God, please no 
The whole purpose of Obsidian is local files. Reducing security and encryption to satisfy a small web fringe would be madness.
If you want a web-based option there are so so many! Why would people want to turn the one lovely local app into something web-basedā¦?
what about a dedicated web client interface so that users can host them locally inside their network?
This will solve both A and B problem as in:
A: Files are modified and edited directly from the host machine. There is no need to download or redownload. Modification are applied directly to the vault. The web client interface just providing a tool for users to modify the same vault using different devices.
B: no need to give up end-to-end encryption
This solution will benefit user in co-operate as well. They can access the website and modify the vaults directly from their work laptops via a web browser
This is the same as Option A, split Obsidian into front end and back end, with the addition that we should provide the users both of them so they can self host the backend.
Beyond being even more work, itās not something that addresses this FR, which is essentially asking for more convenience of access (Self-hosting is not convenient).
I think a simpler solution to what you proposing is to remote connect to a computer where you are running Obsidian. (if you search the forum, I have seen people discussing docker instances).
For cooperation, there is Obsidian Sync (which now supports multiple users). There is a FR open to allow self-hosting of obsidian sync servers (mostly for business cases).
Please yes, that may be Obsidianās model now, but thereās nothing to stop Obsidian offering an option B like Omnifocus has with Task Management.
Iāve not found anything that fulfills the niche of Obsidian on the web except Roam, and thatās massively expensive for what I wish to use it for
Inside the network is not enough, I want my notes available no matter where they are on any device I can log into, without having the whole dataset reside on the computer I log into.
Iām interested: What do you consider the niche of Obsidian on the web?
The niche of Obsidian is local files, which is by definition not web-based.
If you can define what the niche is that youāre looking for, the community might have some suggestions.
Thatās what you think is itās niche (you can achieve offline files with markdown and use Dropbox if you wish to sync)
My need is Syncing, automatic backlinking, the graph and automatic daily notes.
My usecase isnāt niche at all:
I use Obsidian Corporate license on my work mac and I store the files locally and in corporate S3. I use Obsidian-work folder to store all kinds of work notes, ideas, references and profiles of people and meetings. I canāt sync stuff with non-corporate cloud (mixed with work files from desktop apps), and I donāt want to bring in personal data into the corporate space.
I also pay for Obsidian Sync, which I have on my Mac/iPad/iPhone, which I use for daily journaling, notes and ideas, habit tracking.
Now with Roam Research it was easy - I just used web version for personal graph, and local graphs for work-only stuff (it sucked, so here I am).
In my perception, if full web-version/client is too much, at least a mobile-emulator or lightweight input-prone version would be very helpful.
How would that be āturning it into something web-basedā?
Itās merely giving users the option to access their notes in a more convenient matter.
Everyone would still be free to use Obsidian locally, just like before.
Iād just like to see the option to use the fantastic editing experience combined with the ease of accessing it through a web-browser.
I feel like this shouldnāt be too technically challenging, considering that the UI is already web-based.
From a sync perspective I donāt see why it couldnāt just store a list of files in a userās IndexedDB and then selectively download and cache them on demand. The amount of storage available to webapps is mostly dependent on the available disk space, so thereās many gigabytes in most cases.
Just my 2 cents. I would love a web based obsidian, even if it was just to add new notes with links that were then sent and stored locally on whatever your local server is. I wouldnāt need the graph view for my purposes, but being unable to add to obsidian from the workplace is frustrating., especially when my workplace has also blocked thing like USBs
Iāve also encountered this issue on MacOS Ventura 13.0. On my iPhone 13 pro max, the voice control and its commands can be used without any problems. With iPadOS 16.x, voice control does not work consistently and unfortunately neither do the commands. All machines use the german language. Is there a way to improve something by changing the settings on the Apple devices or on Obsidian?
Hello,
I just want to add an other point of view to this web-version discussion.
Iām new to the Obsidian community, but I really love that tool. It is the best solution for me for my documentation.
But I really would appreciate a web version (containered). Why?
When Iām at my customers, I would prefer to update the documentation just in time. But Iām canāt install Obsidian on the customers computers. Especially not when Iām on site and supporting customer users and working or troubleshooting the users PC. So I canāt install on their maschines additional software.
But oftern I need to update my supporting documentation and in that case it would be really helpful, when I could update this online.
I too have been hunting for a version of this, for when Iām āon the roadā and donāt have Obsidian handy. Hereās my current āsolutionā - itās not perfect, but as close as Iāve got:
Have a server I control somewhere
Have my Obsidian Vault in a folder called Notes somewhere on that server
Sync the Notes folder between that server and all my devices that I use Obsidian on
On the server, run the openvscode-server from docker, and mount by Notes into the docker container
I expose on port 3001
Example invocation:
docker run --rm -it --init -p 3001:3001 -v "/home/myuser/.vscode-server:/home/workspace:cached" -v "/home/myuser/Notes:/home/workspace/Notes" gitpod/openvscode-server --port 3001
Reverse proxy (with a domain + auth + ssl) to the openvscode-server web interface, so I can access it anywhere from a browser
Install the Foam extension in VSCode in that remote openvscode-server instance
PROFIT.
Any changes in Obsidian on any machine with Syncthing should be reflected in VSCode/Foam, and vice-versa.
Thereās typically a really good reason for companies to do this. Asking obsidian to dedicate resources to a web app just so you can circumvent your work policy is not a good reason.
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,
Below is what is look like in my browser,
Whatās interesting is Electron was generally meant to allow for the porting of web apps to desktop apps. Iām not certain how much itās 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 āWeb Appā version of Obsidian could solve this. For instance Iād 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 thereās 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 doesnāt 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 doesnāt lend to supporting the core product and help drive revenue for Obsidian. If thereās some way to create that justification/incentivization in this request it may help bump up the priority. Obsidian devs gotta eat.
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 itās inpractially slow on my phone. Iād 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 itās almost unusable
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 Iām 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 wonāt bother linking to or quoting because: itās Obsidian. Itās 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 canāt 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 doesnāt 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 āonlyā got a multi-user web version, I would be beyond happy
