Obsidian is now free for work(obsidian.md) |
Obsidian is now free for work(obsidian.md) |
I personally like the move a lot and I hope this works well for them. The model of selling their add-on services seems to have worked for them well so far, and I hope it continues. It's a very functional free core with their paid add-ons being very additive and well made.
Our plugin stores yjs CRDTs in indexeddb today, but I'd love to create some kind of file-over-app CRDT persistence standard that could go alongside markdown files to make markdown collaboration and edit history vendor agnostic.
If anyone would be interested in that type of thing, let me know! (email in bio)
Edit: They should make it open source if this is the path they take. Then users can personally verify that they (or their data) isn't being sold to the highest bidder.
The problem with the Commercial license is that it wasn't clear. Many organizations were out of compliance without any way for Obsidian to enforce it, since the app is local and doesn't require sign up.
So now I am less incentiviced to pay and I have no path forward to negotiate with my employer to front money.
Regardless, I love the tool and your general approach, trying to keep things in publics hand (e.g. publishing and opening the canvas format) - so probably will still pay for it :D
I prefer using my own syncing though, as otherwise it's too expensive for "just syncing".
I am grateful and happy that I got the opportunity to thank you here.
Do you anticipate those companies to keep purchasing Obsidian now that it isn't a mandatory purchase for compliance?
(As a huge fan of Obsidian, and someone who personally purchased an Enterprise license to use within their company: god I hope so.)
Their model is selling to large companies and sync users. Not data sales.
I'm not sure if that's the case now. Why would companies pay for licenses when they're optional and don't give any features?
I guess you don't like using Linux neither?
Many do that with Joplin.
Disclaimer: I'm the author of Emanote
https://github.com/silvanocerza/obsidian-github-sync
Feedback is more than welcome.
You don't have the full flexibility of a git repo but you can use it easily on different platforms. Works the same way on desktop and mobile too.
Most of those plugins don't work that well on mobile.
It uses the GitHub APIs to sync, so it works seamlessly on desktop and mobile. I'm actively using it both on my Mac, Windows machine and iPhone with no issues.
Didn't try on Android but I expect it work fine.
This way it works both on desktop and mobile with no issues, cause you don't need git.
You can make individual folders collaborative in your vault with several different parties. We use yjs CRDTs for real-time collaboration, and we're making the collaboration server (optionally) self-hosted.
Check it out :)
You can use it on a phone as well via Firefox / Safari.
Do the make any kind of promises wrt the free tier?
Obsidian is great, because it is not like other apps. Using it daily will mean moving to another app will be some work.
https://help.obsidian.md/import
Promises aren't ironclad anyhow.
The difference between free and $0.01 is enormous.
There are different solutions really, some people use Git and treat the whole vault as a repo. Though I find it quite annoying to manage, also cause not every platform supports git.
That's also why I started writing a plugin to sync with any GitHub repo, it uses the GH REST APIs so it can be used on any platform. https://github.com/silvanocerza/obsidian-github-sync
I'm still actively developing it but the core features work nicely.
If I was making edits more often, I might run into sync conflicts. But I mostly edit on my PC, then might make small edits to recipes while I'm working in the kitchen.
Easier sync and supporting developer = Win win.
For my setup, I use the obsidian-livesync [1] plugin with a self-hosted CouchDB instance which has worked well for me.
I periodically do commit things to a git repo as a backup if the live sync breaks somehow.
I tried Obsidian Git for automatic pulls, but frequently had file conflicts even if I wasn't working on files at the same time. Is there another sync tool designed for text that has file version history?
I actually combine that, Git and Syncthing for different needs.
Details here: https://www.dsebastien.net/how-i-synchronize-and-backup-my-o...
I use Sync
I don't know. We'll see. It's somewhat unknowable, in the same way we don't know how many users didn't buy a license but should have. My guess is that for every person who bought a commercial license there are 9 who were out of compliance. We anecdotally know that many tech companies have way more Obsidian users than they report. This change will remove a lot of admin work for our team of seven.
What I do know is that even without any Commercial revenue, our other revenue streams (Sync, Publish and Catalyst) are enough to keep the lights on, and we really mean what we say in our Manifesto: "We believe that everyone should have the tools to think clearly and organize ideas effectively."
The bet is that this increases the number of people who discover Obsidian and end up buying one of our add-ons. In the future I can also see us creating add-ons that are more focused on organizational use. This change makes the pricing much clearer in that regard. I expect much fewer questions like "does Commercial include Sync?" which has been a point of confusion for years.