Obsidian for web

Please have a look at the discussion following the post you quoted, as your argument is covered there.

I am here to provide a solution,

  1. Build a GitHub repo for your vault, which can be private.
  2. Sync your vault to GitHub with obsidian-git or just git tools
  3. Use obsidian in your devices if you can install it
  4. Use GitHub codespaces to edit the repo/vault for the web
  5. You can even install foam Vscode extension to have most of the obsidian features.

Below is what is look like in my browser,

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What’s interesting is Electron was generally meant to allow for the porting of web apps to desktop apps. I’m not certain how much it’s done the other way around. One StackOverflow answer details that it is doable, but highly dependent on the codebase of the app: javascript - Is it possible to convert an electron app to a web app? - Stack Overflow

Really, what people are asking for is a way to access Obsidian with all of its full features from any device, anywhere, and be able to self-host. A “Web App” version of Obsidian could solve this. For instance I’d be able to host it on whichever infrastructure I choose, create a private tunnel/VPN to said infrastructure, access the web app from my computer at home, my laptop at work, or my phone on-the-go.

I think there’s a ton of value in doing this, and really it is targeting a very different customer than someone who may choose to just use Obsidian Sync. The Sync customer just wants it to work and doesn’t want to have to worry about tinkering, where as a more technical customer may want to tinker to get something like this up-and-running.

I think a problem with this request is that it doesn’t lend to supporting the core product and help drive revenue for Obsidian. If there’s some way to create that justification/incentivization in this request it may help bump up the priority. Obsidian devs gotta eat.

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I desperately need to have a web interface for my self-hosted Obsidian vault, because I treat it as my Second Brain and I want to use my notes from anywhere. Especially from my phone. But my vault is too heavy and it’s inpractially slow on my phone. I’d prefer to self-host it on my server and apply all the indices possible to have instant searches from the browser.
NeverInstall looked promising but from the phone it’s almost unusable

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Very interesting usecase, I second this.

My interest in having a web version of Obsidian stems from wanting to be able to easily work on vaults with other people.

For example, I would like to have a vault that I can share with my whole department at work. I have been responsible for team knowledge management in previous roles. I have used MediaWiki, Dokuwiki, Confluence, Jive, Salesforce, Wordpress, Drupal, and probably at least one other tool that I’m forgetting. They all have enough faults that I eventually wrote a blog post about what a hypothetical perfect team knowledge management tool would like, which I won’t bother linking to or quoting because: it’s Obsidian. It’s a multi-user version of Obsidian.

All of the same features that make Obsidian a best-in-class Personal Knowledge Management tool, are what would make it a best-in-class tool for teams.

Imagine if you could ditch your corporate wiki, or god help me, Sharepoint, and replace it with Obsidian? Right now, the major obstacle to being able to do that is that we can’t drop Obsidian on a webserver, point it at a vault, and hook it up to a corporate authentication system like Active Directory or LDAP or whatever. And I would gladly pay for this. I WANT to pay for this. The only reason I am not actively engaged in a harassment campaign to annoy my boss into cutting a check RIGHT. NOW. is because it doesn’t exist yet.

My unicorns-and-rocketships ideal outcome would be that a multi-user self-hostable web version, and there would be paid plugins for Active Directory/SSO/etc. But if we “only” got a multi-user web version, I would be beyond happy

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I’m utterly amazed a web app hasn’t been approved yet. I use web app aggregation tools like rambox, ferdium, stack next ,etc. I like to keep my notes in there along with a lot of other things so I can keep the clutter down on my desktop. It’s a total no brainer to have a webapp available for that sole purpose. I mean, especially if you’re paying the $8 for sync, you should be able to use it on the web if you like.

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I would really like this too.

I have multiple laptops’s OS’s ect. it is impactical to use a desktop app everywhere, i self host most of my needs on a docker host and i would like obsidian to be available, but until it is i will wait.

+1 for having a complementary web app. I think that taking notes should be as simple as opening Google Keep on any device, for example a computer at your workplace, just to write up a few notes or ideas without installing or syncing anything locally. I’ve even tried to migrate to Roam Research and several other PKM apps for that reason, but each alternative has had their own serious issues, so I’ve come back to Obsidian every time. But the friction still remains. The mobile app is nice, but working on it is not time efficient compared to working on a device with a proper screen and keyboard.

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foam is a way, but the local image would be a problem

Would love to have this feature! I recently switched to Arc as my main browser. Makes you want to run everything in there. Including Obsidian.

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I would also love to have this feature! :grinning:

This would make it much easier to work with my notes in business context.

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How about we collect some alternatives/workarounds to fill the gap until obsidian is available in the browser.

I’ll start with GitHub - Dullage/flatnotes: A self-hosted, database-less note taking web app that utilises a flat folder of markdown files for storage.

It’s in the browser and I can edit my notes. Like obsidian it’s doesn’t need a database.
Bonus: it additionally has a WYSIWYG editor!

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There is this docker container available from the comunity:

https://github.com/sytone/obsidian-remote

It works, but it is slow due to the fact that it uses VNC in the backgroud.

Other option, but without editing possibility, seems to be:

https://github.com/secure-77/Perlite

Last but not least, code-server suports the folder structure of obsidian and markdown:

https://github.com/coder/code-server

but then the obsidian specifics plugins/features are not available.

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Definently the most needed feature request! Would love if the creators could release a web version of Obsidian. Being able to selfhost would be a plus too

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I think we can all agree that this is one of the most, if not the most, requested feature.

We REALLY need an Obsidian web app. Even if the devs launch it in some beta, minimum viable offer, form initially. That’s all good. It doesn’t have to be perfect or fully match the native desktop app functionality. We just want to see things progressing.

I’m more than happy to contribute monetarily to get this going asap.

Please, devs, listen to the community and think of ways to fast-track the development/implementation.

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Just to remind those who tend to overlook this: we do not all agree that this is needed. I (and others like me) have no use for a web version, with Obsidian running very well on laptop, desktop and phone. I can always access my vault and work in it. Obsidian Sync is already multi-user, for those who need that. Giving up end-to-end encryption would be a dealbreaker for me.

I realise that many of the people who want this are unable to access their vaults on their work devices. That’s unfortunate, but one could always try to convince the IT people to make an exception, and failing that, in most work environments, people are allowed to bring in their own laptops. And if not, well, you’re out of luck; capitalism will do that to you. This is not a problem a software company should be expected to solve at the expense of their own principles.

I would much rather see the developers spend their time on other enhancements and added features. A web version would probably require a lot of their attention. It would bring new safety concerns, perhaps, and increase the likelihood of instability. And even if it were cheap in terms of development resources, safe, stable, and doable without giving up on principles: there are also users (some? many?) who don’t want this.

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Not at all acceptable to me.

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This feature is a critical need for me. Data relevant to a PKM comes >90% from the browser and having a .md PKM as a default new tab is a very effective habit stack for me. Switching to another open-source alternative to remedy this.

Just adding my 0.02. If Obsidian wants to be a true drop-in replacement for something like Notion, this will be necessary.

If they don’t build it, someone else will. Let users oauth connect their icloud, google drive, dropbox, etc that is already used by Obsidian elsewhere, and parse their json config files to replicate the environment relatively closely. The data itself is just Markdown, after all.

I use iCloud to sync, and could see myself paying another service monthly to connect to iCloud Drive and give me a full web-only experience.

We may see a day where Obsidian releases a web client themselves, but is limited to Obsidian Sync customers only.