· · Daniel A
When Obsidian Plugins Break After an Update
Community plugins lag behind Obsidian releases, break workflows, and ship arbitrary JavaScript. The hidden cost of plugin-first notes.
You update Obsidian. You open the app. Dataview is broken. Templater throws an error. Your daily note template no longer renders. You spend the morning reading GitHub issues instead of writing.
This is not a rare occurrence·it is the predictable consequence of building your knowledge system on top of community plugins maintained by unpaid volunteers.
The plugin treadmill
Obsidian's core is genuinely minimal. To make it usable for serious work·tasks, dataviews, calendars, kanban, advanced search·you install plugins. Lots of plugins. The average power user runs 15·30.
Every Obsidian release can subtly change the internal API. Plugin authors have to react, test, and ship updates. Some do it within a day. Some take weeks. Some abandon the plugin entirely.
The audit problem
Community plugins are arbitrary JavaScript with full access to your vault. There is no sandbox. There is no review process beyond an initial submission. A compromised maintainer account, or a malicious update, can read every note you have.
In 2024 the Obsidian team itself flagged this risk in their security docs: plugins run with the same privileges as Obsidian. You are trusting every author of every plugin you install·forever.
The lock·in paradox
The pitch for Obsidian is "your files are just markdown on disk·no lock·in." That is true for the text. It is not true for your workflow. A Dataview query, a Templater script, a Kanban board·these are plugin·specific syntax that only renders in Obsidian with the right plugin installed and working.
Move to another markdown editor and you get raw, broken pseudo·code where your dashboard used to be.
The time math
Be honest about the hours. Configuring plugins, watching tutorials, fixing breakages after updates, debugging conflicts between plugins·most Obsidian power users spend an order of magnitude more time on the tool than on the writing the tool is for.
The tool became the hobby.
The alternative: built·in by default
SimplyBoard takes the opposite approach. Instant search, tags, multiple view modes (list, board, canvas, editor), cross·device sync, and zero·knowledge encryption are built in·not bolted on. There are no plugins to break, no updates to fear, and no community JavaScript reading your notes.
If your last three Obsidian sessions ended in plugin troubleshooting instead of writing, the tool is working against you.
