That’s my only gripe with obsidian.. I’d like sync between my devices that avoids central servers.

You can use SyncThing

Thank you I’ll check it out

SyncThing can accomplish that.

Thank you - I’ll check it out

Charging for the sync is their primary revenue model. Zotero is doing the same.

I don’t bemoan this approach that basically gives everything local away for free.

Having an easy way to sync is kind of a core feature of a note taking app.

I'm not sure how profitable Notion is though.

It’s a tricky one in this age of “free”. I’d ironically pay for them to allow my agency and privacy, I’m probably not _most_ people though.

Sorry whete are you missing agency and privacy? It’s desktop first software you can back it up and pretty much sync it as you like.

Specifically regarding Obsidian it’s just a folder full of plain text markdown files, doesn’t get much more portable than that.

I just store my vault in a backed up iCloud folder. Syncs to Apple devices automatically for free.

Does it work on iOS devices?

yes. This is the configuration I use.

I just use syncthing. Regarding keeping configurations in sync, I have a "template" vault where I install and test all my plugins first and have a script that copies the entire .obsidian folder (minus some specific files) from the template vault to all my other vaults which results in syncing of all plugins/settings. I did buy their Catalyst license though since I wanted to pay back something for all the good work they did.

$8 USD ($12 AUD) seems incredibly expensive just to sync your markdown notes around. That’s three times the price of my entire iCloud services (which apps other than Obsidian sync with fine, but Obsidian has all sorts of issues with it).

I use Resilio sync to sync the Obsidian vault on all my devices and NAS.

There's a plugin called Remotely Save to sync files in a s3-like service (I use the 10gb free backblaze offer for it).

Setting it up was a bit of a hassle but now it just works.