[justtocomment]

Can't comment on the merits of the product itself.

That in the first five minutes of this post being online, several users more or less claim that this has changed their lives in their first-ever comment on HN strikes me as a little odd however.

(Yes I'm aware that this is also my first-ever comment on HN.)

[katktv]

This got shared on their discord, but I s2g that it really is the case, given that I use a similar tool called Roam, which recently had such a big spike of attention (in part due to Thomas Frank's video on it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vxOffM_tVHI) and somewhat popularized what Obsidian is kind of aiming for here (so much that Roam had to close registrations due to massive traffic influx). Plenty of ppl just swear by Roam at this point, including its creator who has big vision for a thing. Here is his white paper on a thing: https://roamresearch.com/#/app/help/page/Vu1MmjinS.

I can attest to that as well, and given that Roam is unavailable, would suggest to try out this alternative that is pretty decent for what it does (even though Conaw (Roam's creator) does think it doesn't exactly align with what Roam really seeks to do, yk the thing)

Edit: to elaborate, I am not raving about either Roam or Obsidian, I am raving about they approaches they provide, and after nearly a month of using Roam it honestly feels like a game changer to me. Solved my art block a bit as well.

[ericax]

We have been in private beta for a few months already, with 5000+ beta testers and a community. We did let them know that we're doing a "Show HN" today.

Hope that explains things!

[justtocomment]

Thanks for taking the time to reply! I guess it does explain things ...

Best of luck with the product, also +1 to the suggestion of an open source client from a sibling thread!

[ericax]

Yes! We really want people to be able to leave their knowledge bases as a legacy to their grandchildren, so we'll do everything it takes.

[bachmeier]

I've been using Obsidian for a short while after seeing a comment here on HN. I've used a lot of desktop notetaking apps, and this one really is different. It's the app HN commenters would write themselves. I expect it to be very successful in the next few years. It hasn't changed my life, because I'm not going to trust it with anything important right now, but they do have an ethusiastic community.

There's a new video out today if you want an overview:

https://youtu.be/cFYaWC_86W0

[marchenko]

I've been using Obsidian for about a week, and it may be the first time I've ever felt compelled to comment in an app's user forum. I even installed Discord so that I could subscribe to the Obsidian channel and watch its (rapid) progress. I am quite excited by this tool.

[harritaylor]

It does seem suspicious but personally the only reason I jumped in was because I’m genuinely so happy with this software and I believe that it should be tried out by as many people as possible!

[jpinnix]

I've been beta testing Obsidian, and only rarely comment on HN. But I'm excited enough about it that I wanted to share my thoughts.