidian pricing, july 2020](https://web.archive.org/web/20200718140416/https://obsidian.md/pricing))
- 2020-08-27 — the name explained: silver answers 'why is obsidian named so?' — 'if your raw, unstable thoughts are lava, then obsidian is… well, obsidian. it is your crystallized (and beautiful) knowledge.' plus minecraft: the hardest block in the game. (confirmed; sources: [why is obsidian named so?](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/4837))
- 2020-09-30 — obsidian publish ships: v0.9.2 ships the publish plugin — obsidian publish, the paid site-publishing service, is live. publish actually predates sync as the first add-on. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v0.9.2](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2020-09-30-desktop-v0.9.2/))
- 2020-10-29 — the plugin directory: v0.9.8 adds the in-app community plugin browser — the formal start of the plugin economy that becomes the moat. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v0.9.8](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2020-10-29-desktop-v0.9.8/), [the future of obsidian plugins](https://obsidian.md/blog/future-of-plugins/))
- 2020-12-07 — obsidian sync: obsidian sync becomes purchasable on insider builds — end-to-end encryption, selective sync, version history — and reaches the public channel about a week later. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v0.9.21](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2020-12-07-desktop-v0.9.21/), [desktop v0.10.1](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2020-12-16-desktop-v0.10.1/))
- 2021-03-17 — mobile closed beta: mobile v0.0.12 — the first changelogged mobile build, in closed beta for catalyst vips. (confirmed; sources: [mobile v0.0.12](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2021-03-17-mobile-v0.0.12/), [when is the mobile app coming out?](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/when-is-the-mobile-app-coming-out/14100))
- 2021-07-07 — mobile ships: mobile v1.0.0 goes public on ios and android; the public-facing launch lands july 12 — #1 product of the day on product hunt, 760 points on hn. (confirmed; sources: [mobile v1.0.0](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2021-07-07-mobile-v1.0.0/), [obsidian for mobile](https://hunted.space/dashboard/obsidian/launches/obsidian-for-mobile), [show hn: obsidian for mobile](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=27807850))
- 2021-07-01 — early-bird endgame: silver announces early-bird pricing ends september 30 — and in the same post tells users which free alternatives (icloud, git, hugo) work instead. buyers who paid once keep the discount for life. (confirmed; sources: [last chance to get early bird discount](https://obsidian.md/blog/last-chance-to-get-early-bird/))
- 2021-09-21 — first obsidian october: the first obsidian october — a community build event for plugins and themes. the judges include liam, mgmeyers, argentum, and kepano — community members who later joined or shaped the team. (confirmed; sources: [obsidian october 2021](https://obsidian.md/blog/2021-obsidian-october-announcement/))
- 2021-11-10 — live preview: v0.13.0 introduces experimental live preview — wysiwyg-style editing, the most-requested feature since launch; it becomes the default editor a month later. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v0.13.0](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2021-11-10-desktop-v0.13.0/), [desktop v0.13.8](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2021-12-09-desktop-v0.13.8/), [live preview update](https://obsidian.md/blog/live-preview-update/))
- 2021-12-08 — gems of the year: silver opens the first named gems of the year awards — 'that time of the year again' implies a 2020 precursor that was never formally named. (confirmed; sources: [2021 gems of the year nominations](https://obsidian.md/blog/2021-goty-nominations/), [2021 gems of the year winners](https://obsidian.md/blog/2021-goty-winners/))

## the kepano era (2022–2023)

1.0, canvas, and the author of the most-installed theme becomes ceo — 'file over app' turns the architecture into a public philosophy.

- 2022-10-13 — obsidian 1.0: obsidian 1.0.0 drops the beta label — a redesigned ui (contracted to kepano), tabs, tab stacks, theme versioning. hn: ~1,329 points, 565 comments. erica notes the first private beta users came 'from a comment under a hn thread about org-roam.' (confirmed; sources: [desktop v1.0.0](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2022-10-13-desktop-v1.0.0/), [obsidian 1.0](https://obsidian.md/1.0), [obsidian 1.0](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33190433))
- 2022-12-05 — canvas: canvas enters early access — an infinite spatial canvas for notes, images, and embeds — and reaches everyone december 23. its show hn becomes the highest-scoring obsidian submission ever: 1,380 points. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v1.1.0](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2022-12-05-desktop-v1.1.0/), [desktop v1.1.9](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2022-12-23-desktop-v1.1.9/), [show hn: obsidian canvas](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=34066824))
- 2023-02-06 — kepano becomes ceo: steph ango — kepano, the minimal theme author who pitched the founders rather than the reverse — joins full-time as ceo. 'there are no investors pushing us to compromise on these values.' (confirmed; sources: [i'm joining obsidian full-time as ceo](https://obsidian.md/blog/kepano-ceo/), [ceo announcement thread](https://forum.obsidian.md/t/53919), [obsidian ceo steph ango on productivity software and notes apps](https://www.theverge.com/decoder-podcast-with-nilay-patel/760522/obsidian-ceo-steph-ango-kepano-productivity-software-notes-app))
- 2023-04-18 — publish repriced down: publish is repriced down to $96/year or $10/month per site — the first of several kepano-era price cuts. (confirmed; sources: [obsidian publish now offers more for less](https://obsidian.md/blog/obsidian-publish-now-offers-more-for-less/))
- 2023-05-09 — pdf support: v1.3 adds built-in pdf reading and annotation. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v1.3](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2023-05-09-desktop-v1.3/))
- 2023-06-01 — new icon, first stats: kepano's first company byline: the new gem-style icon, the knapping metaphor, and the first official stats — ~1,000 community plugins, 100,000 discord members, 1 million downloads on the latest release. the blog and changelog pages debut the same day. (confirmed; sources: [the new obsidian icon](https://obsidian.md/blog/new-obsidian-icon/))
- 2023-08-31 — properties: properties ships to all users — a structured yaml-frontmatter ui that makes obsidian viable as a lightweight database, and the ground bases later builds on. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v1.4.5](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2023-08-31-desktop-v1.4.5/))
- 2023-11-21 — beyond a million users: kepano announces sync expansion — 10 vaults, 100 gb, regional servers — and says obsidian has 'grown beyond a million users.' self-reported; the company runs no analytics. (confirmed; sources: [new obsidian sync plans](https://obsidian.md/blog/new-sync-plans/))

## recent history (2024–)

web clipper, bases, audits, a cli for agents — the product keeps compounding while the industry around it pivots to ai.

- 2023-12-01 — first security audit: cure53 completes the first third-party security audit of the apps; a second follows a year later. the audit cadence becomes annual. (confirmed; sources: [obsidian security](https://obsidian.md/security), [obsidian sync audits by cure53 and trail of bits](https://obsidian.md/blog/cure53-tob-sync-audits/))
- 2024-03-20 — sync standard: a cheaper sync standard plan launches at $4/month billed yearly — answering the pricing critique with a lower rung. (confirmed; sources: [new sync standard plan](https://obsidian.md/blog/standard-plan/), [obsidian sync now starts at $4 per month](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=39771936))
- 2024-08-24 — the five-hour outage: a ~5-hour outage takes down sync, publish, login, and signup — a forced reboot plus a misconfigured auto-restart. licat posts the postmortem on discord; it survives via a lemmy mirror. (confirmed; sources: [obsidian sync appears to be down](https://blorp.ani.social/home/posts/https%3A%2F%2Fdiscuss.tchncs.de%2Fpost%2F20931466))
- 2024-11-11 — web clipper: obsidian web clipper launches — 'save the web': a free, mit-licensed browser extension that clips and highlights pages into durable markdown, led by kepano. (confirmed; sources: [save the web](https://obsidian.md/blog/save-the-web/), [obsidianmd/obsidian-clipper](https://github.com/obsidianmd/obsidian-clipper), [obsidian web clipper](https://obsidian.md/clipper))
- 2025-02-20 — free for work: 'obsidian is now free for work' — the $50/user/year commercial license becomes optional. the post reveals over 10,000 organizations use obsidian, with thousands of daily employee-users at amazon and google each (self-reported). (confirmed; sources: [obsidian is now free for work](https://obsidian.md/blog/free-for-work/), [obsidian is now free for work](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43117020))
- 2025-08-18 — bases: bases reaches all users — database-style views over note properties, saved as plain .base files. the biggest core-feature addition since canvas, and the flashpoint of the 'scope creep' debate. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v1.9.0](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2025-05-21-desktop-v1.9.0/), [obsidian 1.9.10 changelog](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2025-08-18-desktop-v1.9.10/), [obsidian bases](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44945532))
- 2025-12-01 — the sync audits: obsidian publishes the cure53 and trail of bits sync audits together — including a disclosed high-severity weak-randomness flaw that could have allowed recovery of encrypted files, remediated and validated. (confirmed; sources: [obsidian sync audits by cure53 and trail of bits](https://obsidian.md/blog/cure53-tob-sync-audits/), [obsidian sync code review](https://obsidian.md/files/security/2025-Obsidian-TrailofBits-Sync-Audit.pdf))
- 2026-02-27 — the obsidian cli: the obsidian cli debuts in v1.12 — 'read, search, and write to your vault programmatically. give agentic tools the ability to interact with your vault' — plus headless sync for servers. (confirmed; sources: [desktop v1.12.4](https://obsidian.md/changelog/2026-02-27-desktop-v1.12.4/), [obsidian cli](https://obsidian.md/cli), [sync headless docs](https://obsidian.md/help/sync/headless))
- 2026-05-12 — the community directory relaunch: community.obsidian.md relaunches with a developer dashboard and automated per-version security review — because coding agents flooded the queue: 4,000+ plugins and themes, 120m+ downloads, a 2,300-submission backlog cleared. (confirmed; sources: [the future of obsidian plugins](https://obsidian.md/blog/future-of-plugins/), [the future of obsidian plugins](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48109970))

AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request and credited to Hraness; every claim links to its cataloged source.

Canonical page: https://hraness.com/obsidian/history


Published by @ben in profile revision 1.
Original document: https://hraness.com/obsidian/history
Original credited author: Hraness
AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request and credited to Hraness; every claim links to its cataloged source.

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````