IWE: a Markdown knowledge base you and your AI agent work on together

How IWE Compares

IWE turns a directory of markdown files into a knowledge graph — a connected structure you browse from your editor and your AI queries from the command line. Same files, same links, two interfaces.

That sentence is also the short answer to most questions on this page. The tools below are one of three things: a markdown language server (marksman, markdown-oxide), a note-taking application (Obsidian), or a CLI notebook (zk, telekasten.nvim). IWE overlaps all three because the graph is the product — the LSP server, the CLI, and the MCP server are three views of one in-memory model.

Which Tool Should You Use

• A markdown language server for almost any editor, with the least setup — use marksman. It is the incumbent, it is small, and it does links, references, and diagnostics well.

• Obsidian-style daily notes, block references, and tags without leaving your editor — use markdown-oxide. Natural-language dates are better there than in IWE today.

• A GUI, mobile apps, a plugin ecosystem, canvas, and a web clipper — use Obsidian.

• A Zettelkasten CLI with templates and an fzf browser — use zk.

• Notes as a graph you can query, refactor, and hand to an AI agent — from the editor and the command line — use IWE.

If you are weighing IWE against one specific tool, skip to that section. If you want the argument against IWE, read Where IWE Is Weaker below; it is not a short list.

marksman vs markdown-oxide

If you only want a markdown language server and are choosing between the two established ones, the sections below give the details. In short:

Pick marksman for the widest editor support and the least setup, especially in Vim, Emacs, Sublime Text, or BBEdit. Pick markdown-oxide if you are coming from Obsidian and want daily notes, block references, and tags in your editor. Pick IWE if you also want to query the notes, restructure them, and let an AI agent work on them from the CLI or MCP. The two sections below say where each of them is ahead of IWE.

IWE vs marksman

Verified 2026-09-03 against marksman's feature documentation and its 2026-02-08 release.

marksman is the default answer to "is there a markdown LSP?" It has the widest editor coverage of any tool on this page, it is the tool other markdown language servers get compared against, and for a large class of users it is enough.

The difference in one sentence: marksman is a markdown language server; IWE is a knowledge graph that speaks LSP. marksman's job ends at making links, headings, and references work correctly inside an editor — and it does that job well. IWE's LSP is one interface onto a graph that also has a CLI, a query language, and an MCP server; the editor features fall out of the graph rather than being the point.

Choose marksman if you want link and reference correctness in an editor marksman already supports, with a .marksman.toml and nothing else to learn — especially Emacs, Vim, Sublime Text, or BBEdit, where IWE has no documented setup. Choose IWE if the notes are something you also want to query, restructure, and expose to agents outside the editor.

IWE vs markdown-oxide

Verified 2026-09-03 against oxide.md, the markdown-oxide repository, and release v0.25.12.

markdown-oxide is a PKM language server aimed squarely at bringing Obsidian's editing model into a text editor: daily notes, block references, tags, callouts. It is an actively maintained solo project with a real community around it, and on the Obsidian-compatibility axis it is ahead of IWE.

The difference in one sentence: markdown-oxide brings Obsidian's model into your editor; IWE treats the notes as a graph with an editor attached. They overlap on links, backlinks, and completion, and diverge on almost everything else.

On parsing

Both approaches work; they fail differently. Regex parsing is very fast to index and gets the common cases right. An AST costs more to build and settles a class of question by construction rather than by pattern: whether [[ inside an inline-code span is a link, whether a fenced block nested in a list item is code, whether seven # characters open a heading. IWE pays the parse cost once at startup in the LSP and MCP servers, and per invocation in the CLI — the benchmark is where that cost is measured rather than asserted.

On link granularity

This is a design difference, not a scoreboard. markdown-oxide resolves heading and block anchors, so a link can point at a paragraph. IWE resolves at document granularity and drops #fragment when computing the target key; if a section is worth linking to, the extract code action turns it into its own document and rewrites the link for you. That is a real answer, but it is not the same answer, and if you want to point at a block without moving it, markdown-oxide does what you want and IWE does not.

IWE vs Obsidian

Verified 2026-09-03 for pricing and platform support; feature rows carried forward from May 2026.

Obsidian is a GUI PKM application with strong visualization, an extensive plugin ecosystem, and Bases (typed database views), Canvas, and Web Clipper:

The philosophical difference: IWE is editor-agnostic and developer-focused, designed to sit inside existing technical workflows and to be readable by agents. Obsidian is a complete environment with its own ecosystem, better suited to people who want one application that does everything, with visual interfaces and plugin-level customization. If you are not already living in a text editor, Obsidian is very likely the right choice.

IWE vs zk and telekasten.nvim

Feature rows carried forward from May 2026 — not re-verified on 2026-09-03.

zk (zk-org) is a CLI-driven Zettelkasten tool with an LSP server and integrations for Neovim, VS Code, and Emacs. telekasten.nvim is a Neovim-only plugin with calendar, image paste, and Telescope integration:

zk is a strong choice for Zettelkasten purists who want a CLI-first workflow with a simpler data model. telekasten.nvim is the best fit for Neovim users who want a polished journaling experience with calendar and image-paste workflows — neither of which IWE offers.

IWE vs mdbase

Feature rows carried forward from May 2026 — not re-verified on 2026-09-03.

mdbase is a specification (v0.2.1) for treating folders of markdown files as typed, queryable data collections. It has a TypeScript reference implementation and a Go library, but no LSP server, no editor extensions, and no CLI. It overlaps with IWE on querying and frontmatter typing — but not on graph transformations, editor integration, or AI tooling.

mdbase's advantage: explicit, vendor-neutral schema definitions with strict validation suit teams that want to enforce frontmatter contracts across tools. If you primarily need typed records rather than a knowledge graph, mdbase's typed-collection model may fit better.

Where IWE Is Weaker

Everything above is easy to write in IWE's favor, so here is the other list — checked against IWE 0.23.0 on 2026-09-03.

• Daily and periodic notes. IWE has templates: an attach action with key_template = "daily/{{today}}" creates and links today's note. It has no natural-language date resolution, no [[next monday]] as a link target, no relative jump commands, and no weekly, monthly, or yearly periods. markdown-oxide is clearly ahead here; telekasten.nvim has the weekly, monthly, and yearly periods.

• Live diagnostics. IWE's LSP publishes none. Broken links are detectable, but only in batch, through iwe stats. Both marksman and markdown-oxide flag unresolved references as you type.

• Section and block link targets. IWE resolves links at document granularity and drops #fragment. marksman resolves heading anchors; markdown-oxide resolves headings and blocks. Extraction is IWE's answer, and it is a different answer, not a strictly better one.

• Per-heading reference counts. IWE's inlay hint shows one backlink count for the whole document. marksman and markdown-oxide both show counts per heading.

• Tags. IWE queries frontmatter tags arrays well, but has no index, completion, or go-to-definition for inline #tag syntax. markdown-oxide does.

• Aliases. A document has one title. If you want a note findable under several names, IWE has no answer today.

• Editor breadth. IWE documents VS Code, Neovim, Zed, and Helix. marksman additionally covers Emacs, Vim, Sublime Text, BBEdit, and Kakoune; markdown-oxide covers Kakoune. Any LSP client can be wired up by hand, but "by hand" is the operative phrase.

• Table of contents. marksman generates and maintains one as a code action. IWE does not.

• Mobile. Obsidian has native apps with sync. IWE is desktop and terminal only.

• Plugin ecosystem, canvas, web clipper, and interactive graph view. Obsidian wins these outright, and it is not close.

• First-run clarity. IWE is a binary, an editor config, and a directory of markdown. If you have never used an LSP-backed tool before, Obsidian will be working before IWE is configured.

What IWE Adds Beyond a Markdown LSP

The tables above compress a lot. The capabilities that have no counterpart in a markdown language server — graph transformations, the query language, the MCP server, search ranking, schema inference, external commands, normalization, and inclusion links — are catalogued with links to their documentation in the Feature Overview.

Method and Dates

• Each comparison block carries its own verification date. A block dated May 2026 has not been re-checked since; treat it accordingly. marksman and markdown-oxide were re-verified on 2026-09-03 against their documentation, source, and releases. Obsidian pricing and platform support were re-checked the same day; its feature rows were not.

• Claims about IWE were checked against IWE 0.23.0.

• Claims about other tools link to their documentation, source, or issue tracker wherever the claim is not obvious from the tool's front page.

• Corrections are welcome and will be applied. If something here is wrong, out of date, or unfair — including by the maintainers of the tools compared — open an issue and it will be fixed. This page is maintained, not marketing.