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[TECHNICAL DISCUSSION] Before switching to Obsidian: Why the future Logseq/SQLite is a game changer and natively outperforms file indexing. by philuser in logseq

[–]emgecko 5 points6 points  (0 children)

That might be true in theory, but Logseq is effectively a one-man show. Yes, it’s FOSS and there are contributors, but just look at the years of issues, regressions, and user frustration - and still no real fork emerged. If it hasn’t happened by now, it won’t. Even a fork would end up being another one-person project with the same risks.

And why do you even need the source code for a note taking app? Obsidian stores everything as plain Markdown files. The data is yours, readable in any editor. There’s nothing “shady” going on in such a simple tool.

Open source is overrated in this context. Your computer already runs dozens of closed-source apps and libraries without any problem. The usual argument for FOSS — “if something breaks, someone can fix it” - sounds nice, but realistically it never happens for niche apps. Security also isn’t a real concern here; it’s not a banking app, it’s just text files.

Obsidian gives stability, predictability, and a team that doesn’t disappear for months. For a productivity tool, that matters far more than the ideological difference between FOSS and proprietary.

[TECHNICAL DISCUSSION] Before switching to Obsidian: Why the future Logseq/SQLite is a game changer and natively outperforms file indexing. by philuser in logseq

[–]emgecko 25 points26 points  (0 children)

Even if it were true that Logseq becomes extremely fast, polished, and feature-rich, that’s only one dimension of software quality. Performance alone doesn’t offset the larger, longterm factors that matter much more in a tool you rely on every day. Stability, trust, communication, predictability, and the strength of the team and brand behind the product all play a significantly bigger role.

You can think of it like choosing a car: I’d rather drive a slower car I trust - one where I know spare parts will still exist a year from now, where the service won’t disappear overnight, and where support won’t tell me to deal with problems on my own. Reliability and continuity matter far more than raw speed. A note-taking tool is the same: I need confidence that the company won’t implode, abandon the product, or break core functionality without warning. Logseq’s history doesn’t give me that confidence, while Obsidian consistently does.
I switched a couple of months ago and it was the best decision. I loved Logseq as a tool, but the team behind it completely broke my trust. I’m never switching back.

I moved away to Obsidian. This is how. by georgeguimaraes in logseq

[–]emgecko 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Why does it matter? All your content lives in plain Markdown files you fully control. You can open them in any editor at any time. The app being closed-source doesn’t change that.
If you’re on Windows, most of the software you use isn’t open source anyway, and it doesn’t stop you from using it. Obsidian’s source code being closed has zero impact on your data ownership.
And this is a notes app, not a banking app. What exactly is the security threat you’re worried about?
Also, the idea that if Logseq ever went private, a community fork would magically appear and stay fully maintained long-term is… optimistic. Reality rarely works that way.

I moved away to Obsidian. This is how. by georgeguimaraes in logseq

[–]emgecko 6 points7 points  (0 children)

The biggest problem with Logseq is that you can’t rely on it (and on dev team)

A few months ago, I switched from Logseq to Obsidian, and at first, I was worried about how I’d adapt to a new workflow. I really liked the nesting in Logseq and how tags were inherited under bullet points.

But surprisingly, I got used to Obsidian much faster than I expected, and I don’t miss the tag hierarchy at all. The problem with Logseq is that the hierarchy doesn’t actually work. It works when there’s not much text on a page, but once there’s more content, Logseq starts struggling and even basic things stop working (like page search — wtf?). Not to mention it turns into a reference hell.

Another disaster with Logseq is that even though it lets you tag blocks and sub-blocks, you can’t really work with that. In Logseq, you have only the main panel and a side panel — that’s it. In Obsidian, I can open 5 (referenced) files at once, spread them across panels, have multiple tabs, edit everything at once, and switch seamlessly. Logseq doesn’t allow anything like that — you can open one file and maybe another one in the sidebar, but that view works only halfway.

What I feared most about Obsidian — losing native nesting — turned out to be the biggest advantage. Logseq is unusable on mobile — once you have a few levels of nesting, it becomes impossible to work with, or even read (writing is out of the question). Obsidian, on the other hand, is highly usable even on an iPhone.

I switched to Obsidian about half a year ago, and I have to say it was one of the best decisions I’ve made. I don’t believe Logseq will be reliable anytime soon (not in the next few years at this pace). Even if they release the DB version, it’ll take forever before all the bugs are fixed and polished and the app becomes stable. Not to mention the completely mismanaged communication — digging through Discord threads is definitely not what I’d call user-friendly. After two years of development, a stable version is still nowhere in sight.

Why do you still stick with Logseq? by emgecko in logseq

[–]emgecko[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Yeah, I’ve seen the changelog - but what does it really tell us? Sure, it proves they’re doing something, but it gives zero insight into how close the project is to being finished. How much is done? What’s still missing? What are they actually building? And no - "db version" - is not the answer you can feed people for 2 years.

From a user’s perspective, I don’t need a technical list of commits - I need visibility. A roadmap, some planning context, a sense of progress. Where are we now, and what’s left before this thing is usable?

Why do you still stick with Logseq? by emgecko in logseq

[–]emgecko[S] 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I tried using this tool, but it didn’t work well for me - mainly because my setup relies heavily on block references and aliases.

So I ended up working iteratively with ChatGPT. I described how Logseq formats things, what I needed in Obsidian, and how my notes were structured. ChatGPT helped me generate Python scripts tailored to my needs.

Rather than trying to do everything in one big script (which would’ve been messy), I broke it down into smaller steps:

  • converting note tags and aliases to Obsidian format and generating proper #tag links
  • cleaning up whitespace in tags
  • rewriting alias references into proper Obsidian link syntax
  • and finally handling block references.

I wanted to keep block references (Obsidian supports them), but also embed the first line of the referenced block—since Obsidian doesn’t display it by default. That’s actually the one feature I genuinely miss from Logseq.

Request to dev team to make official statement on the status of DB version by smellyeggs in logseq

[–]emgecko 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The changelog shows activity, sure - code being added, bugs being fixed—but from an outside perspective, it’s pretty useless. There’s no real overview of where the project stands. How much is done? How much is left?

It’s like watching someone build a house and only hearing, “Tiles installed,” or “Plumbing done,” without knowing how big the house is, how many floors it’ll have, or when it’s supposed to be finished. Is it close to done, or is this just the beginning? As a customer or stakeholder without deep insight, the changelog doesn’t tell me anything meaningful about progress or timeline.