Comparison frameworks for Obsidian and frontend
A side-by-side comparison of the main frameworks used to publish an Obsidian vault as a website (digital garden), and how they differ on hosting, Obsidian feature support, site features, and technical output.
| Feature | Forestry.md + Digital Garden plugin (open source plugin) | Obsidian Publish (official hosted, paid) | Quartz 4 (self-hosted SSG) | Flowershow (hosted / self-host, freemium) | HTML Export (local plugin, open source) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| SETUP & HOSTING | |||||
| No-code setup | ✓ (via forestry.md) | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ |
| One-click cloud hosting | ✓ (via forestry.md) | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ |
| Self-hostable | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Free tier available | ✓ | ✗ | n/a | ✓ | n/a |
| OBSIDIAN FEATURE SUPPORT | |||||
| Canvas support | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Obsidian Bases support | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | beta | ✗ |
| Wikilinks | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Dataview queries | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ (via Quartz Syncer plugin) | ✗ | ✓ |
| Callouts / admonitions | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Transclusion / embeds | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | partial | ✓ |
| Frontmatter properties | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Obsidian themes | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Embedded Gists | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| SITE FEATURES | |||||
| Stacked pages | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Password protection | ✗ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Customizable UI text | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Graph view | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Backlinks | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ |
| Full-text search | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Custom domain | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Selective publishing | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ (via Quartz Syncer plugin) | manual | manual |
| Draft / preview mode¹ | ✓ (via forestry.md) | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Page link previews | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✗ | ✗ |
| Comments | ✓ | ✗ | plugin | ✓ | ✗ |
| Custom CSS / styling | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| TECHNICAL | |||||
| Static output | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| Open source | ✓ | ✗ | ✓ | partially | ✓ |
| LaTeX / math | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Preview your entire site with unpublished changes — notes, settings, and themes — before going live.
Notes
- Forestry.md (with the Digital Garden plugin) is the most balanced option: no-code setup, one-click hosting, broad Obsidian feature support, and a true draft/preview mode.
- Obsidian Publish is the official paid, hosted service. It uniquely supports stacked pages and password protection, but is not self-hostable, not open source, and produces no static output.
- Quartz 4 is a self-hosted static-site generator. Dataview and selective publishing rely on the Quartz Syncer plugin.
- Flowershow is freemium (hosted or self-host) but drops several site features like graph view, backlinks, and page link previews.
- HTML Export is a local, open-source plugin focused on producing static HTML; it lacks hosting and several site-level features.