jpzk/opensidian

Open-source and non-profit under GPLv3, vault-compatible cross-platform markdown notes app. It's based on Rust + Tauri v2 and under heavy development. We're looking for Linux distribution maintainers. Not affiliated with or endorsed by Obsidian or Dynalist Inc.; "Obsidian" is their trademark. Opensidian is a clean-room functional clone: it reimplements Obsidian's behaviour from the outside and contains none of its code.

• live preview, source and reading modes
• [[wikilinks]], backlinks, tags, graph view
• tabs, splits, search, quick switcher, command palette, bookmarks
• themes, fonts, hotkeys; open a vault with opensidian <folder>
• drag an image (png, jpg, gif, webp) or a PDF from your file manager onto a note: an image is moved into the vault (the original is removed only after the vault copy is complete and on disk), a PDF is copied (the original stays, as in Obsidian), and ![[name]] is inserted where you dropped it. A name that already exists gets a new one, never overwritten. A .pdf must really be a PDF (it starts with %PDF-); other file types are refused and left where they are.

Linux x86_64. Download one:

SHA256SUMS is signed with key A6E6 9ED6 BC47 79F3 2817 2148 4CC1 AFDE 15B6 4EA3:

curl -LO https://github.com/jpzk/opensidian/releases/download/v0.6.2/SHA256SUMS \
     -LO https://github.com/jpzk/opensidian/releases/download/v0.6.2/SHA256SUMS.asc
gpg --keyserver hkps://keys.openpgp.org --recv-keys A6E69ED6BC4779F3281721484CC1AFDE15B64EA3
gpg --verify SHA256SUMS.asc SHA256SUMS
sha256sum -c --ignore-missing SHA256SUMS

Tested 2026-10-03 on fresh Ubuntu 26.04 LTS and Fedora 44 with Rust 1.98.0 (build ~2.5 min on 4 cores, binary runs and renders on both).

1. System deps. Ubuntu/Debian:

   sudo apt install build-essential libssl-dev libwebkit2gtk-4.1-dev \
     libgtk-3-dev libayatana-appindicator3-dev librsvg2-dev

   Fedora:

   sudo dnf install gcc gcc-c++ make openssl-devel webkit2gtk4.1-devel \
     gtk3-devel libappindicator-gtk3-devel librsvg2-devel

2. Rust, if you don't have it (distro rustc is often older than 1.98):

   curl --proto '=https' -sSf https://sh.rustup.rs | sh -s -- --default-toolchain 1.98.0
   . "$HOME/.cargo/env"

3. Build:

   git clone https://github.com/jpzk/opensidian && cd opensidian/src-tauri
   cargo build --release --locked   # -> target/release/opensidian

GPL-3.0-or-later (LICENSE). Read THIRD-PARTY.md before redistributing.

Most Obsidian community themes work as they are. Ships with AnuPpuccin (default), Material Gruvbox, Minimal and Solarized, unmodified (THIRD-PARTY.md).

To add one, put its manifest.json and theme.css in <vault>/.obsidian/themes/<Name>/ (folder name = "name" in the manifest) and pick it in Settings ▸ Appearance ▸ Themes. CSS snippets go in .obsidian/snippets/. Both reload live. A broken theme shows greyed out with the reason, and the app stays on AnuPpuccin.

Donation makes it possible!

bc1qzyh8c8kr8aylywqacsjwau6frzwjqt3cpa603w (BTC)

opensidian was built predominantly with AI models. Nearly all of the code, the design docs, and this README were written by Claude (Anthropic's models, via Claude Code) working from prompts, reviews, and corrections by a single human maintainer. The human decided what to build and what the trust model must guarantee, read and pushed back on the output, and ran it; the models wrote most of the lines. Commit messages record the design rationale in the same way — many were drafted by the model and edited by the maintainer.