Obsidian-HTML

The big bet

Why HTML-first?

Every note app of the last 15 years stores Markdown and renders it to HTML at display time. That transformation is the silent tax: source-vs-preview duality, lock-in via custom Markdown extensions, an expressiveness ceiling set by whatever the renderer supports.

We inverted it. Store the rendered form. HTML files are documents — they open in browsers, render in emails, publish to the web, embed in any context, and support every visual primitive natively (video, charts, SVG, MathML, custom elements) with zero conversion.

“Markdown is a workaround for plain-text constraints that no longer exist. HTML doesn't have to be.”

The format

It's just HTML — but smarter

A note in your vault is a real .html file. You can open it in Chrome and it just works. But it also carries enough structured metadata for the app to give you wikilinks, backlinks, properties, graphs.

One file, two audiences

The browser sees normal HTML. The app reads the obh:* meta tags + is="wiki-link" custom elements to build the knowledge graph.

No sidecar JSON. No proprietary database. grep, git, and rsync just work.

<!-- Projects/My Idea.html -->
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
  <title>My Idea</title>
  <meta name="obh:tag"     content="project/active">
  <meta property="status" content="in-progress"
        data-type="select">
  <meta property="due"    content="2026-06-01"
        data-type="date">
</head>
<body>
  <h1>My Idea</h1>
  <p>See <a is="wiki-link"
            href="Context">Context</a>.</p>
  <video src="attachments/demo.mp4" controls></video>
</body>
</html>

What's inside

Features 90+ Obsidian-equivalents, plus what Markdown can't reach

✏️

Three-mode editor

WYSIWYG · Source · Render. Rich notes (with <style>/<script>) auto-open in sandboxed iframe — full CSS/JS fidelity.

🗓

Calendar (new in v1.0)

Apple-style Month/Week/Day views. Drag-to-move events, color categories, bilingual labels. .calendar JSON files.

🔗

Wikilinks & graph

Backlinks, unlinked mentions, WebGL graph (10k+ nodes), block refs, transclusion.

🎬

Rich blocks

Video, audio, PDF, charts, API widgets, MathML, KaTeX, Mermaid — all native HTML.

🧠

AI gateway

BYO key: OpenAI · Anthropic · OpenRouter · Ollama · LM Studio · DeepSeek.

🤖

AI agent-ready

Source mode = AI's lane. Notes are real HTML, so AI writes the final layout in one shot — no Markdown translation tax.

🔒

E2E sync

WebDAV / iCloud / Dropbox folders + AES-256-GCM. Your cloud sees ciphertext.

🔌

Plugin sandbox

Web Worker isolation. 13-method typed RPC. No DOM access, no token theft.

⌨️

CLI for AI agents

obh binary with 16 subcommands. --json output for Claude Code, Codex, shell.

🌐

Web Clipper

Chrome MV3 extension powered by Defuddle. Clean HTML straight into your vault.

📱

Every platform

Tauri 2 desktop (mac/win/linux) + iOS/Android mobile. Same vault format.

In motion

What you actually see

Real screenshots from the running app — Welcome.html, the knowledge graph, AI chat, the Bases table view, and the Canvas whiteboard.

Editor

WYSIWYG with rich blocks

12 callout kinds, KaTeX math, Mermaid diagrams, lowlight code, drag-drop attachments. Source mode doesn't exist.

Graph

WebGL knowledge graph

Sigma.js + graphology, forceAtlas2 in a Worker. 10,000-node vaults stay interactive.

AI assistant side panel with quick prompts and current-note checkbox

Bring your own key

OpenAI, Anthropic, OpenRouter, Ollama, LM Studio, DeepSeek. Streams via the Vercel AI SDK; keys never leave the device.

Bases

Notion-style databases over notes

Define a .base YAML file. Edit cells in the table — writes go back into the source note's <meta> tags.

Canvas

JSON Canvas-compatible whiteboard

Groups, file embeds, text cards, labeled edges. Reads & writes the .canvas format Obsidian uses — bring your existing boards.

Browser

Real browser inside the editor

Paste a URL, render it like a tab. Persistent cookies (login survives restart), per-site clear, history dropdown, 5 capture modes including 📦 mirror (all CSS + images inlined as data URIs — fully self-contained snapshot).

Full app

File tree · editor · panels

Familiar tri-pane layout. Resizable splits, command palette (⌘P), quick switcher (⌘O), 8 built-in themes plus custom backgrounds.

How it compares

vs the alternatives

All claims based on stock installs. Plugins can fill gaps but introduce their own trust surface.

	Obsidian-HTML	Obsidian	Notion	Logseq
File format	.html	.md + plugins	proprietary DB	.md / .org
Open in any browser	✅	❌	❌	❌
WYSIWYG, no preview mode	✅	⚠️ Live Preview	✅	❌
Local-first	✅	✅	❌	✅
Open source (MIT)	✅	❌ closed	❌ closed	✅ AGPL
E2E sync built-in	✅	💲 paid	❌	❌
AI gateway (multi-provider)	✅ 6 backends	💲 plugin	✅ Notion AI	❌
AI agent CLI	✅ `obh`	❌	❌ API only	❌
Plugin sandbox	✅ Web Worker	⚠️ in-realm	✅	⚠️ in-realm
Bundle size	6.5 MB	~100 MB	n/a (web)	~150 MB

Get it

Install

🍎 macOS (Apple Silicon)

Download the signed-but-not-yet-notarized .dmg.

Download from the latest release:
Obsidian-HTML_0.1.0_aarch64.dmg
(6.5 MB)

First launch: System Settings → Privacy & Security → "Open Anyway".

🐧 Linux / Windows

Build from source — under 5 minutes on a fresh machine.

git clone https://github.com/guanxiaol/obsidian-html
cd obsidian-html
bash scripts/setup.sh
pnpm tauri:build
# bundle in src-tauri/target/release/bundle/

⌨️ CLI (no GUI needed)

Drive a vault from Claude Code, Codex, or plain shell.

cargo install --path src-tauri --bin obh

obh vault scan
obh search "tag:project -done"
obh import-md ~/old-notes/

Your notes are the website

Publish & self-host

The vault is already a static site — every .html opens in any browser as a real document. obh export-html bundles the vault (and a generated index) into a folder you upload anywhere.

🟧 Cloudflare Pages

npm i -g wrangler
obh export-html ~/Vault ./dist
wrangler pages deploy ./dist \
  --project-name my-notes
# → https://my-notes.pages.dev

Free tier, unlimited bandwidth, auto-HTTPS, custom domain in one click.

🖥 Your own server

obh export-html ~/Vault ./dist
rsync -avz --delete ./dist/ \
  user@srv:/var/www/notes/
# Caddy / nginx / Apache — all work

Caddyfile + nginx snippets in DEPLOYMENT.md.

🤖 Auto-publish (CI)

# .github/workflows/publish.yml
on: { push: { branches: [main] } }
- run: obh export-html . ./dist
- uses: cloudflare/pages-action@v1
  with:
    directory: dist

Push a note → 60s later it's live. Same flow on Vercel, Netlify, GitHub Pages.

The full playbook — nginx / Caddy configs, Cloudflare Workers + R2 for big vaults, auth gating, custom domains, code signing your fork, plugin SDK, CLI scripting — lives in docs/DEPLOYMENT.md.

Where it's going

Roadmap

v1.0.0 is out. Mobile, collab, and the plugin marketplace come next.

Phase 1–6 ✅

Editor · Graph · AI · Sync · CLI · 3-mode + Calendar

Shipped in v1.0.0 (May 2026): three-mode editor, inline-edit roundtrip, calendar, 4 polished case studies, bilingual showcase.

Phase 7 — next

Mobile App Store builds

iOS & Android via Tauri Mobile. Code is ready, signing isn't.

Phase 8

Real-time collab

Y.js + a relay. Optional, opt-in per vault.

Phase 9

Plugin marketplace

GitHub-indexed registry. Sandbox stays, install gets one-click.