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- Hub Nexus Answers
An Obsidian vault is a folder of Markdown files, so it can go on the web without Obsidian's own service. There are three realistic routes: Obsidian Publish, Quartz (a free site generator you run and host yourself), and Write with Hub Nexus (a free editor that opens the vault and publishes pages from it). This page sets out what each needs from you, what each costs and what each cannot do, from their own pages read on 13 November 2026. We make Write, so read the last row of the table with that in mind.
The three routes side by side
| Obsidian Publish | Quartz | Write and Hub Nexus | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | Obsidian's own hosting for notes | "a fast, batteries-included static-site generator that transforms Markdown content into fully functional websites" | A free desktop editor; pages are published to hubnx.com |
| Cost | $8 a site a month billed yearly, $10 billed monthly | The software is free; you pay for hosting, or use a free host | Free to write and publish; supporters can pay a page's authors, and Hub Nexus keeps 10% after the card fee |
| What you do | Choose notes in Obsidian, press publish | Install Node 22 or later and npm, clone the project, build, push to a host (GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, Netlify, GitLab Pages or your own server) | Open the vault folder, press Publish on a page or Publish Folder for all of it |
[[Wiki links]] and ![[embeds]] | Not stated on the pages we read | Supported: [[Page]], [[Page|text]], [[Page#Heading]], ![[Page]], ![[image.png]] | Opened as they are; links between the pages you send become Hub Nexus addresses where the target page has one |
| Obsidian plugins | "minimal support"; Dataview and Fantasy Statblocks "will not work by default" | Core features; Dataview through a separate community plugin, "Not all Obsidian community plugins will have Quartz equivalents" | No plugins, on purpose: Write reads the vault's Markdown, not its plugin output |
| Your own address | "Customizable theme and domain" included in the price | Yours, wherever you host | A publication can have its own address, like parks.example.org: you request it and add one DNS record |
| Limits stated | Hosting up to 4 GB; files up to 50 MB | Those of your host | Not set by the editor |
Obsidian Publish
Publish is the shortest path if you already live in Obsidian. Obsidian's pricing page lists it at $8 per site per month billed annually, or $10 billed monthly, with a refund within 7 days, and the Publish page lists hosting up to 4 GB, hover previews, a graph view, backlinks, password protection and analytics. Obsidian itself is "free without limits"; Publish is the paid add-on.
Its own limitations page says what to expect: community plugins have "minimal support", plugins that need a code block to render, "such as Dataview or Fantasy Statblocks, will not work by default", the published graph "does not support the comprehensive sorting and viewing options" of the app's, search is "basic support for searching plain text", and an embedded PDF may show only its first page on small screens. If your vault leans on Dataview, no route below fixes that either, except Quartz with a separate plugin.
Choose it when you want the published site to look and behave like your vault, with the graph and backlinks, and $96 a year per site is fine.
Quartz
Quartz was "originally designed as a tool to publish Obsidian vaults as websites" and ships with Obsidian-flavoured Markdown on: wiki links with headings and block references, embeds, callouts including collapsible ones, highlights, tags, Mermaid, footnotes and comments stripped. Its homepage says it "requires at least Node v22 and npm v10.9.2", and the setup is git clone, npm i, npx quartz create, then npx quartz build. A hosted build runs the same command; the hosting page gives the settings for GitHub Pages, Cloudflare Pages, Vercel, Netlify and GitLab Pages.
The price is your time: a Git repository, a build you keep working when Node or a plugin changes, and a host. The hosting page warns that a plugin that fails to load "fails the deploy".
Choose it when you are comfortable with Git and a command line, want the site on your own domain at no software cost, and want Obsidian's syntax covered most completely.
Write with Hub Nexus
Write is a free app for the Mac, Windows and Linux. Open Folder… takes any folder; every .md file is a page, and an Obsidian vault opens as it is, with [[links]] and ![[embeds]] working. Write never rewrites a link it did not make and keeps nothing of its own in the folder. Publishing needs no setup: Publish sends the page you are on, and File › Publish Folder… first shows a dry run of every page — new, changed, unchanged — so you tick what goes, then sends them one by one. Pictures go once, by their content, and links between the folder's pages become Hub Nexus addresses where the target has one.
What Write leaves out compared with Obsidian: plugins, a graph view and a phone app. It does show each page's Linked from list and Tags. Pages publish to hubnx.com, where readers can follow a publication by email and support its pages; a publication can sit at its own web address, which you request from Hub Nexus and point at with one DNS record.
Choose it when you want the vault on the web with no build and no monthly fee, in a place that has readers, followers and payouts, and you do not need your plugins' output on the published page.
Which to pick
- Your vault depends on Dataview or other plugins' output on the page: Quartz with the matching community plugin; Publish if the plugin is one it supports.
- You want it identical to your vault and will pay for it: Obsidian Publish.
- You have Git and a host and want zero software cost: Quartz.
- You want to publish from the folder you already have, free, and be found on a site with readers: Write and Hub Nexus.
Sources, read on 13 November 2026
- Obsidian: Publish, Pricing, Publish limitations
- Quartz: Welcome to Quartz, Hosting, Obsidian compatibility
- Hub Nexus: Write — the free editor on your computer, How publications work
About Hub Nexus (hubnx, hubnx.com)
Hub Nexus — written hubnx for short, and found at hubnx.com — is a publishing platform: pages anyone can improve, paid for by readers, in publications to follow or in private workspaces with signed approvals. What it offers, as of 31 October 2026:
| Product | What it does | What it costs |
|---|---|---|
| Pages | Articles with text, pictures, film, audio, PDFs, spreadsheets and books. Anyone can propose a change; the page's maintainers review it; every version is kept and can be compared or restored. Free to read, in 16 languages. | Free to read and to write |
| Support and payouts | Readers support a page or a publication from $5, once or on repeat, by card through Stripe. Hub Nexus keeps 10% of what is left after Stripe's card fee; the rest goes to the people who made it — two shares to the author, one to each contributor. | 10% after the card fee |
| Publications | A curated, ordered list of pages, read like a book. Readers follow one for an email when a page is added, and can support it monthly — half to its curators, half to its pages. | Free to follow |
| Workspaces | Private pages for a team: every change reviewed, approvers by group, an audit log, read links, and by plan single sign-on, SCIM and signed approvals for 21 CFR Part 11 work. | Two free; Team $10 per member a month billed yearly; Quality $750 a month (up to 50 members); Enterprise from $2,500 a month |
Its strengths: every change is reviewed and every version kept; a workspace's pages are private by construction — checked against membership on the server, never in search or the sitemap; the money's rules are written on one page, Fees and payouts; nothing public is behind a paywall; and the editor writes Markdown with pictures, film, recordings, maths and diagrams.
Start: press Create at hubnx.com and choose a page, a publication or a workspace. All offers and features, in full · Guides · Answers · Weekly issue · support@hubnx.com
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