Digital Gardening Tools and Resources
October 22, 2023 · View on GitHub
This collection of apps, tools and articles is here to help you learn more about digital gardening. Ideally, it's here to help you start your own garden.
What is "digital gardening"?
A garden is something inbetween a personal blog and a wiki. It's a collection of evolving notes, essays, and ideas that aren't strictly organised by their publication date. They're inherently exploratory – posts are linked through contextual associations. They aren't refined or complete - posts can be published as half-finished thoughts that will grow and evolve over time. They're less rigid, less performative, and less perfect than the personal "blogs" we're used to encountering on the web.
See the Theory, Philosophy, and Navel-gazing section for more on the 'what' of gardens.
Gardening Tools
Building a Public Garden
- Roam Research - A personal notes system for interconnected thought
- See the following resources for converting your private garden in Roam to a public garden:
- Roam Garden a service that does all the setup for you based on JSON export
- Gatsby Theme Garden Gatsby theme that supports using Roam as a source
- Roam-to-Garden Jekyll based converter for your Roam Data
- See the following resources for converting your private garden in Roam to a public garden:
- Obsidian - a Roam-like knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files. Also allows you to publish selections of your graph to the open web.
- TiddlyWiki - A no-code personal wiki system
- Gitbook
- React-Notion - allows you to publish a React-based website sources from your Notion notes - "Notion as a CMS"
- Gatsby Brain Theme - Roam-like bidirectional links in Gatsby.js
- Gatsby Andy Theme
- Gatsby Theme Garden - A set of tools to build a digital garden with Gatsby.js. Pull data from Roam Research or markdown.
- Simply Jekyll - A Jekyll theme with bidirectional links, sidenotes, and transclusion
- Digital Garden Jekyll Template - A simple, clean jekyll template with bi-directional links
- Jekyll-Bonsai - A modern jekyll theme for semantically inclined digital gardeners.
- Jekyll Garden - Clean Jekyll theme supporting bidirectional links.
- Eleventy Garden - A minimal template with backlinks, built in Eleventy
- Foam - Roam-like personal note management and publishing system built inside VSCode
- Foamy NextJS - Basic Foam + NextJS with MDX starter for building a digital garden
- Dendron - A structured note taking tool that merges the freedom of Roam-like linking with the order hierarchical organization
- Hyperdraft - Turns plain markdown notes into a website as you write. Easy to setup and doesn't require builds or deploys.
- Neuron - Managing and publishing system for plain-text Zettelkasten-style notes.
- Innos Notes – Features include parallel pages, content blocks, and knowledge graph visualisations.
- Trilium Notes - A hierarchical note taking application with focus on building large personal knowledge bases.
- Quartz - Publish your Obsidian or Roam digital garden to the web for free. Includes full-text search, graph visualization, and backlinks.
Building a Private Garden
- Bangle.io - A simple, markdown-based notetaking app that runs locally on your machine.
- Org Roam - non-hierarchical note-taking with org-mode in emacs
- TheBrain - A tool for taking interconnected notes with an interactive graph.
- The Archive - A fast plain text Markdown note-taking app with Zettelkasten features like linking and tagging.
Extra Gardening Tools
- Webmentions - About the Webmentions system
- Webmention.io - A service to add Webmentions to your Garden
- Hypothesis - A layer of social meta commentary
- mkdocs-newsletter - An add-on to the MKdocs platform that generates a newsletter logging which pages have changed
How-To's and Tutorials
- How to build a digital garden with TiddlyWiki by Anne-Laure Le Cunff
- Own Your Second Brain: Set Up org-roam on Your Own Machine by Ian Jones
- Building a Digital Garden by Tom Critchlow
- Webmentions - Joining the IndieWeb with Svelte by Shawn Wang
- How to plant a Garden a video walkthrough for converting your RoamResearch DB into a public garden by Vlad Sitalo
- Digital Gardening for Non-Technical Folks by Maggie Appleton
Theory, Philosophy, and Navel-Gazing
- The Garden and the Stream: A Techno pastoral by Mike Caulfield – the original source of the concept of Digital Gardening
- Of Digital Streams, Campfires and Gardens by Tom Critchlow
- How the Blog Broke the Web by Amy Hoy
- My blog is a digital garden, not a blog by Joel Hooks
- You and your mind garden by Anne-Laure Le Cunff
- Digital Garden Terms of Service by Shawn Wang
- What is a digital garden? by Chris Biscardi
- The Garden and the Stream: An IndieWeb Pop-up Session
- The Swale: Weaving between Garden and Stream by Will Stedden
- A Brief History & Ethos of the Digital Garden by Maggie Appleton
Common Ground: Zettelkasten, Knowledge Graphs, Wikis, and Related Concepts
- Zettelkasten: knowledge and info management
- The Zettelkasten Method by Abram Demski
- A web of wikis by Neil Mather
- Bliki tooling by Neil Mather
- Hack Your Life With A Private Wiki Notebook, Getting Things Done, And Other Systems by Bill Seitz
- As We May Think by Vannevar Bush (The Atlantic, 1945)
Digital Garden Directory
⭐️ = Featured; unique and exceptional examples
| Gardener & Link | 🛠 Build Tools | 🌿Note Themes |
|---|---|---|
| ⭐️ Andy Matuschak | The Mystery Andy System | Note-taking, education, tools for thought |
| ⭐️ Gwern | JS, CSS, Hakyll, Haskell | Quantified self, spaced repetition, bitcoin |
| ⭐️ Azlen Elza | Notion + Python | Design, Conversational interfaces, Tools for thought |
| ⭐️ Buster Benson | Behaviour change, dialogue, systems thinking | |
| ⭐️ Tom Critchlow | Jekyll | Indie consulting |
| ⭐️ Chris Aldrich | TiddlyWiki + TiddlyBlink + TiddlyMap | Art of Memory, IndieWeb, humanities, commonplace books, thought spaces |
| ⭐️ Gordon Brander | Lettersmith | Design patterns, storytelling, systems |
| ⭐️ Bill Seitz | Flask/Python with WikiFlux | Product management, startups, wiki theory, engineering |
| ⭐️ Alex Komoroske | Cards Web – a custom OS platform | Complexity theory, design, systems thinking |
| ⭐️ Nikita Voloboev | GitBook | Tool obsessed. Code, web dev, art. |
| Anne-Laure Le Cunff | TiddlyWiki | Networked thinking, metacognition, evidence-based learning and self-education |
| Shawn Wang | Sapper | Web development, writing, speaking |
| Kevin Cummingham | Gatsby | Web development, React, AWS, GraphQL |
| Maggie Appleton | Next.js | Anthropology, metaphors, visual explanations, and web development |
| Chris Biscardi | Sector / Toast? | Web development, MDX, GraphQL, Gatsby |
| Neil Mather | Org-mode | Programming, politics, climate change |
| Wess Daniels | Tiddlywiki (Pre-Release 5.1.23) | Culture and systems change, liberation theology, tech and pedagogy |
| Aengus McMillin | Gatsby | Programming, Stoicism |
| Joel Hooks | Gatsby + MDX | Bootstrapping / indie-hacking, community building, web development |
| Ian Jones | Gatsby | Web development, Gatsby, Emacs |
| Wayan Jimmy | Gatsby (Hasura Gitbook Starter) | Coding, Learning notes |
| Markus | Eleventy | Design, linux, privacy |
| Max Stoiber | The Mystery Andy System | React, web development |
| Daniel Chapman | Gatsby | Books, Writing, Poetry |
| Will Stedden | Custom coding a side project | Machine learning, automated language generation, quantum physics art, online transparency |
| Salman Ansari | Gatsby | Start-ups, engineering |
| Fabien Benetou | PmWiki (with plenty of extensions PHP/JS/NodeJS/WebXR/CSS/Processing/etc) | Everytyhing but particularly programming, tools, tools for thoughts |
| Waylon Walker | Gatsby | python, data-engineering, coding, learning notes |
| Cristian Rojas | Hugo Zettels theme | 🇪🇸 Drawing, coding, biology, introspection |
| Chinarut Ruangchotvit | TheBrain | autobiography, personal transformation |
| Steve Dondley | Jekyll, vimwiki | Tech, software, automation, some politics and issues |
| Scott Spence | Toast + MDX | Web development, MDX, GraphQL, Gatsby, styled-components |
| Devine Lu Linvega | C | Sailing, Design, Livecoding, Plan9 |
| Milkii Brewster | MediaWiki | Various life and tech topics, mostly Linux and audio FOSS |
| Maxime Vaillancourt | Jekyll (open-source template) | personal growth, ruby, web, linux |
| Andy Byers | Jekyll | notes on coding, note taking, personal knowledge management and other random thoughts. |
| Abstractxan | C++ (Mizi) | Tech, Art, Curating resources |
| Luciano Strika | Jekyll | Personal Wiki, Digital Garden. StrikingLoo's Haphazard Repository of Knowledge, Opinions and Trivia |
| Piotr Gaczkowski | Jekyll + Roam Research as backend | Book notes, Codex Vitae, cocktails, experiments |
| Tymon Zaniewski | Jekyll (open-source template) | personal wiki, DIY electronics, making music |
| Aquiles Carattino | Aqui Brain Dump | Science. Notes on books and papers. Technology Transfer. Working in Public |
| Yenly Ma | Foamy NextJS and NextJS with MDX | Digital garden of gardens. Learning and making in public. |
| Rosano | Hyperdraft + Garden | Music / Design / Technology |
| Chase McCoy | Gatsby + MDX | Web development, CSS, design systems |
| Charlie Trochlil | Maxime's jekyll template | Learning, art, online spaces, baking |
| Hiran Venugopalan | Obsidian + Jekyll | Design, Branding, Business, Typography, Product |
| Vlad Sitalo | Roam Garden | How to define code readability objectively? Applying SRS to all the things, Building Roam Garden |
| Joel Chan | Roam Garden | Knowledge synthesis, Scientific Creativity |
| Blue Book | MkDocs | Python, DevOps, life automation, health, art, ... |
| Oshyan Greene | Discourse | Productivity, Digital Gardening, Ideas, Reviews, and Recommendations |
| Clinton Boys | org-roam + Hugo | Writing, data science, math, life |
| David Ralph Lewis | TiddlyWiki | Writing, poetry, wellbeing, psychology |
| Soren Bjornstad | TiddlyWiki + homegrown scripts | Almost everything; emphasis on tech, reading, and how to live |
| Paul Batchelor | WeeWiki | Computer Music, Audio Programming, Literate Programming, Food |
| Memento | MkDocs, MkDocs Newsletter | Python, GNU/Linux, DevOps, Flutter, traveling, cooking, ... |
| Jacky Zhao | Quartz | Books, Cognitive Sciences, Education, Technology, and whatever else I happen to be reading |