What exactly is Obsidian?

There is an approach in philosophy where before asking whether something is good of bad you ask what something is. So what is Obsidian.

Obsidian is a Markdown editor.

At it’s core Obsidian is a Markdown editor. Markdown is a simple way to add formatting to text using symbols. This is an efficient way to edit.

Obsidian is a place that you can write your thoughts

But perhaps Obsidian is what you use it for. And one thing you that you can use it for is write your thoughts. It’s a separate text editor where you can write down all your thoughts to improve your thinking.

Obsidian in an extensible markdown editor

Obsidian is add it’s for a text editor which is scripted in JavaScript with plugins. Rather than solving all problems itself it provides the means for a community to solve problems for one another.

Obsidian is a Community

Lots of people use Obsidian to do things. And this community has properties and values. It’s a better community than things like notion.

Obsidian is an easy to use markdown editor

There are other tools that do things like Obsidian. Emacs org-mode is a prominent example that was created decades earlier.

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I am @readwithai. I make tools for Obsidian related to reading, agency and productivity. If you are interested in Obsidian you might like to look at my quick guide for better notes in Obsidian or look at my cookbook of cool things you can do with Obsidian and Plugin REPL.

I am not affiliated with Obsidian.