Public dossier section · @ben
sources
This is @ben's profile revision 1. The original date and editorial confidence below are attributed to its publisher, not independent verification.
Original credited author: Hraness
AI-drafted at Ben Guo's direct request and credited to Hraness; every claim links to its cataloged source.
Back to the full profile · Markdown version · Original document
Published text
- obsidian's new bases feature is finally replacing notion in my workflow — xda, xda (2025, reporting). bases replacing notion in a workflow — with caveats about catalyst gating and fewer view types.
- obsidian isn't actually open source — here's the markdown editor that is — yahoo tech, xda via yahoo (2026-05, reporting). 'with obsidian's entire stance being that you should own your own data, i just assumed that it was open source — i was wrong.'
- i ditched obsidian for notebooklm, and i'm so glad i did — xda, xda (2025, community). leaves for ai-first tooling — 'the lack of an integrated ai' as the dealbreaker.
- i stopped using obsidian after finding this self-hosted notes app — xda, xda (2025, community). 'i had just built a high-maintenance hobby… i hadn't produced a single original thought.'
- i tried replacing obsidian with open-source tools, and here's why i went back — xda, xda (2025, reporting). the open-source alternates can't match the plugin ecosystem — back again.
- i stopped using obsidian for quick notes, and my vault actually got useful — xda, xda (2025, reporting). 'obsidian is more of a library than a notepad' — the electron startup cost and mobile capture friction.
- notion, obsidian, and apple notes all lost to a plain folder of markdown files — xda, mahnoor faisal (2025, community). 'it's beloved by the open-source community despite not being open-source.'
- obsidian's sync pricing hike triggers community backlash — remio.ai, ethan carter (2026-06-23, reporting). the june 2026 sync hike — ~35% annual increase, the 1 gb tier eliminated, no grandfathering. caveat: at least one statistic reads ai-embellished; broad strokes corroborated by forum and reddit threads.
- why i like obsidian — ddanieltan.com, daniel tan (2024-01-17, community). 'the backstage manager of my life' — the love letter that ran 368 comments on hn.
- ditching obsidian and building my own — amberwilliams.io, amber williams (2025-05-05, community). 'i was surprised at this fee because i thought obsidian was open-source… $8 a month… almost $1,000 if i planned to use obsidian for a decade.'
- be careful with obsidian — phong.bearblog.dev, hữu phong (2025-10-23, community). closed-source, no sandbox, plugins 'reviewed only once and not re-audited on updates,' unsigned dmg.
- notes against note-taking systems — sashachapin.substack.com, sasha chapin (2022-01-31, community). the canonical anti-pkm essay — 'getting lost in your knowledge management system is a fantastic way to avoid creating things.' doesn't name obsidian; defined the counter-genre anyway.
- notes against sasha chapin's notes against note-taking systems — echoes & chimes, echoes and chimes (2022-02-13, community). the public rebuttal genre the chapin essay spawned.
- a note on the cargo cult of zettelkasten — chrisaldrich.wordpress.com, chris aldrich (2023-02-03, community). 'a cargo cult of zettelkasten aspirants… may eventually give up, sometimes in shame.'
- why switching from roam research to obsidian is simple, but not easy — medium, martin sauter (2021, community). the importer rough edges — 'simple, but not easy.'
- why i chose obsidian over roam — fork my brain, nicole van der hoeven (2021, community). notable because the author was a roam 'believer' plan buyer and small investor — defecting publicly.
- how to switch from roam research to obsidian — ness labs, anne-laure le cunff (2021, community). the influential migration how-to — roam lock-in as the cautionary contrast.
- what happened to roam research? — canion.blog, canion.blog (2023-05-22, community). 'has obsidian entirely cut its lunch?' — the may 2023 read on roam's fade.
- the fall of roam — every, every / superorganizers (2023, community). 'we got a garbage dump full of crufty links… and we feel guilty and sad about it.' critical of roam, obliquely flattering to the category.
- pkm in retrospect — pkm weekly, curtis mchale (2023-01-22, community). 'roam is out of the picture… people were always dreaming about a tool that did the work.'
- trying logseq — blog.tombert.com, tombert (2025-09, community). 'the one complaint i have with obsidian is that it is not open source… i actually pay for the professional license to support the project.'
- why i left logseq for obsidian after 2+ years — 0x5.uk, tim abell (2026-05-26, community). the reverse-migration essay — calls obsidian 'closed-source freeware' and still switches for reliability.
- rebooting my note-taking — darcynorman.net, d'arcy norman (2026-07-17, community). 'even that had turned into something of a cargo cult… thousands of notes that i never referred to… i just deleted all of those.'
- over-engineering the mind: the obsidian trap — buildfirstbrain.com, buildfirstbrain (2025, community). 'a polished form of procrastination, productivity porn, where optimizing the system substitutes for the hard work.'
- how i use obsidian — calv.info, calvin french-owen (2024, community). the segment co-founder's widely shared workflow — 'the primary goal of the tool should be eliciting thought… 99% of the time i never re-visit my notes, and that is fine.'
- obsidian publish feels like it's still in development and therefore should not cost $198 a year — linkedin, bob doto (2022, community). the canonical publish pricing gripe — still cited in 2026 alternatives posts.
- i love obsidian but hate publishing from it — unmarkdown, unmarkdown (2025, community). 'obsidian publish costs $8 to $16 per month… only outputs to the web.'
- obsidian publish alternatives — unmarkdown, unmarkdown (2026, community). documents the launch-era $20/month pricing and the doto article.
- an exceptional example of thoughtful pricing strategy — robinlandy.substack.com, robin landy (2024, community). the pricing teardown — notes karpathy's 'love letter'; sync as presumed largest revenue source.
- obsidian plugin abuse delivers phantompulse rat — the hacker news, the hacker news (2026-04, reporting). the phantompulse rat coverage — a trust-model weaponization, not an obsidian vulnerability.
- crypto users warned of scam on notes app obsidian — cointelegraph, cointelegraph (2026-04, reporting). the crypto-angle coverage of the shared-vault social-engineering campaign.
- phantompulse: blockchain c2 rat via obsidian plugin abuse — csa labs, cloud security alliance (2026-04-16, reporting). the research note on blockchain-c2 rat delivery via shell commands and hider plugins.
- obsidian disabling community plugins — obsidian forum, obsidian forum (2025-08-27, community). the team remotely deprecated two plugin versions over a bug-report flood — 'does this really justify interacting with a user's personal plugin config?'
- my (largely popular) open source thread was hidden — obsidian forum, obsidian forum (2022-07-05, community). the open-sourcing megathread auto-hidden by community flags, then restored by staff.
- security issue: vibe-coded plugins sent for approval into community plugins — obsidian forum, obsidian forum (2025-07-05, community). the ai-generated plugin flood versus gatekeeping — a ~300-pr review backlog cited.
- ios & icloud slow to start — obsidian forum, obsidian forum (2023, community). 'waiting for icloud to synchronize' blocking launch for 10–30 seconds or more.
- ios app extremely slow to load — obsidian forum, obsidian forum (2023, community). the ios load-time complaint thread.
- obsidian ios performance hit after enabling icloud advanced data protection? — obsidian forum, obsidian forum (2024, community). icloud advanced data protection taking app load from ~5s to ~45s.
- ios and icloud: stuck on loading workspace — obsidian forum, obsidian forum (2024, community). 'loading workspace' hangs requiring workspace-mobile.json surgery.
- obsidian sync storage options — obsidian forum, obsidian forum (2026-05-31, community). the 50 gb tier's disappearance ahead of the 2026 price hike.
- how to use obsidian sync at work (without breaking the rules) — hamy.xyz, hamy (2025-09, community). sync is 'basically banned by default' at companies that haven't approved it — the corporate-approval reality.
- obsidian: the king of learning tools (full guide + setup) — youtube, odysseas (2024-04-24, community). 3.26m views — the single biggest obsidian video.
- obsidian for beginners: start here — youtube — linking your thinking, nick milo (2020-09-15, community). 2.41m views — the foundational onboarding video; 'this wasn't a product walkthrough. this was a guided meditation.'
- give me 15 minutes. i'll teach you 80% of obsidian — youtube — linking your thinking, nick milo (2025-09-26, community). 2.10m views — the second wind of mainstream interest post-bases.
- the fun and efficient note-taking system i use in my phd — youtube, morganeua (2022-01-27, community). 1.57m views — the phd note-taking system.
- how to take smart notes (3 methods no one's talking about) — youtube, vicky zhao (2021, community). 1.37m views — the smart-notes methods video.
- my simple note-taking setup | zettelkasten in obsidian — youtube, artem kirsanov (2022, community). 817k views — the zettelkasten-in-obsidian setup.
- my obsidian setup: the king of note taking apps — youtube, christopher lawley (2024-08-29, community). 809k views — 'the king of note taking apps.'
- 10 must-have obsidian plugins — youtube, nicole van der hoeven (2022, community). 741k views — the must-have plugins canon.
- why i left notion for obsidian — youtube, rachel v madrigal (2022-01-31, community). 675k views — the 'influencer switch' genre at scale.
- i tried obsidian note taking for a week — youtube, john mavrick (2021, community). 531k views — the week-long trial genre.
- how the ceo of obsidian takes his notes (underrated genius) — youtube, karlos obsidian tutorials (2025-12, community). 526k views — the kepano-vault essay reaching video scale.
- why i switched to using obsidian (as a former notion user) — youtube, reysu (2025-11, community). 445k views — the former-notion-user switch genre, still running.
- i ditched obsidian for this note app and i'm never going back! — youtube, shu omi (2024-10-18, community). 603k views — 'i found myself spending so much time constantly tweaking my setup and installing hundreds of plugins that i didn't work on what i really needed to do.'
- why are people leaving obsidian for this note app? | capacities review — youtube, shu omi (2023-09-08, community). 446k views — the video that framed the capacities exodus narrative.
- stop procrastinating with note-taking apps like obsidian, roam, logseq — youtube, sam matla (2023, community). 533k views — the video-form 'productivity porn' critique.
- the perfect note-taking app — youtube, ali abdaal (2020-08-23, community). 797k views — the pre-fandom era taxonomy; abdaal later publicly preferred apple notes.
- how i organized my life using only apple notes — youtube, zach highley (2025, community). 681k views — the apple notes counter-current.
- how i use obsidian + claude code to run my life — youtube, greg isenberg (2026-03, community). 455k views — the ai-era vault usage video.
- claude just killed the note-taking app. here is proof. — youtube, icor with tom (2026-04, community). 473k views — the 'ai kills pkm' genre.
- open source alternatives to the most popular productivity apps — youtube, the linux experiment (2024, community). 1.75m views — obsidian listed among apps needing oss alternatives.
- could it be time to switch? (evernote → obsidian, with nick milo) — linkedin, tiago forte (2024-01-25, community). the basb creator testing obsidian with the lyt founder — 'an amazing community that ships plugins faster than startups backed by vcs.'
- r/obsidianmd stats 2026 — reddtrends, reddtrends (2026, reporting). ~357.7k members mid-2026 — trackers disagree; treat as a range.
- r/obsidianmd subreddit stats — gummysearch, gummysearch (2026, reporting). ~360k members — the upper end of the range.
- many users use reddit possibly because they are unaware… — feddit.dk, lemmy (2024, community). the subreddit carries an official notice steering users to the forum.
- obsidian october 2024 — obsidian, obsidian (2024-10-01, primary). the 2024 edition pivoted to plugin quality and performance — 'help your users experience <1 second load times'; ~2,000 plugins by then.
- obsidian roundup, october 2 2021 — obsidian roundup, eleanor konik (2021-10-02, community). the obsidian roundup newsletter — community scaffolding next to o_o and gems of the year.
- bending spoons acquisition cold email to obsidian — bluesky, steph ango (2024-12-19, community). the publicized cold acquisition email — resonated as proof-of-independence amid evernote's bending spoons-era decline.
- dendron development stopped? — github, dendron (2023-02, community). 'we were ultimately not able to find product market fit for a venture backed business' — the cautionary tale invoked in every obsidian business-model debate.
- karpathy's obsidian endorsement thread — x, andrej karpathy (2024-02-24, community). 'the file is the source of truth, not the application' — the february 2024 endorsement of the philosophy over the note-taking.
- llm knowledge bases — x, andrej karpathy (2026-04-02, community). 1.2m+ views — obsidian cast as the ide/frontend for an llm-compiled markdown wiki, web clipper for ingest.
- karpathy's llm knowledge base workflow explained — analytics drift, analytics drift (2026-04, reporting). the secondary write-up carrying the 1.2m+ view count.
- the personal second brain — noferi.it, stefano noferi (2025, community). collects the critique canon — tietze, chapin, newton, matuschak — plus the license and bases dates.
- single-purpose notebooks — deep questions (podscripts transcript), cal newport (2023, community). the deep questions skepticism — second brain as fine for unstructured hoarding, 'not my best brain.'
- obsidian is now completely free to use — even for businesses — medium, michael swengel (2025-02, community). the medium explainer on the free-for-work change.
- obsidian bases: transforming notes into dynamic data — algustionesa.com, algustionesa (2025-08, community). the scope-creep and vision-drift framing of the bases launch.
- pkm weekly 2024-10-06 — pkm weekly, pkm weekly (2024-10-06, community). the newsletter record of the 2024 o_o plugin-quality framing.
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/sources
Original source occurrences
- obsidian's new bases feature is finally replacing notion in my workflow · xda · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-xda-bases · xda
bases replacing notion in a workflow — with caveats about catalyst gating and fewer view types.
- obsidian isn't actually open source — here's the markdown editor that is · yahoo tech · 2026-05 (month) · original ID: src-c-yahoo-not-oss · xda via yahoo
'with obsidian's entire stance being that you should own your own data, i just assumed that it was open source — i was wrong.'
- i ditched obsidian for notebooklm, and i'm so glad i did · xda · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-xda-notebooklm · xda
leaves for ai-first tooling — 'the lack of an integrated ai' as the dealbreaker.
- i stopped using obsidian after finding this self-hosted notes app · xda · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-xda-memos · xda
'i had just built a high-maintenance hobby… i hadn't produced a single original thought.'
- i tried replacing obsidian with open-source tools, and here's why i went back · xda · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-xda-oss-back · xda
the open-source alternates can't match the plugin ecosystem — back again.
- i stopped using obsidian for quick notes, and my vault actually got useful · xda · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-xda-quick-notes · xda
'obsidian is more of a library than a notepad' — the electron startup cost and mobile capture friction.
- notion, obsidian, and apple notes all lost to a plain folder of markdown files · xda · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-xda-plain-folder · mahnoor faisal
'it's beloved by the open-source community despite not being open-source.'
- obsidian's sync pricing hike triggers community backlash · remio.ai · 2026-06-23 (day) · original ID: src-c-remio-sync-hike · ethan carter
the june 2026 sync hike — ~35% annual increase, the 1 gb tier eliminated, no grandfathering. caveat: at least one statistic reads ai-embellished; broad strokes corroborated by forum and reddit threads.
- why i like obsidian · ddanieltan.com · 2024-01-17 (day) · original ID: src-c-ddanieltan · daniel tan
'the backstage manager of my life' — the love letter that ran 368 comments on hn.
- ditching obsidian and building my own · amberwilliams.io · 2025-05-05 (day) · original ID: src-c-amber-ditching · amber williams
'i was surprised at this fee because i thought obsidian was open-source… $8 a month… almost $1,000 if i planned to use obsidian for a decade.'
- be careful with obsidian · phong.bearblog.dev · 2025-10-23 (day) · original ID: src-c-be-careful · hữu phong
closed-source, no sandbox, plugins 'reviewed only once and not re-audited on updates,' unsigned dmg.
- notes against note-taking systems · sashachapin.substack.com · 2022-01-31 (day) · original ID: src-c-chapin-notes · sasha chapin
the canonical anti-pkm essay — 'getting lost in your knowledge management system is a fantastic way to avoid creating things.' doesn't name obsidian; defined the counter-genre anyway.
- notes against sasha chapin's notes against note-taking systems · echoes & chimes · 2022-02-13 (day) · original ID: src-c-against-chapin · echoes and chimes
the public rebuttal genre the chapin essay spawned.
- a note on the cargo cult of zettelkasten · chrisaldrich.wordpress.com · 2023-02-03 (day) · original ID: src-c-aldrich-cargo · chris aldrich
'a cargo cult of zettelkasten aspirants… may eventually give up, sometimes in shame.'
- why switching from roam research to obsidian is simple, but not easy · medium · 2021 (year) · original ID: src-c-sauter-roam · martin sauter
the importer rough edges — 'simple, but not easy.'
- why i chose obsidian over roam · fork my brain · 2021 (year) · original ID: src-c-nvdh-roam · nicole van der hoeven
notable because the author was a roam 'believer' plan buyer and small investor — defecting publicly.
- how to switch from roam research to obsidian · ness labs · 2021 (year) · original ID: src-c-nesslabs-roam · anne-laure le cunff
the influential migration how-to — roam lock-in as the cautionary contrast.
- what happened to roam research? · canion.blog · 2023-05-22 (day) · original ID: src-c-canion-roam · canion.blog
'has obsidian entirely cut its lunch?' — the may 2023 read on roam's fade.
- the fall of roam · every · 2023 (year) · original ID: src-c-every-fall-of-roam · every / superorganizers
'we got a garbage dump full of crufty links… and we feel guilty and sad about it.' critical of roam, obliquely flattering to the category.
- pkm in retrospect · pkm weekly · 2023-01-22 (day) · original ID: src-c-mchale-pkm-retrospect · curtis mchale
'roam is out of the picture… people were always dreaming about a tool that did the work.'
- trying logseq · blog.tombert.com · 2025-09 (month) · original ID: src-c-tombert-logseq · tombert
'the one complaint i have with obsidian is that it is not open source… i actually pay for the professional license to support the project.'
- why i left logseq for obsidian after 2+ years · 0x5.uk · 2026-05-26 (day) · original ID: src-c-abell-logseq · tim abell
the reverse-migration essay — calls obsidian 'closed-source freeware' and still switches for reliability.
- rebooting my note-taking · darcynorman.net · 2026-07-17 (day) · original ID: src-c-darcy-reboot · d'arcy norman
'even that had turned into something of a cargo cult… thousands of notes that i never referred to… i just deleted all of those.'
- over-engineering the mind: the obsidian trap · buildfirstbrain.com · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-obsidian-trap · buildfirstbrain
'a polished form of procrastination, productivity porn, where optimizing the system substitutes for the hard work.'
- how i use obsidian · calv.info · 2024 (year) · original ID: src-calv-info · calvin french-owen
the segment co-founder's widely shared workflow — 'the primary goal of the tool should be eliciting thought… 99% of the time i never re-visit my notes, and that is fine.'
- obsidian publish feels like it's still in development and therefore should not cost $198 a year · linkedin · 2022 (year) · original ID: src-c-doto-publish · bob doto
the canonical publish pricing gripe — still cited in 2026 alternatives posts.
- i love obsidian but hate publishing from it · unmarkdown · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-unmarkdown-publish · unmarkdown
'obsidian publish costs $8 to $16 per month… only outputs to the web.'
- obsidian publish alternatives · unmarkdown · 2026 (year) · original ID: src-c-unmarkdown-alternatives · unmarkdown
documents the launch-era $20/month pricing and the doto article.
- an exceptional example of thoughtful pricing strategy · robinlandy.substack.com · 2024 (year) · original ID: src-c-landy-pricing · robin landy
the pricing teardown — notes karpathy's 'love letter'; sync as presumed largest revenue source.
- obsidian plugin abuse delivers phantompulse rat · the hacker news · 2026-04 (month) · original ID: src-c-thn-phantompulse · the hacker news
the phantompulse rat coverage — a trust-model weaponization, not an obsidian vulnerability.
- crypto users warned of scam on notes app obsidian · cointelegraph · 2026-04 (month) · original ID: src-c-cointelegraph-phantompulse · cointelegraph
the crypto-angle coverage of the shared-vault social-engineering campaign.
- phantompulse: blockchain c2 rat via obsidian plugin abuse · csa labs · 2026-04-16 (day) · original ID: src-c-csa-phantompulse · cloud security alliance
the research note on blockchain-c2 rat delivery via shell commands and hider plugins.
- obsidian disabling community plugins · obsidian forum · 2025-08-27 (day) · original ID: src-c-forum-disable-plugins · obsidian forum
the team remotely deprecated two plugin versions over a bug-report flood — 'does this really justify interacting with a user's personal plugin config?'
- my (largely popular) open source thread was hidden · obsidian forum · 2022-07-05 (day) · original ID: src-c-forum-hidden-oss · obsidian forum
the open-sourcing megathread auto-hidden by community flags, then restored by staff.
- security issue: vibe-coded plugins sent for approval into community plugins · obsidian forum · 2025-07-05 (day) · original ID: src-c-forum-vibe-plugins · obsidian forum
the ai-generated plugin flood versus gatekeeping — a ~300-pr review backlog cited.
- ios & icloud slow to start · obsidian forum · 2023 (year) · original ID: src-c-forum-icloud-slow · obsidian forum
'waiting for icloud to synchronize' blocking launch for 10–30 seconds or more.
- ios app extremely slow to load · obsidian forum · 2023 (year) · original ID: src-c-forum-ios-slow · obsidian forum
the ios load-time complaint thread.
- obsidian ios performance hit after enabling icloud advanced data protection? · obsidian forum · 2024 (year) · original ID: src-c-forum-icloud-adp · obsidian forum
icloud advanced data protection taking app load from ~5s to ~45s.
- ios and icloud: stuck on loading workspace · obsidian forum · 2024 (year) · original ID: src-c-forum-icloud-stuck · obsidian forum
'loading workspace' hangs requiring workspace-mobile.json surgery.
- obsidian sync storage options · obsidian forum · 2026-05-31 (day) · original ID: src-c-forum-sync-storage · obsidian forum
the 50 gb tier's disappearance ahead of the 2026 price hike.
- how to use obsidian sync at work (without breaking the rules) · hamy.xyz · 2025-09 (month) · original ID: src-c-hamy-work · hamy
sync is 'basically banned by default' at companies that haven't approved it — the corporate-approval reality.
- obsidian: the king of learning tools (full guide + setup) · youtube · 2024-04-24 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-odysseas · odysseas
3.26m views — the single biggest obsidian video.
- obsidian for beginners: start here · youtube — linking your thinking · 2020-09-15 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-lyt-beginners · nick milo
2.41m views — the foundational onboarding video; 'this wasn't a product walkthrough. this was a guided meditation.'
- give me 15 minutes. i'll teach you 80% of obsidian · youtube — linking your thinking · 2025-09-26 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-lyt-15min · nick milo
2.10m views — the second wind of mainstream interest post-bases.
- the fun and efficient note-taking system i use in my phd · youtube · 2022-01-27 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-morganeua · morganeua
1.57m views — the phd note-taking system.
- how to take smart notes (3 methods no one's talking about) · youtube · 2021 (year) · original ID: src-c-yt-vickyzhao · vicky zhao
1.37m views — the smart-notes methods video.
- my simple note-taking setup | zettelkasten in obsidian · youtube · 2022 (year) · original ID: src-c-yt-kirsanov · artem kirsanov
817k views — the zettelkasten-in-obsidian setup.
- my obsidian setup: the king of note taking apps · youtube · 2024-08-29 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-lawley · christopher lawley
809k views — 'the king of note taking apps.'
- 10 must-have obsidian plugins · youtube · 2022 (year) · original ID: src-c-yt-nvdh-plugins · nicole van der hoeven
741k views — the must-have plugins canon.
- why i left notion for obsidian · youtube · 2022-01-31 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-rachel-notion · rachel v madrigal
675k views — the 'influencer switch' genre at scale.
- i tried obsidian note taking for a week · youtube · 2021 (year) · original ID: src-c-yt-mavrick · john mavrick
531k views — the week-long trial genre.
- how the ceo of obsidian takes his notes (underrated genius) · youtube · 2025-12 (month) · original ID: src-c-yt-karlos-ceo · karlos obsidian tutorials
526k views — the kepano-vault essay reaching video scale.
- why i switched to using obsidian (as a former notion user) · youtube · 2025-11 (month) · original ID: src-c-yt-reysu · reysu
445k views — the former-notion-user switch genre, still running.
- i ditched obsidian for this note app and i'm never going back! · youtube · 2024-10-18 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-shu-ditched · shu omi
603k views — 'i found myself spending so much time constantly tweaking my setup and installing hundreds of plugins that i didn't work on what i really needed to do.'
- why are people leaving obsidian for this note app? | capacities review · youtube · 2023-09-08 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-shu-capacities · shu omi
446k views — the video that framed the capacities exodus narrative.
- stop procrastinating with note-taking apps like obsidian, roam, logseq · youtube · 2023 (year) · original ID: src-c-yt-matla · sam matla
533k views — the video-form 'productivity porn' critique.
- the perfect note-taking app · youtube · 2020-08-23 (day) · original ID: src-c-yt-abdaal-perfect · ali abdaal
797k views — the pre-fandom era taxonomy; abdaal later publicly preferred apple notes.
- how i organized my life using only apple notes · youtube · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-yt-highley-apple · zach highley
681k views — the apple notes counter-current.
- how i use obsidian + claude code to run my life · youtube · 2026-03 (month) · original ID: src-c-yt-isenberg-claude · greg isenberg
455k views — the ai-era vault usage video.
- claude just killed the note-taking app. here is proof. · youtube · 2026-04 (month) · original ID: src-c-yt-icor-claude · icor with tom
473k views — the 'ai kills pkm' genre.
- open source alternatives to the most popular productivity apps · youtube · 2024 (year) · original ID: src-c-yt-linux-exp · the linux experiment
1.75m views — obsidian listed among apps needing oss alternatives.
- could it be time to switch? (evernote → obsidian, with nick milo) · linkedin · 2024-01-25 (day) · original ID: src-c-forte-milo-video · tiago forte
the basb creator testing obsidian with the lyt founder — 'an amazing community that ships plugins faster than startups backed by vcs.'
- r/obsidianmd stats 2026 · reddtrends · 2026 (year) · original ID: src-c-reddtrends · reddtrends
~357.7k members mid-2026 — trackers disagree; treat as a range.
- r/obsidianmd subreddit stats · gummysearch · 2026 (year) · original ID: src-c-gummysearch · gummysearch
~360k members — the upper end of the range.
- many users use reddit possibly because they are unaware… · feddit.dk · 2024 (year) · original ID: src-c-lemmy-reddit · lemmy
the subreddit carries an official notice steering users to the forum.
- obsidian october 2024 · obsidian · 2024-10-01 (day) · original ID: src-c-obsidian-october · obsidian
the 2024 edition pivoted to plugin quality and performance — 'help your users experience <1 second load times'; ~2,000 plugins by then.
- obsidian roundup, october 2 2021 · obsidian roundup · 2021-10-02 (day) · original ID: src-c-roundup-2021 · eleanor konik
the obsidian roundup newsletter — community scaffolding next to o_o and gems of the year.
- bending spoons acquisition cold email to obsidian · bluesky · 2024-12-19 (day) · original ID: src-c-bsky-bending-spoons · steph ango
the publicized cold acquisition email — resonated as proof-of-independence amid evernote's bending spoons-era decline.
- dendron development stopped? · github · 2023-02 (month) · original ID: src-c-dendron-eol · dendron
'we were ultimately not able to find product market fit for a venture backed business' — the cautionary tale invoked in every obsidian business-model debate.
- karpathy's obsidian endorsement thread · x · 2024-02-24 (day) · original ID: src-c-karpathy-love-letter · andrej karpathy
'the file is the source of truth, not the application' — the february 2024 endorsement of the philosophy over the note-taking.
- llm knowledge bases · x · 2026-04-02 (day) · original ID: src-c-karpathy-llm-wiki · andrej karpathy
1.2m+ views — obsidian cast as the ide/frontend for an llm-compiled markdown wiki, web clipper for ingest.
- karpathy's llm knowledge base workflow explained · analytics drift · 2026-04 (month) · original ID: src-c-analyticsdrift-karpathy · analytics drift
the secondary write-up carrying the 1.2m+ view count.
- the personal second brain · noferi.it · 2025 (year) · original ID: src-c-noferi-second-brain · stefano noferi
collects the critique canon — tietze, chapin, newton, matuschak — plus the license and bases dates.
- single-purpose notebooks · deep questions (podscripts transcript) · 2023 (year) · original ID: src-c-newport-podcast · cal newport
the deep questions skepticism — second brain as fine for unstructured hoarding, 'not my best brain.'
- obsidian is now completely free to use — even for businesses · medium · 2025-02 (month) · original ID: src-c-medium-free-work · michael swengel
the medium explainer on the free-for-work change.
- obsidian bases: transforming notes into dynamic data · algustionesa.com · 2025-08 (month) · original ID: src-c-algustionesa-bases · algustionesa
the scope-creep and vision-drift framing of the bases launch.
- pkm weekly 2024-10-06 · pkm weekly · 2024-10-06 (day) · original ID: src-c-pkmweekly-oo · pkm weekly
the newsletter record of the 2024 o_o plugin-quality framing.