Features for the note taking app detailed in this guide include:
- Self-hosted
- Private
- Built to last
- Low maintenance
- Access in one place & from any device (Obsidian charges for this feature)
- Versioning
- Zero vendor lock-in
- Extendable (eg. passing text-embedded notes to AI)
Not saved as Markdown files, but in a database. I prefer editing my own files when I need to. I prefer Silverbullet.
And they claim “zero vendor lock-in”.
Exporting your content from whatever weird format they’re using in the DB isn’t exactly making the switch easy.
Yeah, especially for text files. Hard no.
Databases have their uses, but the trade off between obfuscating the data and making it harder for users to access has to be far more compelling. LogSeq is a really good example that you can do relatively complex note organization with cross references and tree structure without resorting to a database. Using a DB for something like this is user-hostile, smells of vendor lock-in, and seems lazy.
I already keep notes in markdown format but didn’t know of Silverbullet.
I reject Obsidian and Joplin because they’re based on electron but it looks like it’s not the case for Silverbullet. Don’t know if these even support markdown tbh.
I’ll need to look into it further, looks really nice!