Note users struggle to keep structured data connected to documents
People building document-centric knowledge systems want tables, relationships, and cross-references to live alongside their documents. Some replacement note tools lack integrated databases, while an Obsidian user specifically asks to read and modify CSV or JSON sources directly; another document author says they resorted to a hand-rolled cross-reference solution. The requests span several tools, so a useful first product should focus on one ecosystem rather than trying to replace every document and data workflow.
For people building document-centric knowledge systems. Mentioned from Mar 2024 to Aug 2025 on Bluesky, product forums and Hacker News.
6 different people described this problem in 6 separate discussions.
- Indie fit
- 4.0/10
- Pain
- 5.3/10
- Frequency
- 7.0/10
- Willingness to pay
- 0.0/10
- Momentum
- 5.0/10
- Who pays
- Consumers
- Competition
- Medium
- Build difficulty
- Medium
What people said
Quoted word for word. Follow a link to read the whole discussion.
It seems the unique position of notion is the ability to integrate databases into documents much less within each other. That’s the feature most of these replacements are missing
I still believe it would be beneficial to allow the bases feature to operate directly with CSV or JSON files—including both reading and modifying them
See what to build and who will buy it
- 1 product idea with the smallest useful version and pricing
- 4 places to find your first customers
- 4 more quotes from people who have this problem
- Current workarounds, existing solutions and risks