Hacker News Reader

Comment by rchaud | Hacker News Reader

Notion is known for being a laggy web app.

It's partially why local-first, Markdown-based solutions like Obsidian and Logseq have exploded in popularity. Logseq is amazing and truly shows the power of backlinked text with a query interface. And the whole thing is FOSS, at least for now.

View on HN

They are also far from notion in how powerful they are.

I just started using Logseq and I am blown away with how amazing it is.

I was turned off by Obsidian because, much as it is local first, it doesn’t have the more notion like mode where I can invite a team and use it as a shared wiki.

Did I miss something? For me, being able to edit things from multiple devices seamlessly and share it with my coworkers so they can edit it too, that is critical.

Obsidian just uses whatever files are in the directory you point it at. So you could just pair obsidian with any folder syncing product that does everything you need as far as ability to invite team members. OneDrive, Dropbox, Google Drive, etc.

I think that's because Obsidian is designed for individuals over teams. It uses a local folder structure for organizing MD files and keeping them portable, although the backlinks mean everything can stay in sync. They aren't set up as a SaaS in the way Notion are, and that has a big impact on the design and intended audience for it.

... as long as those coworkers don't use Linux. I was going to give Notion a try, but not having a native Linux app sunk any interest. I understand Linux has a smaller base, but if you're making team software it only takes one member to have an unsupported system to force you to look elsewhere.

I use Linux. Notion is a web app. This is a you thing, not a Linux thing.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com