Coming from Obsidian

Bring your vault along, or leave it where it is.

nexlore reads an Obsidian vault the way Obsidian reads it, and writes it so that Obsidian keeps understanding it. So you can move over completely or let both apps work on the same folder. This page explains how both work and what to expect.

Import a vault Work next to Obsidian

Two ways to take your notes with you

Either way, your notes end up as Markdown files in a folder, and nexlore shows them to you in the browser.

Move over with a ZIP

You pack your vault into a ZIP and upload it on the Files page. nexlore turns it into a new space and writes you a report on everything it noticed inside.

Both on the same folder

Your vault stays where it is, and nexlore simply works on the same folder too. Obsidian, Syncthing or a text editor can work on it at the same time.

You can always go back

Your notes stay ordinary files. If you ever want to leave nexlore, you open the folder in Obsidian and have everything, including the notes you wrote in nexlore in the meantime.

You keep writing the way you're used to

The way of writing stays the same. What's different is mainly that nexlore runs on your server and that several people can work in it.

Stays the same

Wiki links like [[Note]] and [[Note#Heading|text]] and ordinary Markdown links keep working. Like Obsidian, nexlore looks for the target in the same folder first and then takes the shortest path.
Embeds of pictures, notes, sections and blocks like ![[Note#^block]] show up right inside the note.
Callouts are still written with > [!tip], and - or + make them foldable.
Highlights with ==like this==, comments with %%like this%% and tags, nested ones too, look the way you know them.
Properties in the front matter are read as well, including aliases, tags and cssclasses.
Tasks with 📅 ⏳ 🛫 🔁 and priorities are understood the way the Tasks plugin writes them.
Daily notes are still called YYYY-MM-DD.md, and templates know {{date}} and {{title}}.
Formulas, Mermaid diagrams, footnotes and code with syntax colours are all displayed.
Views from .base files and Kanban boards in the Kanban plugin's format open too.

Is different

nexlore runs on your server and in the browser, on your phone too. Without a connection to the server, you can't write.
Every folder at the top is a space with its own members. That's why an Obsidian vault becomes a space.
Only one person types at a time. Whoever edits a note holds it for a moment, and the others can read it in the meantime. There is no typing together in real time.
Dataview, Templater and Excalidraw are shown as code and never touched, but they aren't run either.
Plugins come from a small, checked catalog and not from Obsidian's community list.
The .obsidian/ folder is left alone. nexlore doesn't take over themes, hotkeys or settings from there, because it has its own.
Embedded notes go one level deep rather than being nested without end.
Search knows tag:, path:, file:, task: and [property], plus space: and changed:. It doesn't support OR, brackets or regular expressions.
There is no Canvas. .canvas files stay where they are, but nexlore doesn't show them as a board.

Lore saysnexlore makes sure file names work on Windows, macOS and Linux. If a title contains characters that aren't allowed there, it goes into the properties as title:, and the file name stays harmless.

Bring your vault in as a ZIP

This is the quickest way if you want to leave Obsidian behind or just try nexlore out first.

Pack the vault
Pack the whole vault folder into a ZIP with whatever tool you already have. If everything sits inside one extra folder, that's fine, nexlore just takes it off. .obsidian/ may come along. nexlore only reads which community plugins you use from it, so they can appear in the report.
Import
In nexlore, go to the Files page, choose the ZIP under “Import an Obsidian vault” and give the new space a name. Before nexlore writes a single file, it checks the archive. No entry may lead out of the space, and a ZIP that blows up unusually when unpacked is refused.
Read the report
Afterwards nexlore tells you what it found. The report lists your notes, other files and links, your community plugins and which plugin code is shown as code. You'll also find links that lead nowhere, front matter nexlore can't read, files that aren't UTF-8 and names another operating system couldn't store. For each point nexlore gives up to twenty examples.

Import limit	Value
entries in the ZIP	at most 200,000
one file	at most 1 GB
everything unpacked	at most 4 GB

Lore saysIf your vault is bigger, it's better to put it straight into nexlore's folder, as described in the next section. There's no limit that way.

Obsidian and nexlore on the same folder

This way you can keep using Obsidian on your computer and nexlore in the browser or on your phone. A sync tool like Syncthing keeps the folder on the server and on your computer the same.

How to set it up

nexlore treats every folder at the top of its vault as a space of its own. So if your notes live in /srv/notes, the folder /srv/notes/Personal becomes the space “Personal”. That's exactly the folder you open in Obsidian as a vault.

The folder has to be writable for the user you set with PUID and PGID. The container sets up the data folder /data by itself, but not a vault folder of your own.

docker-compose.yml, excerpt

    volumes:
      - ./data:/data
      - /srv/notes:/vault
    environment:
      NEXLORE_VAULT_DIR: /vault

Nothing gets lost when both write at once

When Obsidian changes a file, nexlore picks up the change right away. A file watcher reports every change, and to be safe nexlore goes over the whole folder again every five minutes. If you have the note open, it quietly reloads.

If you were typing in nexlore while Obsidian changed the same file, neither version is silently overwritten. Your text goes into a conflict copy next to it, such as Note (conflict 2026-09-28 101500).md, and nexlore shows you both versions side by side.

Links keep their old style: If you wrote [[Note]], you'll find [[Note]] again after a rename, without a path and without an extension.
Unchanged lines stay as they are: nexlore leaves every line you didn't touch byte for byte, line endings and blank lines included.
Network shares without change notifications: With NEXLORE_WATCH_POLLING: "true" nexlore checks for changes regularly on its own.

nexlore's editor with properties, a table and a list — This is the same file Obsidian opens. nexlore writes back only the paragraph you changed.

Lore saysPlease put the data folder /data with the database on a local disk and never on an SMB or NFS share. The vault itself may live on a share, and if that share doesn't report changes, NEXLORE_WATCH_POLLING helps.

What happens to your Obsidian plugins

Whatever a plugin wrote into your files stays there. What nexlore understands of it is displayed properly, and the rest is shown as code.

In Obsidian	In nexlore
Tasks	Built in, with tasks from every note, a calendar and recurring tasks. Query blocks from Tasks stay as code.
Bases (core)	Built in, with table, cards, list and board from `.base` files and `base` code blocks.
Daily notes, templates (core)	Built in, with a calendar and placeholders like `{{date:DD.MM.YYYY}}`.
Kanban	A plugin from the catalog that reads and writes boards in the Kanban plugin's format.
Dataview	Stays visible as code and is never run. The plugin “Queries” handles simple lists by tag or folder.
Templater	The commands stay as text. The built-in templates know `{{title}}`, `{{date}}` and `{{time}}`.
Excalidraw	The file stays where it is and is shown as code.
Outline, tag pane, command palette	Built in, as an outline next to the note, as a tag tree and with `Ctrl` + `P`.

Read on

Self-hostHow to start nexlore with Docker Compose and a vault folder of your own. FeaturesWhat nexlore can do, from the editor to tasks. PluginsThe catalog and why every plugin runs locked up. Questions and answersWhat people want to know first, from cost to limits.