I just have my vault default location saved on a cloud drive. iCloud in my case as I have an IPhone but I guess it could be done with any cloud or owncloud if you have a server.

I used to use Git, but it is easier to just move the vault on a network/cloud drive as you don’t need to pull/push. As obsidian auto save when you type a character this makes the sync instantaneous with zero effort.

I’m using Syncthing. It doesn’t feel like overkill, especially since I’m also using it for music and photos. I basically just set it up and forget about it.

Look at the LiveSync plugin as another option. It’s pretty robust but does require a CouchDB server accessible to whatever devices will be syncing information. The developer has several repos of slightly different server options, but if you use Tailscale there’s one that runs CouchDB through Tailscale Funnel.

I know you don’t want to pay for their sync service and this is the self-hosted community, but I just wanted to note that they service does work well and gives you access to note history. I decided to pay because Obsidian is excellent and I wanted to support it. I just wish it were open source.

I use git to sync Obsidian. Termux on Android and git on any other device. I have two scripts, one .sh one .psh, that I run to just commit and push the latest changes. On Windows I use the plugin shell commands for one-click running the script, on Android I need to use termux.

It’s not the easiest but it is, at least to me, easy to set up :)

I simply use Nextcloud to sync the vault directory. It has clients for both desktop and mobile and works perfectly fine. I use it to sync basically everything between my work, home, laptop, and mobile.

The only drawback is that I don’t know if Obsidian automatically reloads a file if it is changed - if not, and you leave the file open in the editor, you might accidentally overwrite the new file with old data.

I’m using the plugin remotely save and sync via WebDAV. Nextcloud provides a WebDAV interface so it’s pretty straight forward, and I can read my vault online via Nextcloud Web. Im mostly happy with it but sometimes there are some sync hiccups if versions of the plugin are very far apart but I also have 5-6 instances of obsidian that I need to keep in sync.

I sync my vaults using Nextcloud.

the obsidian-git plugin. Auto commits and pulls/push every x minutes. Works great for me, I get full version control and works on all my platforms (Linux, Windows, Android). You just need to be careful with your .gitignore and add at least .obsidian/workspace.json to prevent conflicts.

Probably not suitable if you store larger files, but after a year of daily usage with tons of small images I’m still below 150 MB.

Just sync it using whatever cloud service you use, doesnt matter if selfhosted or not. ie. DIY

BTW if your library gets large and has a lot of plugins, it wont run to any useful degree on your phone.

I just dumped my obsidian workspace into a folder synced by Google Drive.

It seems to me that Syncthing is the exact right thing to use here; what is “overkill” about it that makes you think you should use something else?

Git

This guide is incredible. It is pretty much instantaneous

@lambda@programming.dev Syncthing worked wonders for me, though it is only recently that I knew about Syncthing plugin on Obsidian; I used syncthing without it. I used it to sync notes for three separate vaults between my laptop and android phone.

Obsidian has a built-in sync feature. Use it.

I personally use the Obsidian Git plugin and sync it to a self-hosted Gitea server. You could also use GitHub or something similar, if you don’t mind them.

For what it’s worth, I ended up choosing the obsidian sync service. While it goes against my “self host everything” mantra, I do also want to support software makers who make great products that respect peoples privacy. As such, I decided the $8/m investment was warranted.

My son in highschool uses Obsidian for all his school note taking, so he actually is able to use the same sync subscription… As each vault has separate keys, there’s no privacy issues between us…

My favourite part of this solution is it supports live update from multiple devices at once, so I have the vault open on phone, tablet, home laptop and work laptop simultaneously, and it just works…

Just thought it was worth sharing.

Not what you’re asking, but in case it helps. I don’t use Obsidian, I use silverbullet.md it’s very similar, markdown files with the ``[[other note]]` syntax (as well as some querying mechanism that I believe Obsidian also has), in short it’s almost an open source version of obsidian but it has some advantages IMO:

• It is open source
• It provides a sync mode, where you download the text to your device and it’s accessible offline to get sync afterwards.
• It’s hackable so you can write your own functions and styles

I’m surprised almost no one has heard of it, the main developer is here on Lemmy, that’s how I found out about it. BTW I also use syncthing to keep backups of my data, and even specifically to not sync a work folder outside of the work computer even though the rest is synced, so I can access Silverbullet from localhost on the work computer and get everything there and any changes to non-work stuff get synced to my home server, and from my personal server get everything except work stuff.

# services means that everything inside is a service to be deployed 
services:
  # this is the name of the service, you can put whatever you want
  silverbullet:
    # this is the docker image to use
    image: zefhemel/silverbullet
    # this is the rule to restart in case of crashes
    restart: unless-stopped
    # these are environment variables you want defined
    environment:
    # this is a specific variable for Silverbullet, it's essentially username:password change this accordingly 
    - SB_USER=admin:admin
    # volumes are local folders you want to be available
    volumes:
      # in this case we want that the folder ./space be mounted as /space inside the container
      - ./space:/space
    # these are the ports we want to expose
    ports:
      # This means expose port 3000 on port 3000, if you want to access Silverbullet on port 8080 this would be 8080:3000 (because internally the service is still listening to 3000)
      - 3000:3000

$ docker compose up
unable to get image 'zefhemel/silverbullet': Cannot connect to the Docker daemon at unix:///home/username/.docker/run/docker.sock. Is the docker daemon running?

Starting up
dockerd needs to be started with root privileges. To run dockerd in rootless mode as an unprivileged user, see https://docs.docker.com/go/rootless/

Starting up
failed to start daemon, ensure docker is not running or delete /var/run/docker.pid: process with PID 3952 is still running

I would love a way to only keep it on a server (like S3) and access it live with a local cache.

I know this doesn’t answer your question, but I love obsidian and have no problem paying for the sync. If anyone can’t afford to do so, I completely get it and am not judging. But the company behind obsidian has taken zero VC funding, and are doing amazing things. I highly encourage folks to support them if you have the means.

I wrote a guide with a few options: avidandrew.com/elevate-your-note-taking-with-obsi…

I personally use SyncThing with the SyncThing-Fork app now