Obsidian (software)

Obsidian is a personal knowledge base and note-taking software application that operates on Markdown files. It allows users to make internal links for notes and then to visualize the connections as a graph. It is designed to help users organize and structure their thoughts and knowledge in a flexible, non-linear way. The software is free for personal use, with commercial licenses available for pay.

History
Obsidian was founded by Shida Li and Erica Xu while quarantining during the COVID-19 pandemic. Li and Xu, who had met while studying at the University of Waterloo, had already collaborated on several development projects. Obsidian was initially released on 30 March 2020. Version 1.0.0 was released in October 2022. Version 1.1, which added the Canvas core plugin, released in December 2022. In February 2023, Steph Ango joined Obsidian as CEO.

Features
Obsidian is built on Electron. It is a cross-platform application that runs on Windows, Linux, and macOS, as well as mobile operating systems such as Android and iOS. There is no web-based version of the software. Obsidian on all platforms can be customized by adding plugins and themes, which enable users to extend the software's functionality with additional features or integration with other tools. Obsidian differentiates between core plugins, which are released and maintained by the Obsidian team, and community plugins, which are open-sourced through GitHub and are contributed by users. Examples of community plugins include a Kanban-style task board and a calendar widget. There are over 200 community made themes to use with the app.

Obsidian operates on a folder of text documents; each new note in Obsidian generates a new text document, and all the documents can be searched from within the app. Obsidian allows internal linking between notes and creates an interactive graph that visualizes the relationships between notes. Text formatting in Obsidian is achieved through Markdown, but Obsidian provides the instantaneous previewing of formatted text.

An Internet forum and Discord channel are hosted by the developers.