Open it, edit it, hand it back: Plainva and Obsidian
The question I got asked most while building this wasn’t “does it sync” or “is it fast” — it was “what happens to my Obsidian vault?” And I get why: if you’ve got years of notes sitting in there, pointing some new, unproven app at that folder is genuinely scary. So early on I made myself a rule: Plainva would never ask you to choose. It reads and writes exactly what Obsidian does — plain Markdown, YAML frontmatter, [[wiki links]], and Obsidian-style .base databases. Open an existing vault, and you just start working.
Nothing changes the moment you open it
Your notes stay plain .md files — same links, same tags, same frontmatter Obsidian already understands. Databases use Obsidian’s Bases format, and whatever Plainva adds on top lives under its own namespaced key, which Obsidian quietly ignores instead of choking on it. Nothing gets migrated or rewritten into a house style just because you opened the folder. Close Plainva forever tomorrow, and the vault wouldn’t even notice it was ever there.
The one thing I won’t pretend isn’t true
Lean on a Plainva-only feature — a custom note icon, some database extra — and then go edit that specific file in Obsidian, and it can drop the bits it doesn’t recognize. Opening and reading is always safe; the caveat is narrowly about editing Plainva-extended files in the other app. I’d rather tell you that upfront than have you find out by accident, so Plainva says exactly this the first time you open a vault.
The whole design rule is really just Plainva-first, Obsidian-compatible — and it only works because Obsidian can always open your files. That’s what keeps the exit door unlocked; you’re never stuck with Plainva, because the way out is just your file manager. So if you’re coming from Obsidian, give it an afternoon: point Plainva at your real vault folder and see what happens. If it’s not for you, nothing was lost — your notes are exactly how you left them.
- More: OKF and compatibility
- Try it: plainva.com
— Marco