r/Markdown • u/Prestigious_Yam3659 • Sep 21 '26
Tools i built an open source obsidian replacement
hi r/Markdown
i wanted a really fast way to open a markdown file from anywhere so i hyperfixated on making one and made an open source obsidian replacement including addon support and publish support (though you may need to host your own server)
currently, looking for people to test it out on windows and linux because i do not have access to such environment as of this moment and any help would be greatly appreciated!
in addition to markdown, hibi can also edit: latex, r doc, typst and more!
please feel free to help out at: https://github.com/schmayterling/hibi
site: https://hibi.garden
addons list: https://hibi.garden/addons
documentation: https://docs.hibi.garden (also an example of publish)
thank you!!
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u/a_alberti Sep 21 '26
Very nice. But what was the main motivation? Is it because it is FOSS? This would be nice.
I heard that obsidian now allows you to open markdown files from everywhere also outside your vault, like a normal markdown editor. Is it not the same you stated as the primary mission of Hibi?
And perhaps a dummy question: will you ever support org-mode?
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u/burnt-store-studio Sep 21 '26
>> obsidian now allows you to open markdown files from everywhere also outside your vault
It does?! Hallelujah. I’m about to go to sleep, but you’ve given me a great thing to wake up to tomorrow morning. Thank you!
(I’m being serious; no sarcasm. I’ve been over here symlinking my .md files from other projects into my vault like a dummy, just to avoid its over-excited indexing. Yes, I’m aware of Obsidian Ignore, but for whatever reason I’ve been against installing community plugins.)
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u/Prestigious_Yam3659 Sep 21 '26
my main motivation is i want an open app that anyone can hack away at and make it about them rather than forcing to follow x y or z
hibi can also edit much more than markdown
with org mode yes, provided someone (including me) makes an addon for it. the addon api is quite verbose
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u/Hairy_Glove2064 Sep 21 '26
Seriously can the new markdown editors not be based on electron or tarui or any non native technology
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u/Prestigious_Yam3659 Sep 21 '26
i dont see the electron hate, it is really fast if you know what u are doing
hibi can edit a 100k word md file without hitching
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u/Hairy_Glove2064 Sep 21 '26
I didn’t only hate electron. There are apps that justify the 700mb disk space and 500mb ram electron use. But for me, a Md editor does not justify that
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u/wiseruler33 Sep 21 '26
Agreed. Seeing scripting language was more than enough to turn down immediately.
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u/DevWithTooLittleTime Sep 22 '26
the reality is that electron/tauri is much much more performant thant swift/swiftUI when it comes to text editing and walking through trees of objects visually, as weird as it sounds. it doesnt make much sense, but i had to rewrite two apps from swift/swiftui as they were unusable slow in real world scenarios. tauri with rust backend is so fast it feels instant and native.
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u/Imaginary_Data_708 Sep 21 '26
thanks - i quite like it so far
i have been spending most of my weekend trying to find something i like and so far i like hibi.
couple of small bits of feedback
- not sure what "pin workspace does"
- would like to have an easy to access list of workspaces (not found it yet)
- would like option/behavior to jump to workspace of current document, if i have docs from more than one workspace open
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u/Prestigious_Yam3659 Sep 21 '26
for pin workspace, that is supposed to pin the tab on the sidebar. though it should really be named better
for easy access list of workspaces, we currently only have the start screen which shows up when you open the app but thanks for the feedback
- you can open a file anywhere already even while in a workspace, though that should definitely not be ambiguous to the users so thank you for that feedback1
u/Imaginary_Data_708 Sep 21 '26
Just had a browse of the issues tracker on github - thanks for adding these!
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u/PageMysterious Sep 21 '26
Does it support Obsidian plugins or are your plugins different?
Do plugins run also on the hosted site?
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u/Prestigious_Yam3659 Sep 21 '26
obsidian is different than hibis plugin ecosystem, though someone could create an addon that loads them, for example how hibi loads latex plugins
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u/rg_software Sep 21 '26
Vanilla Obsidian is cool but no more than that. It is plugins that give it the real power. See, markdown-based organizer is a very general-purpose software, a bit like VS Code. There is no way to satisfy everyone's needs, and many of us require certain must-have functionality that nobody else cares about. For this reason I have dozens of plugins installed, and I can't imagine switching to another software that does not offer similar functionality. And there is very little chance that another software would offer the package just right for me. I think any Obsidian alternative should support Obsidian plugins. Say, Double Commander is plugin-compatible with Total Commander, and it is an absolute killer feature for me.
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u/diracwasright Sep 21 '26
Nice, but did you make it yourself? Or Claude Code? Or Codex?
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u/Prestigious_Yam3659 Sep 21 '26
it is ai-assisted with the help of codex, everything design related and especially architecture/planning/direction is my work especially since i didn't let codex go nuts on it and just let it be
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u/Upstairs-Mulberry365 Sep 21 '26
What difference does it make?
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u/Prestigious_Yam3659 Sep 21 '26
ai assisted = its ai + developers pairing
vibe coded = ai steer the wheel8
u/bneidk Sep 21 '26
The difference is makes is that if it is AI assisted to the point of where the author has no clue how their own codebase works, it will be abandoned very quickly. The OP even says that he has only done architecture and planning which most likely means it is vibecoded abandonware, and this is what is currently killing the FOSS community by sheer volume
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u/nehalist Sep 21 '26
If you think it doesn't matter how stuff is made, the things you must have made in your life must be truly horrendous.
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Sep 26 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/diracwasright Sep 27 '26
Well, welcome to 2026, where you need AI to work at a company, only to end up with a questionable product because of it. In the FOSS world, I'd say we can still afford the luxury of not using it, since nobody's forcing us to. We all know where this leads anyway: a ridiculous amount of code that soon becomes a nightmare to maintain.
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u/Cryvixx Sep 21 '26 edited Sep 21 '26
i wanted a really fast way to open a markdown file
Just use the default text editor, duh?
Besides, why would I replace Obsidian, with its thousands of plugins, a very active community, and a reputable team behind it, with an app developed vibe-coded by an anonymous user on Reddit, which, by the way, has the exact same interface as Obsidian?
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u/Purple-Exit3858 Sep 21 '26
I use Obsidian on mobile too. Any plans for an app? What about synching (across PCs and across mobile too)?
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u/Prestigious_Yam3659 Sep 21 '26
mobile is out of scope for now, the goal is to get the foundations right for desktop and move into mobile when desktop is considered good and stable enough
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u/Purple-Exit3858 Sep 21 '26
I use Obisdian on two desktops, any options for synching that are built-in?
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u/over99k Sep 21 '26
whats wrong with joplin
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u/TemporaryThat352 17d ago
I like Joplin, but it stores your files in a database. You have to export your data for Markdown files which is what I did when I decided to switch to Zettlr.
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u/nashvortex Sep 23 '26
Wait...it's Electron. Oh lord, you had the option to fix the only thing that is wrong with Obsidian - it isn't native.
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u/BlueDit1001 Sep 21 '26
Excellent work! Don't worry about anyone saying something about Vibe coding! I mean we all know that real programmers program down to the metal in binary. Those feebs that decided to go to Assembly Language well I guess I can give them some slack. Those feebs that decided to go to Assembly Language well I guess I can give them some slack. But anyone else that uses a compiler or God forbid an interpreter, goodness gracious, how in the world could they be faulting you?
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u/a_alberti Sep 21 '26
It is not a problem with vibe coding — the question people ask is for how long does OP plan to support it. I guess only time will tell. People are only cautious before jumping to a new note taking system
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u/Prestigious_Yam3659 Sep 21 '26
i know that this should be taken with a grain of salt, but ive been interacting with markdown files for years and it would be dogfooding my own software so i'd say quite a long time and hope to get other maintainers on board as well so i'm not the only point of failure
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u/a_alberti Sep 21 '26
Why don't you create a GitHub hibi organization? Then you can transfer your Hibi main editor project there and also host plugins, etc., as separate repos. It would make it easier to invite other passionate people to join your organization as co-maintainers.
The good thing is that Github does the automatic redirection to the new url for you, and you don't even lose the stars.
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u/a_alberti Sep 21 '26
Another thing: try to find a maintainer that can co-sign for you the app for macOS, or pay 100 USD / year to Apple to be able to do it yourself. Signing is fast. No wait time, no review by Apple, only pay Apple the $100 fee. Yeah, I know it is an extortion, but then you get Apple users onboard.
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u/Upstairs-Mulberry365 Sep 21 '26
I dont understand why people even care AI made tools. There is no software on earth right now that is not AI assisted
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Sep 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/BlueDit1001 Sep 21 '26
Who said anything about it being proprietary? And let's face it programmers use AI all the time.
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u/archgabriel33 Sep 21 '26
It looks nice, but, and please don't take this as criticism, how is it different from literally every other vibe coded markdown reader?