2023 Gems of the Year Winners  ## Metadata - Author: [[obsidian.md]] - Full Title: 2023 Gems of the Year Winners - Category: #articles - Document Note: --- tags: - #Obsidian - #GemsOfTheYear - #Plugins Author: Obsidian Team Source: Obsidian Blog Reference: https://obsidian.md/blog/2023-goty-winners/ date created: 2025-08-23 00:00 --- # Title: Obsidian’s Gems of the Year Awards 2023 ## Table of Contents: - 🧭 Introduction (#🧭-Introduction) - 🆕 New Plugins and Themes Winners (#🆕-New-Plugins-and-Themes-Winners) - 🔁 Existing Plugin Winners (#🔁-Existing-Plugin-Winners) - 🧰 Tools Category Winners (#🧰-Tools-Category-Winners) - 🧠 Content Category Winners (#🧠-Content-Category-Winners) - 🧩 Template Category Winners (#🧩-Template-Category-Winners) - 🎉 Congratulations & Previous Years (#🎉-Congratulations--Previous-Years) - 🔗 References (#🔗-References) ### References: - Obsidian Blog: Gems of the Year 2023 — https://obsidian.md/blog/2023-goty-winners/ ## 📝 Summary: Obsidian announced the winners of its third annual Gems of the Year awards, celebrating community-made contributions across plugins, themes, tools, content, and templates. The community nominated 287 projects; a panel shortlist and community vote determined the winners. Highlights include Omnivore (new plugin), Border (new theme), Omnisearch (existing plugin), Quartz (tool), Nicole van der Hoeven (content), and Dashboard++ (template). The post thanks participants and links to prior award years. ## 📖 Main Content: The awards showcase the vibrancy of the Obsidian ecosystem and the diversity of use cases—from search and metadata management to site publishing and learning resources. The selection process underscores community governance: nominations, panel curation, and open voting. Winners reflect both utility (search, note dashboards) and growth areas (AI-assisted note discovery, static site generation). The content winner highlights creator-educators who help users apply Obsidian in real workflows. Personal reflections: - The balance of discoverability (Omnisearch), structure (Metadata Menu, Linter), and workflows (QuickAdd, Periodic Notes) suggests evolving maturity in Obsidian knowledge management. - Tools like Quartz and templates like Dashboard++ illustrate the push from private notes to public knowledge sharing. - AI-related work (Smart Connections) indicates sustained interest in semantic linking and chat-with-your-notes paradigms. ### 🗒️ Notes - Introduction - Nearly four years since Obsidian’s first code (Jan 31, 2020). - 287 community-nominated projects across five categories. - Panel shortlist followed by community voting. - New Plugin - Winner: Omnivore — fetch articles and highlights from Omnivore into Obsidian. - Runners-up: - Folder Notes — create notes within folders, accessible without collapsing. - Home Tab — browser-like search tab for local files. - Better Search Views — breadcrumb trees for search/backlinks/queries. - Smart Connections — chat with your notes; relevance in real time (OpenAI/GPT-4/embeddings). - New Theme - Winner: Border — clean, highly customizable theme. - Runners-up: - Flexoki — inky color scheme by Steph Ango. - Tokyo Night — theme inspired by Tokyonight palettes. - Existing Plugin - Winner: Omnisearch — “just works” search with smart weighting, instant relevance. - Runners-up: - QuickAdd — templates, captures, macros, multis. - Linter — configurable formatting/styling. - Metadata Menu — type/manage note metadata. - Periodic Notes — daily, weekly, monthly notes. - Tools - Winner: Quartz — batteries-included static site generator for Markdown to websites. - Runners-up: - Canvas Candy — tools for the canvas feature. - TTRPG-Convert-CLI — convert 5e/pf2e JSON to Obsidian Markdown. - Content - Winner: Nicole van der Hoeven — talks on performance testing, remote work, and the power of notes. - Runners-up: - Hack your brain with Obsidian (No Boilerplate) — deep dive into a second brain with Obsidian. - Danny Hatcher’s YouTube — research and tech topics. - Template - Winner: Dashboard++ — method for organizing a vault. - Runners-up: - Ideaverse — starter kit for managing life (Nick Milo). - Kepano Vault Template — bottom-up personal vault template (Steph Ango). - Closing - Congratulations and thanks to participants. - Links to prior years: 2020, 2021, 2022. ## 📖 References: - Obsidian Blog (official announcement): https://obsidian.md/blog/2023-goty-winners/ - Previous years: 2020 | 2021 | 2022 (linked from the announcement page) ## 🗣️ Paraphrase: - Original idea: “It has been nearly four years since the first line of code of Obsidian was written… we’re thrilled to announce the winners of our third annual Gems of the Year awards!” - Paraphrase: As Obsidian approaches its fourth anniversary from the first commit, the team celebrates by revealing the honorees of the third Gems of the Year. - Original idea: “The community nominated 287 projects… After our panel narrowed down the selection and the community voted… winners.” - Paraphrase: With 287 entries put forward by users, a curated shortlist moved to a public vote, culminating in the final list of winners. ## 📰 Newsletter: Headline: Obsidian’s 2023 Gems of the Year: Tools, Templates, and a Whole Lot of Sparkle Blurb: Learning web dev is more fun when your notes work as hard as your code. Obsidian has announced its 2023 Gems of the Year, spotlighting community-built goodies across plugins, themes, tools, content, and templates. Highlights: - Omnisearch (existing plugin) and Better Search Views sharpen discovery. - QuickAdd, Linter, and Metadata Menu streamline formatting and workflows. - Quartz turns Markdown into production-ready sites—perfect for docs and dev blogs. - Smart Connections nudges us toward AI-assisted “chat with your notes.” - Dashboard++ and Ideaverse bring opinionated structure without killing creativity. For a full rundown, see the announcement on the Obsidian Blog (Obsidian’s Gems of the Year 2023). Considering taking your tech notes public? Pair Quartz with your WordPress site for hybrid publishing: keep internal research in Obsidian, publish polished posts on WordPress, and syndicate to the fediverse for good measure. Links: - Obsidian 2023 winners overview: Obsidian Blog: Gems of the Year 2023 — https://obsidian.md/blog/2023-goty-winners/ - Quartz static-site generator: https://quartz.jzhao.xyz/ Tone: Friendly, professional, helpful—with the occasional wink at our collective plugin hoarding. ## ✅ Action Items: Prompt tailored to your role and goals: “Analyze how this article advances open-source advocacy and contributor education within the WordPress and broader OSS ecosystems. Map each winner to: - Contributor Onboarding: Which projects lower the barrier for new contributors (e.g., templates like Dashboard++, metadata tooling)? - Sustainable Funding & OSPO Readiness: Which tools/processes (e.g., Omnisearch’s reliability, Quartz’s publishing pipeline) model maintainable governance, documentation, and community scaling? - Developer Education: Identify learning pathways (videos, templates, workflows) that can be adapted to WordPress contributor onboarding, Learn.WordPress.org curricula, and contributor days. - Community Health & Inclusivity: Evaluate DEIB signals in featured content and propose inclusive practices for meetups, mentorship, and documentation. - Tech-to-Stage Translation: Draft talk/workshop outlines showing how AI-assisted note discovery (Smart Connections) and improved search (Omnisearch) can help WordPress teams triage issues, write better docs, and ship faster. - Cross-Tool Integration: Recommend ways to connect Obsidian workflows with GitHub, WordPress docs, and OSPO reporting dashboards (metrics, contributor journeys). Produce a 1-page brief aligning insights to OSPO leadership competencies (policy, risk, IP, community), and a 90-day plan to pilot these practices in GoDaddy’s open-source programs.” ## 🧪 Hypotheses: - H1: Workflow-oriented plugins (QuickAdd, Linter, Periodic Notes) increase note hygiene and retrieval effectiveness, improving contributor throughput. - H2: AI-augmented discovery (Smart Connections) reduces time-to-insight for large note vaults compared to keyword search alone. - H3: Public pu - Summary: Obsidian has announced the winners of its third annual Gems of the Year awards. The Obsidian community nominated 287 projects, including plugins, themes, tools, content, and templates. The winners include Omnivore as the new plugin winner, Border as the new theme winner, Omnisearch as the existing plugin winner, Quartz as the tools winner, and Nicole van der Hoeven as the content winner. Congratulations to all the winners and participants! - URL: https://obsidian.md/blog/2023-goty-winners/ It has been nearly four years since the first line of code of Obsidian was written on January 31st, 2020. Today we’re thrilled to announce the winners of our third annual Gems of the Year awards! This year the Obsidian community nominated 287 projects, including plugins, themes, tools, content, and templates. After our panel narrowed down the selection and the community voted on the entries, we’re now excited to announce the winners. 🎉 Thank you to everyone who participated, and congratulations to the winners! *We will be in touch with winners soon so you can receive your prizes.* #### New plugin ##### Winner 🏆 [Omnivore](https://github.com/omnivore-app/obsidian-omnivore) by Omnivore > Obsidian plugin to fetch articles and highlights from Omnivore. > >  ##### Runners up [Folder Notes](https://github.com/LostPaul/obsidian-folder-notes) by @LostPaul > Create notes within folders that can be accessed without collapsing the folder, similar to the functionality offered in Notion. > > [Home Tab](https://github.com/olrenso/obsidian-home-tab) by @olrenso > A browser-like search tab for your local files in Obsidian. > > [Better Search Views](https://github.com/ivan-lednev/better-search-views) by Ivan Lednev > Outliner-like breadcrumb trees for search, backlinks and embedded queries. > > [Smart Connections](https://github.com/brianpetro/obsidian-smart-connections) by Brian Petro (@WFHBrian) > Chat with your notes in Obsidian! Plus, see what’s most relevant in real-time! Interact and stay organized. Powered by OpenAI ChatGPT, GPT-4 & Embeddings. > > #### New theme ##### Winner 🏆 [Border](https://github.com/Akifyss/obsidian-border) by Akifyss > A clean and highly customisable theme for Obsidian. > >  ##### Runners up [Flexoki](https://github.com/kepano/flexoki-obsidian) by Steph Ango (@kepano) > Flexoki, an inky color scheme for Obsidian. > > [Tokyo Night](https://github.com/tcmmichaelb139/obsidian-tokyonight) by Michael Bao > A Tokyo Night theme for Obsidian. Colors from tokyonight.nvim and VSCode Tokyonight. > > #### Existing plugin ##### Winner 🏆 [Omnisearch](https://github.com/scambier/obsidian-omnisearch) by Simon Cambier > Omnisearch is a search engine that "just works". It always instantly shows you the most relevant results, thanks to its smart weighting algorithm. > >  ##### Runners up [QuickAdd](https://github.com/chhoumann/quickadd) by Christian Bager Bach Houmann (@chhoumann) > QuickAdd is a powerful combination of four tools: templates, captures, macros, and multis. > > [Linter](https://github.com/platers/obsidian-linter) by Victor Tao (@platers) > Formats and styles your notes with a focus on configurability and extensibility. > > [Metadata Menu](https://github.com/mdelobelle/metadatamenu) by Mathieu Delobelle (@mdelobelle) > For data management enthusiasts: type and manage the metadata of your notes. > > [Periodic Notes](https://github.com/liamcain/obsidian-periodic-notes) by Liam Cain > The Periodic Notes plugin expands on the idea of daily notes and introduces weekly and monthly notes. > > #### Tools This new category highlights bookmarklets, browser extensions, publishing tools, scripts, and any other non-plugin tools that work with with Obsidian. ##### Winner 🏆 [Quartz](https://quartz.jzhao.xyz/) by Jacky Zhao > A fast, batteries-included static-site generator that transforms Markdown content into fully functional websites. > >  ##### Runners up [Canvas Candy](https://tfthacker.com/canvas-candy) by @TfTHacker > The Canvas Candy Vault is a set of tools specially designed for use with the canvas feature of Obsidian. > > [TTRPG-Convert-CLI](https://github.com/ebullient/ttrpg-convert-cli) by Erin Schnabel (@ebullient) > Utility to convert JSON data (for content you own) from 5etools or pf2etools into Obsidian-friendly Markdown. > > #### Content ##### Winner 🏆 [Nicole van der Hoeven](https://www.youtube.com/@nicolevdh) by Nicole van der Hoeven > Nicole is a developer advocate at k6.io (Grafana Labs), and she talks about testing for application performance, travelling the world while working, and the work-changing magic of taking notes. > > Nicole van der Hoeven ##### Runners up [Hack your brain with Obsidian](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbsAQSIKQXk) by No Boilerplate > Tris has used many note-taking tools over the years, simple-note, notion, and extensively emacs org-mode, none have improved his thinking in the way that Obsidian has. Today is a deep-dive into my second brain, and if you take my advice, YOUR second brain. > > [Danny Hatcher’s YouTube channel](https://www.youtube.com/@DannyHatcher) by Danny Hatcher > Danny makes videos about research, tech, and other related topics. > > #### Template ##### Winner 🏆 [Dashboard++](https://github.com/TfTHacker/DashboardPlusPlus) by @TfTHacker > Demonstrating the Dashboard++ method of organizing a vault in Obsidian. > >  ##### Runners up [Ideaverse](https://start.linkingyourthinking.com/ideaverse-for-obsidian) by Nick Milo > Ideaverse is a starter kit to manage your whole life created by Nick Milo, founder of Linking Your Thinking. > > [Kepano Vault Template](https://stephango.com/vault) by Steph Ango (@kepano) > Steph’s personal Obsidian vault template. A bottom-up approach to note-taking and organizing things he is interested in. > > Congratulations again to all who won and participated! Previous Gems of the Year: [2020](https://obsidian.md/blog/2020-goty-winners/) | [2021](https://obsidian.md/blog/2021-goty-winners/) | [2022](https://obsidian.md/blog/2022-goty-winners/), 2023 Gems of the Year Winners, obsidian.md, 01hn09h5dydqw3dhz1wkxewq0v.