Another phenomenon worth observing is that there are some Obsidian plugins that usually offer two versions, an open source free v1 version and a v2 version that requires payment. Perhaps the developers of Obsidian plugins can expand from this revenue. But that’s why I don’t like Obsidian. Because I’m not sure that when I need a better plugin, I’ll encounter a requirement to pay for it. I like TiddlyWiki, which is completely open source and the plugin ecosystem is open source and free. I ended up realising that I could share a set of templates across multiple wikis by using TidGi and the nodejs functionality in TiddlyWiki, which is very convenient.
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True, but this means people can only work on tiddlywiki when they have food in their mouth.
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Right. Dead right.
There is no way TW can compete with a system that uses occult marketing tricks.
IMO the reason TW is beaten (in numbers) by Obsidian is cumulative intense marketing focus by Obsidian.
Is Obsidian better than TW? No, no, no.
Obsidian has marketing? I’m pretty sure it’s mostly person-to-person just like TiddlyWiki.
They have some social-media presence, but they don’t flood your inbox AFAIK.
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If so what, exactly what are we missing?
I cannot easily believe Obsidian is using our method.
So what is theirs? If my assert is wrong.
The OP is on point. I haven’t seen an answer yet.
warning: opinion alert
my opinion:
why isn’t tiddlywiki as well-known or widely-used as obsidian? i’d point to (in rough order of importance)
- easier entry for new users (who aren’t looking for maximum customization),
- a dedicated, official workflow for creating, saving, and accessing material online,
- a more professional and modern name (yep) and branding, and
- more modern / purpose-built ui.
i think if all of these were addressed we would be on par with obsidian if the goal is just to get more users. if that is not the goal (and i don’t think it should be), then i’m not sure if marketing is important? things like emacs have gotten popular off their own merits despite no marketing and an absolutely arcane user interface. i’d put TW in more of that category, where it is the perfect tool for a certain type of person / problem, and people who want / need it will find it through word of mouth or forums. if that’s the case, the best we can do to spread it to those people is keep using it, and publish works using it, so more people can see.
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Obsidian is a high-quality, turn-key replacement for Evernote or Onenote, that out of the box does everything you expect from such a tool including WYSIWYG markdown, multi-platform, web-clipping, photo-capture, and (cough) saving. It is available on every platform and although not open-source, it’s data format is arguably less proprietary than that of TiddlyWiki. In addition, it has a cool name, if you are a literate or media-literate person. Obsidian also has a place where people can upload plugins and have some level of official recognition.
TiddlyWiki … leaves it up to the user to find 3rd party solutions to every single problem, including saving. More importantly, there is no vetting of those 3rd party solutions. None of them get the official TW imprimatur to help guide new users. Also, the name “TiddlyWiki” screams “amateur” to a whole lot of people, particularly outside the UK.
When you lay it out like that, you should be able to see why Obsidian has taken off.
In particular, I think at a minimum saving is something that should have an official in-house solution. I’ve been working the last couple weeks at putting together the pieces to replace Timimi. But even if I succeed, it will just be an “also ran”, just like TImimi. Which is probably why Riz threw in the towel.