What is IWE used for?

IWE is a local-first Markdown knowledge graph that adds editor language-server features for your notes and CLI plus MCP tools so AI agents can navigate them. It is a good fit for giving a coding agent persistent project memory, managing a Zettelkasten in a text editor and querying notes without moving them to a database.

Yes. IWE is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at iwe-org/iwe and is written mainly in Rust.

Yes. IWE is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

What is IWE an alternative to?

IWE is an open-source alternative to Obsidian. Other open-source alternatives to Obsidian include zk, Logseq and Foam.

Is IWE actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to IWE was on 2 October 2026. The project has 1.7k stars on GitHub.

IWE: open-source alternative to Obsidian

About IWE

IWE turns a directory of Markdown files into a knowledge graph. The same plain notes can be browsed and edited from your code editor and queried by AI agents from the command line, without a cloud service or a database, and you can keep everything under version control with git.

For editors, IWE provides a language server with search, refactoring, renaming and autocomplete, with integrations for VS Code, Neovim, Zed and Helix. For agents, a CLI and an MCP server give structured navigation over the same notes, using links and parent context rather than similarity guessing. IWE has no built-in AI and works alongside tools such as Claude and Codex, and there is a set of skills for coding agents plus an early native Mac app.

The tool is written in Rust and licensed under Apache-2.0. Notes stay as ordinary .md files you own, and a note can belong to several topics through links instead of file copies. It suits writers, developers and researchers who keep a Zettelkasten-style knowledge base and want database-like queries on it without leaving Markdown.

Key features

Markdown notes organized as a knowledge graph
Language server for VS Code, Neovim, Zed, Helix
CLI for structured queries over notes
MCP server for AI agent memory
Skills extension for coding agents
Plain files that work with git

Good fit for

→Giving a coding agent persistent project memory
→Managing a Zettelkasten in a text editor
→Querying notes without moving them to a database

Built with: Rust
Tags: markdown; knowledge-graph; note-taking; lsp; mcp; local-first; zettelkasten; rust; ai-memory

IWE: questions and answers

What is IWE used for?: IWE is a local-first Markdown knowledge graph that adds editor language-server features for your notes and CLI plus MCP tools so AI agents can navigate them. It is a good fit for giving a coding agent persistent project memory, managing a Zettelkasten in a text editor and querying notes without moving them to a database.
Is IWE open source?: Yes. IWE is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at iwe-org/iwe and is written mainly in Rust.
Is IWE free?: Yes. IWE is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
What is IWE an alternative to?: IWE is an open-source alternative to Obsidian. Other open-source alternatives to Obsidian include zk, Logseq and Foam.
Is IWE actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to IWE was on 2 October 2026. The project has 1.7k stars on GitHub.