Products · Product
Obsidian
Raised as a usability problem by 122 people on Hacker News over 7 years (2020–2026), in 78 threads.
No issue was raised by at least 3 people in 3 threads this year.
- 1Typing in web app feels laggyUnreviewed
- 2App takes unbearably long to openUnreviewed
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- 1
- 2Typing in web app feels laggyUnreviewed
- 3App takes unbearably long to openUnreviewed
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- 5
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Every issue, all time, most people first
New notes don't go into the current folderUnreviewed
20202026- Ctrl-N creates notes at top level instead of the current folder, requiring manual moving2026-03-01
- Notes open in current tab even when already open elsewhere, forcing manual modifier keys2024-08-23
- Can't easily create a note in the current folder; new notes don't go where the user is2022-10-13
Typing in web app feels laggyUnreviewed
20202026- Typing has noticeable lag and the app takes seconds to start2025-10-13
- Large markdown table with thousands of words lags badly, especially on Android2024-01-18
- Typing lags so badly the user copies text to another editor2023-02-24
App takes unbearably long to openUnreviewed
20202026- Mobile app is slow and janky, taking 10 seconds to launch2026-02-18
- App is slow to open because it loads a whole browser each time2025-08-19
- App is unbearably slow to open, making the user want to leave2024-02-19
Creating and finding notes is slower than in Apple NotesUnreviewed
20202026- User spends too much time fiddling with note-taking setup2023-10-25
- Creating, finding and searching notes feels slower and harder than in Apple Notes2023-03-25
- Slow to start typing a new note and clumsy folder navigation on mobile2022-12-20
Sync silently overwrites older edits when devices collideUnreviewed
20202026- Setting up sync properly is difficult, and switching devices forces resolving sync conflicts2023-12-26
- Sync doesn't run in the background, so changes don't sync on their own2023-12-02
- Hides how sync works, with merge conflicts that destroy data2023-07-06
Can't make a desktop shortcut to a specific vaultUnreviewed
20202026- Multiple vaults open in a new window, making them hard to use together2026-04-13
- Must register each folder as a vault and relink the .obsidian config folder for every new vault2024-01-17
- Can't create a desktop shortcut that opens a specific vault, since vaults are folders2022-12-20
Needs tweaking, plugins and upkeep before working as wantedUnreviewed
20202026- Requires tweaking, plugins and maintenance to work as wanted, too much overhead2025-05-19
- Needs many plugins and configuration before it is useful, so getting started is a slog2024-07-22
- Plugins need lots of setup, time-consuming to configure and fix when broken2022-10-13
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 50 complaints
- Search slows to hundreds of milliseconds and indexing takes forever on big vaults2026-10-29
- Dragging a file into the vault to edit it is cumbersome2026-07-08
- Taking 10-15 seconds from app icon tap to writing a note2026-05-18
- Markdown files in synced vault can't be viewed as plain text2026-05-14
- Safety warning reads like encouragement to enable plugins, mixing reassurance with the choice2026-05-11
- Obsidian's mobile app is not very mobile-friendly2026-05-11
- Can't recreate the Notion shopping list that hides ticked items2026-04-14
- Obsidian's visual editor feels less smooth than Notion's, so the user falls back to writing raw text2026-04-14
- User dislikes Obsidian's mobile version compared to desktop2026-04-13
- Spends more time on note-taking bureaucracy than on actual work2026-04-13
- Search always returns unrelated results first2026-04-13
- Can overwrite changes from other devices and wipe git history2026-04-13
- Multiple vaults open in a new window, making them hard to use together2026-04-13
- Ctrl-N creates notes at top level instead of the current folder, requiring manual moving2026-03-01
- Can't find a way to open Google Drive vault from the app2026-02-28
- Setup breaks often, and recovering from failures and warnings is painful2026-02-28
- Mobile app is slow and janky, taking 10 seconds to launch2026-02-18
- Commenter finds Obsidian unusable for them, without saying what specifically goes wrong2026-02-18
- Default Ctrl+Shift+V opens previews instead of pasting unformatted text2026-02-11
- Lacks lightweight hierarchical task decomposition with overridable dependencies, forcing manual markdown passes2026-02-02
- Dislikes the overall user experience, but no specific problem is named2025-10-13
- Typing has noticeable lag and the app takes seconds to start2025-10-13
- App is slow to open because it loads a whole browser each time2025-08-19
- Huge learning curve, overwhelming for the average user2025-08-19
- Easy to set up wrongly; opaque diff and change handling wipes history and notes2025-08-18
- Complicated setups feel fiddly and add friction to simple tasks like adding items2025-08-18
- Combining tagged records into one filtered view requires awkward custom queries, which is hard to do2025-08-18
- Author found the plugin docs difficult to follow while trying to build sync2025-08-05
- Feels clunky and slow, and couldn't get it to use plain .txt files2025-06-28
- Heading text like 'C#' renders wrongly once the cursor leaves the line, requiring escape knowledge2025-06-05
- Requires tweaking, plugins and maintenance to work as wanted, too much overhead2025-05-19
- Auto-closing backticks wrap unwanted lines into a code block while editing2025-04-23
- Icon-heavy, low-contrast interface makes the app unusable for the commenter2025-02-22
- Mobile git sync is hacky, flaky, and needs Termux to troubleshoot2025-02-21
- Confusing to learn how to use, user gave up multiple times2024-09-29
- Apps feel cluttered, making it hard to settle on a note-taking workflow2024-08-27
- Notes open in current tab even when already open elsewhere, forcing manual modifier keys2024-08-23
- Basic functionality annoys user, forcing constant custom CSS or plugins2024-08-22
- Couldn't understand the folder naming system; complex features become friction within days2024-07-23
- Text is nearly unreadable in browsers, only barely legible when selected2024-07-22
- Commenter finds backlinks and templates overly complex with little benefit2024-07-22
- User must guess the exact keywords to find notes again2024-07-22
- Needs many plugins and configuration before it is useful, so getting started is a slog2024-07-22
- Wikilinks inside code blocks don't display as links, and autocomplete still fires there2024-06-29
- Too customizable to set up; couldn't get onboarded successfully2024-03-03
- Lacks thoughtful image handling, making it unusable for notes with images2024-02-25
- App is unbearably slow to open, making the user want to leave2024-02-19
- Endless customizing never gets the look right and updates can break changes2024-01-25
- Can only paste images linearly, cannot float them beside text2024-01-18
- Large markdown table with thousands of words lags badly, especially on Android2024-01-18