Ferrite
Dev tools
markdown editor
SHOW HN2026
How HN took it
11 positive, 30 neutral or asking, 3 mixed, 22 critical, out of 66 comments about the project. Thread score -0.15.
Idea: 6 for, 3 againstExecution: 0 for, 5 againstDocs: 1 for, 3 againstPerformance: 1 for, 2 againstDesign: 0 for, 2 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Native performance and lightweight footprint versus Electron editors
From 1 comment
> - ~15MB vs ~300MB+ (no Electron) > - Instant startup vs seconds > - Native Mermaid rendering (no extension juggling) > - Built-in JSON/YAML tree viewer with pipeline shell…
OlaProis on HN
Objections
Heavy reliance on AI code generation with little disclosure at first
From 2 comments
Why did you remove AI agent configurations and instructions from the repo? See .gitignore
silcoon on HNYou're right to push on this, let me be fully transparent. 100% of the code was generated by AI (Claude Opus 4.5(I am super impressed by the capabilities of Opus 4.5), via Cursor…
OlaProis on HN
Native Mermaid rendering is not pixel-perfect with mermaid.js
From 1 comment
Valid point! Native rendering won't be pixel-perfect with mermaid.js. The trade-off is speed and no JS runtime. For documents staying in Ferrite, it's great. For sharing, we're…
OlaProis on HN
Market for a Markdown writing app against Obsidian is unclear
From 1 comment
Do people still use $language editors? My impression was that everyone uses their $EDITOR and integrates languages support via plugins. The only exception to this rule I know is…
koiueo on HN
Requests
Obsidian-style wikilinks, backlinks and knowledge graph
From 2 comments
You're right, currently Ferrite leans developer/tech with Mermaid, JSON/YAML tree viewer, and CLI integration. The Obsidian-style features (wikilinks, backlinks, knowledge graph)…
OlaProis on HNI want cold storage encryption which is cross-platform and doesn't require FUSE and such. Current solutions are all either non-cross-platform or overkill, so I'm still using…
k_bx on HN
LaTeX or TeX math support
From 2 comments
LaTeX support is a reasonable request! It's not on the immediate roadmap, but here's my thinking: Options considered: - KaTeX/MathJax-style rendering (would need a Rust math…
OlaProis on HNThanks! TeX math support ($...$ and $$...$$) is planned for v0.4.0. We're going pure Rust (no JS runtimes), targeting common LaTeX syntax. See the planning doc on github (docs…
OlaProis on HN
Custom icons and shapes for architecture diagrams
From 2 comments
Service flows for security audits — that's a specific and useful use case! A few thoughts: What might work today: - Sequence diagrams can model service-to-service flows (API…
OlaProis on HNYou're right, neither Mermaid nor D2 really nail AWS architecture diagrams out of the box. Mermaid lacks icons entirely, and D2's AWS pack is more 'icons exist' than…
OlaProis on HN
Questions
Whether the app offers encryption at rest
From 2 comments
We need privacy-focused Obsidian alternative (which doesn't store unencrypted text files on disk), excited to see a potential player written in my tech stack, meaning it should…
k_bx on HNFerrite is privacy-focused in that it's fully offline — no telemetry, no cloud sync, no accounts, no network calls (even Mermaid diagrams render locally in pure Rust). However,…
OlaProis on HN
Alternatives named
Obsidian
From 1 comment
Valid skepticism! A few counterpoints: Market exists: Obsidian has 1M+ users, Typora is popular, iA Writer has a loyal following. These aren't VS Code users who wandered off —…
OlaProis on HN
Typora
From 1 comment
Thanks! Typora is great - Ferrite aims for similar polish but with native Mermaid, structured data support (JSON/YAML/TOML tree viewer), and the pipeline feature for shell…
OlaProis on HN
VS Code with Markdown Preview Enhanced
From 1 comment
Valid skepticism! A few counterpoints: Market exists: Obsidian has 1M+ users, Typora is popular, iA Writer has a loyal following. These aren't VS Code users who wandered off —…
OlaProis on HN
D2
From 2 comments
Currently Mermaid doesn't support manual positioning — the layout is algorithmic (Sugiyama-style for flowcharts). Some workarounds: - Use subgraph blocks to cluster related nodes…
OlaProis on HNService flows for security audits — that's a specific and useful use case! A few thoughts: What might work today: - Sequence diagrams can model service-to-service flows (API…
OlaProis on HN