Documentation

Publish your Obsidian notes as a website you own

kvist (Swedish for “twig”) turns the notes you choose into a fast, searchable digital garden on your own server. You write in Obsidian, press Publish, and your site updates. Private notes never leave your device.

Get started → TLDR: quick setup How publishing works GitHub
A kvist site: a menu with a folder tree on the left, a list of notes in the middle and a note on the right.
A published note in the built-in theme: menu, list of notes, and the note.

How it works

There are two parts you install once:

  • The server runs on any server with Docker. It stores what you publish, builds the website and serves it. It is a single program, and it needs very little memory.
  • The Obsidian plugin connects your vault to the server. It works on desktop and mobile.

The publish rules (which folders and tags are public) live on the server, so a device with an old setting can't publish something by mistake.

What you get

  • Obsidian syntaxWikilinks, embeds, callouts, tags, highlights, footnotes, math, Mermaid diagrams and canvases.
  • Private stays privateLinks to private notes become plain text, with no hint that the note exists.
  • Search and graphFull-text search (press /), backlinks, related notes and a graph of how notes connect.
  • Three-pane themeNavigation, a list of the folder's notes and the note itself, in light and dark, with breadcrumbs, a reader mode, pages that open instantly and, if you like, linked notes side by side.
  • Your folder is the sitePublish one folder of your vault, and its subfolders become the menu, with short addresses. Each folder lists its newest notes first, or in the order you choose.
  • Shares wellEvery note gets a preview image with its title for chats and social media, and notes can be published without being listed.
  • Settings in a noteTitle, menu, home page and colors live in a note you edit in Obsidian, on any device.
  • Feeds and SEORSS, a sitemap, page metadata and an icon are generated for you, and visitor statistics are one setting away.
  • Safe imagesLocation and camera data are removed from photos before they are published.
  • Links keep workingRename or move a note, and its old address sends visitors to the new one.
  • In your languageMenus, dates and search in English, Swedish, German, French or Spanish. The plugin follows Obsidian's language.

A look around

The same site in dark mode, with a small graph and a table of contents beside the note.
Dark mode. On wide screens, contents and connections sit beside the note.
A search box over the site, listing notes that match “compost” with snippets.
Search everything with /.
A graph of about fifty notes connected by lines, with the current note highlighted.
The graph shows how your notes link together.
The home page with recently tended notes in the middle and the home note on the right.
The home page: recent notes and your own home note.
A note on a phone screen, with breadcrumbs above its title.
On a phone.
The phone menu opened, listing the profile, Home, Search, Graph, Tags and the folder tree.
The menu on a phone.

What you need

  • A server with Docker installed.
  • A domain or subdomain, such as garden.example.com, that you can point at the server.
  • Obsidian on your computer.
  • About 30 minutes for the first setup.

Ready? Follow Getting started. It goes from an empty server to your first published note.

Find your way