bare vs. Obsidian + Git plugin.
Obsidian is a superb knowledge system, and the community Git plugin is a genuinely impressive project. This page is for the moment the maintenance stops feeling worth it.
Where Obsidian wins, honestly
If you want a second brain, Obsidian is the best one: graph and backlinks, canvas, thousands of community plugins, real mobile apps, an enormous community — free for personal use. The Git plugin on top is a remarkable piece of volunteer engineering that brings scheduled commit, push and pull to all of it.
bare's founding idea is that you might not want a second brain at all — just your Markdown, readable and safely versioned. If the vault is a joy to you, keep it; this comparison won't try to talk you out of it.
The structural difference
Obsidian + Git is built around automation: the plugin's headline feature is committing, pushing and pulling on timers, so your vault syncs itself. The cost is structural, not a bug — automated commits land without anyone reading them, and when two devices (or you and an agent) touch the same file between syncs, merge conflicts surface inside your notes, which you then resolve by hand.
bare makes the opposite bet: Git is a deliberate act. Nothing commits, pulls or merges on its own. Changed files wait in a pane; you read the diff, tick the files that belong together, write the message, and commit. Pull is fast-forward-only — when histories diverge, bare stops and says so instead of manufacturing a merge. Fewer moving parts, nothing to tend, and nothing lands in history unread.
| Dimension | bare | Obsidian + Git plugin |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | A small editor with Git built in | A knowledge system + community plugin |
| App | Native macOS | Electron |
| How Git arrives | Built in — open a folder | Separate plugin install + settings |
| Commits | You tick files, write the message | Auto-commit timers (configurable) |
| Conflicts | Can't happen inside bare — it never merges; ff-only pull | Possible in-vault; resolved by hand |
| Upkeep | None | Plugin + settings + vault to tend |
| Mobile | — (macOS only) | ✓ (Git on mobile has caveats) |
| Price | From $5, one-time (14-day free trial) | Free for personal use |
Choose one honestly
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Stay with Obsidian + Git if…
You live in the graph and backlinks; you need mobile editing; plugins are a feature to you, not a chore; and scheduled background sync fits how you work.
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Try bare if…
Your Markdown lives in repos shared with other people or AI agents; you want to read every change before it becomes history; and you'd rather own plain files than run a system.
Trying bare costs nothing — your vault is already the format
An Obsidian vault is a folder of plain Markdown — often already a Git repository. Open that same folder in bare: nothing to import, nothing to convert, and Obsidian keeps working on it untouched. Run both on the same notes and see which one you reach for.
One honest caveat: Obsidian-specific syntax — [[wikilinks]], embeds,
Dataview blocks — is Obsidian's own, not standard Markdown. bare renders
GitHub-Flavored Markdown, so those stay as written text.
Same folder. Five minutes.
Open your existing vault or repo in bare and read your notes without running a system.
Download free for macOSAll comparisons · How bare's Git works · Reviewing agent-written Markdown