If Obsidian hadn’t become so successful…

I personally love Obsidian and believe it’s an excellent personal note archival database. For most people who want to maintain control over their data, I think Obsidian is an ideal choice.

Let’s travel back a few years, to when Obsidian was just born. Inspired by RoamResearch’s bi-directional linking, Obsidian implemented a “local-first” version of bi-directional note management. While these “bi-directional links” help form connections between notes and organize them, the more significant benefit is that when creating notes, we’re no longer confined to linear thinking. We can branch off at any time and expand our thought trails through bi-directional links. Obsidian later developed dedicated plugins to help us generate these thought threads quickly, rather than adding links during later organization.

Today, while some occasionally complain about Obsidian’s aesthetics, more users note that it has become more complex with an expanded feature set. This seems to be a common pattern – apps either remain obscure or become bloated after success. Look at Notion, which has acquired several office suite companies, launched calendar services, and plans to release email services next year… In comparison, Obsidian’s core functionality has remained relatively restrained (though the plugin community has gone wild, even implementing local AI capabilities).

But what if – just if – we imagine Obsidian hadn’t become so successful? What if it had no abundance of plugins, no Canvas (not referring to the Graph view), no web extensions, not even Sync/Publish services, and definitely no third-party plugins? What if it had stayed focused solely on building “thought threads” through “links”?

I’d argue that in that parallel universe where Obsidian didn’t take off, it would likely look like Tangent Notes – the app I want to introduce today.

Introducing Tangent Notes

Tangent Notes is a “local-first” app, very similar to Obsidian, requiring a designated library folder where content is saved as plain text. What makes Tangent Notes truly special is:

Threads of Thought

The most appealing feature of Tangent Notes is its unique “thought threads” functionality. Through horizontally sliding panels, we can easily record and review our thinking processes. Whether it’s during moments of inspiration or sudden work-related insights, it helps maintain the “traceability” of our thoughts, preventing us from getting lost in scattered ideas. While this is similar to how many use mind maps to organize thoughts, mind maps are “visually-oriented,” whereas Tangent is note-oriented. Its threads are bi-directional and theoretically form a “network” structure rather than the tree structure of mind maps.

Maps of Cognition

Pleasantly surprising is Tangent Notes’ “cognitive map” view. This feature automatically generates nodes and connections, helping us examine our entire thinking process from a global perspective.

Note Editing Support

The app supports Markdown, familiar bi-directional link syntax, LaTeX, syntax-highlighted code blocks, and other standard features common to note-taking apps. For Obsidian users especially, the editing methods, including bi-directional linking, follow a familiar recipe that’s almost immediately usable.

Tags, Folders… What’s Missing?

Tangent Notes supports both tags and folders for note organization. Tags can add contextual information to each note and easily track specific note types. Surprisingly, Tangent supports nested tags (e.g., #Tag1/SubTag1), similar to Bear’s primary organization method. However, the current version lacks efficient tag management capabilities.

Custom Queries

Tangent Notes supports custom queries, allowing us to easily find notes based on links, tags, todos, or text content. Better yet, these queries can be saved for quick future reference.

Final Thoughts

I had previously tried Tangent Notes when it felt rather rudimentary, but it has improved significantly since then. Many aspects are becoming more professional, even including a command palette. The file-based “local-first” storage particularly appeals to me, and the Query and Map features are standout additions, though the tag functionality needs work.

If you’re looking for a lightweight, straightforward note-taking tool that focuses on bi-directional linking without excess features, Tangent Notes might pleasantly surprise you – much like Obsidian in its early days.

Tangent Notes

https://www.tangentnotes.com/