Johannes Theiner

@manialok @anishmoonka It’s self declared by the user, companies don’t have to confirm. So a bunch of these: - Work at a different Obsidian - have their community contribution set as work experience - lied

@anishmoonka @anishmoonka how did you find they have 9 staff? Linkedin shows 27. Obsidian is already admired, my respect for them grew after seeing your post..

Obsidian has three engineers. Three. The app has been downloaded 5 million times, 1.5 million people open it every month, and three people build the whole thing. They make $25 million a year. They never took a dollar from any investor. I ran the math on this and it broke my brain a little. Each person on the team (about 9 total, including non-engineering staff) brings in roughly $2.8 million a year. The typical software company generates about $130,000 per employee, according to SaaS Capital’s 2025 industry report. Obsidian runs at 21 times that number. Now put Notion next to it. Notion is the other big name in note-taking apps. They make somewhere between $400 and $600 million a year, which sounds massive. But they also have over 1,000 employees and raised around $350 million from venture capitalists (investors who fund startups in exchange for a chunk of ownership). That works out to about $500,000 per person. Obsidian generates five times that, with no outside investors and no board telling them what to build. The reason is almost stupidly simple. Obsidian saves your notes as regular files on your own phone or computer, not on some company server. So when another million people download the app, Obsidian’s costs barely change. Notion stores everything on their servers, which means every new user costs them more money to support. Obsidian charges for two optional extras: Sync ($4 to $5 a month to keep your notes updated across your phone and laptop) and Publish ($8 to $10 a month to turn your notes into a website). Everything else is free. Over 2,000 independent developers volunteer their time building add-ons for Obsidian. Task trackers, flashcard tools, calendar views, habit logs, all free. A normal company would hire hundreds of engineers for that. Obsidian’s three engineers keep the core alive while thousands of volunteers handle everything else. Two University of Waterloo grads, Shida Li and Erica Xu, started this as a side project during COVID lockdowns in 2020. They were running a small outlining app called Dynalist at the time. Six years later they own 100% of a company worth an estimated $350 million. Hiring engineer number four is a 33% increase in building power for a team that already out-earns companies 100 times its size.

@notaclanker_ @byteHumi @SolutionB2u It’s an estimate based on download count.

@byteHumi @SolutionB2u How do you know if they do no track it

obsidian the company hired its CEO from its own Discord server and the founders publicly said they plan to never grow past 10-12 people, never take VC, never collect analytics they literally don't know their own DAU because they refuse to track it

@Kevrsub @litemanu @himanshustwts @SpiritChirag The very first build of the app was released at the end of march 2020, shortly after Covid was declared a pandemic. The company (Dynalist Inc.) was created a few years prior for Dynalist, the other software product from Erica & Shida. Until 2022 it was only them working on both.

@litemanu @himanshustwts @SpiritChirag Same. The company was formed in 2020 but the app existed prior to that point so while the company was formed during Covid, there’s a little more nuance.

Obsidian has to be generational company of the decade Dude I am shocked everyday seeing projects born out of Covid quarantine and doing wonders.

@Internethunts @obsdmd I am not at liberty to disclose that information. We never shared any data about revenue.

@joethei @obsdmd What's the real value?

The Obsidian team is growing from three engineers to four engineers. Competitive SF salary. Fully remote, live anywhere. Apply below.

@Internethunts @obsdmd Those $ amounts are totally wrong, just saying.

@obsdmd > Be Obsidian > Note-taking app > 6 years old > 5M downloads > $25M revenue > $350M valuation > 3 engineers > 9 employees 9 employees. $350M. what the actual FUCK.

@McCalebRoyer @obsdmd 7 full time in total, plus a couple of part time & contractors.

@obsdmd How many people do you employ full time?

@itsX1NG @obsdmd The Company is Canadian, so yes.

@obsdmd Are yall open to hiring Canadians?

@braydenjlangley @obsdmd Like the bot says, weeks. I might need to update the bot wording though, the queue has been getting longer and longer recently

@obsdmd 👏 How long does it typically take to get an Obsidian plugin reviewed/approved?

Obsidian 1.9.14 is now available to all for desktop and mobile.

@mlieshout @obsdmd Catalyst for now, will be available for everyone in the future.

@obsdmd Is this a free core plugin, or do you need to be a Catalyst member to use it?

Introducing Bases, a new core plugin that lets you turn any set of notes into a powerful database. With Bases you can organize everything from projects to travel plans, reading lists, and more. Bases are now available in Obsidian 1.9.0 for early access users.

@stevemarkperry @kepano We do review all new plugins before they are added to the list Telemetry is explicitly forbidden in our developer policies. We also run some automated scans after they have been added to detect rule breakers.

@kepano Love this. Do you also vet plugins for this or not? I appreciate that’s a lot of work especially with the increase in AI-generated submissions.

Obsidian has no telemetry and we don't plan to add it

@VereeckenB @obsdmd On the account page under Invoices you see a list of your invoices, if you click on one you can set information like your address and VAT number, then download the invoice. (It’s a bit tedious since you have to do this for every invoice, that will be changed in the future)

@obsdmd Nice ! Possible to add a VAT number somewhere in the account settings ? Can’t seem to find it. My accountant will thank you 🙏

Obsidian Sync now starts at $4 per month with the new Standard plan. Obsidian Sync is the easiest way to securely sync your notes across devices, with end-to-end encryption, version history, and collaborative shared vaults. The new Standard plan includes: 1 synced vault 1 GB total storage 5 MB maximum file size 1 month version history As we state in our Manifesto, we believe that everyone should have the tools to think clearly and organize ideas effectively. We are committed to keeping Obsidian apps free for personal use without any requirement to sign up for an account. Our add-on services Obsidian Sync and Publish allow us to remain 100% user-supported, and help us fund continued development. Because Obsidian is built on local files that you control, our add-on services have many free alternatives and self-hostable options. Obsidian Sync is our approach to making the most intuitive and secure sync option. With this new plan, we’re excited to make Sync accessible to even more people! See more detail and FAQs on the Obsidian blog.

@JoaquimLey @obsdmd If only Apple decided to offer reasonable prices for that.

@obsdmd Hopefully you can do the same on iOS (at least in the EU). Not a real need right now, but at least having the option might be interesting (eg: Need to push a critical security update).

You can now install Obsidian on Android without going through the Google Play store by downloading the APK file on our /download page: obsidian.md/download

@0x0a4c73 @obsdmd F-Droid's terms do not allow that.

@kenanFyi @kepano Europe was added at the start of the year, Asia and Oceania are new.

@kepano Wasn’t this option already there? I thought I put my vault to Europe (I guess Frankfurt) and it’s already blazing fast.

Being close to the Sync server makes a big difference in latency. This should make things feel a lot faster if you're outside of North America.

@vitobotta @obsdmd Could you send a email to support@obsidian.md so we can take a look at the account?

@joethei @obsdmd After enabling 2FA it never asked me for a code.

We added new regional servers to Obsidian Sync. You can now sync faster by selecting a region close to you. Options include North America, Europe, Asia, and Oceania. All are secured with AES‑256, the strongest encryption standard.

@vitobotta @obsdmd What was broken? I don't remember seeing a report about it.

@obsdmd Have you fixed 2FA? I couldn’t get it to work and it was not inspiring confidence when I wanted to subscribe for automatic sync.

@sky2high0 @obsdmd @cure53berlin Not possible sadly, that would break many existing plugins, and is easily circumvented, see: forum.obsidian.md/t/security-of-… for more technical details

@obsdmd @cure53berlin It would be great to introduce toggable capabilities to community plugins (like limit network access). It seems like the biggest threat to privacy.

Obsidian has been independently audited by the security firm @cure53berlin — you can find the report on our new /security page. obsidian.md/blog/cure53-se… Obsidian is designed to be a private and secure space for your thoughts. Since the start, Obsidian has been built to give you full control over your data, without the requirement to sign up for an account, or share any private information. Our new Security page compiles information about how Obsidian approaches protecting your data. It is also the home for security audits completed by third parties. Our first audit by Cure53 is now available, and detailed in the blog post. We make Obsidian so that we can capture our own private thoughts and ideas. Independent audits help us ensure that our code and procedures meet the highest security standards. We will continue working with industry-leading security firms on more audits that provide comprehensive coverage and transparency towards this commitment.

@Parkerrobb @obsdmd There will be no results, it was not a competition last year.

@obsdmd When will we get Obsidian October results?

Last day to submit your nominations for 2023 Gems of the Year!

@pierremouchan @kepano @obsdmd This specific case is a navigation problem, click one of the `App` links, then `Vault` in the Type column, that should lead you to the documentation for the Vault class. This will be improved in the future.

@kepano @obsdmd Quick example on the typescript API: I don't really know at first sight any explanation of the vault property. -What is its purpose? -How should I use it? etc.

what do you wish to see for @obsdmd in 2024?

@bjosephburch @obsdmd Did you enable the toggle to receive insider builds?

@obsdmd I'm a Catalyst member in France. When i "Check for updates", you tell me that "Your app is up-to-date!" at version 1.4.16. (i'm logged in.) Don't understand why i can't update to 1.5...

Obsidian 1.5 is now available for early access! This release includes a brand new editor for tables. Table rows and columns are now easier to create, edit, sort, reorder, copy and paste. These new table features can also be accessed via context menu, command palette, and hotkeys. Tables are still saved to plain text Markdown. This release also includes dozens of improvements and bug fixes — some highlights: - Properties can be renamed globally - Property search now supports boolean and number values - Number markers are now right-aligned in lists - Right click a callout to change its type - Defaults to system setting for light/dark mode - Improved auto-pairing to better handle apostrophes To download early access releases, become a Catalyst member. Catalyst is a one-time $25 donation that helps support Obsidian development.