Luhmann’s Zettelkasten and Trilium Notes

[asano69]

Tools like Obsidian and Logseq are often described as “Zettelkasten systems.” However, based on what I’ve studied, Trilium Notes seems much closer to Luhmann’s original card index.

Luhmann’s Zettelkasten was not just a note-taking system—it was a method for writing books. In that sense, Trilium Notes is a rare kind of information system that actually allows you to write in a way similar to Luhmann’s process.

Logseq, in my view, is designed primarily for understanding complex systems. Obsidian seems to be primarily designed for storing and browsing documents that fit within a single page, such as personal system configuration notes or something like a cookbook. Both are heavily influenced by the idea of a non-linear linked information system, which strongly shapes their application design.

By contrast, hierarchical organization is a well-established method in physical information management. In computing, it appears as tree structures in file systems and process management. In a sense, hierarchical structures can be seen as a form of ontology—they reduce ambiguity in language and help make information more shareable between people and machines.

When organizing digital materials, if the number of objects is relatively small (say, fewer than 100), a nested folder structure in a file system can be quite effective. It minimizes the need to manage additional metadata.

However, as the number of objects grows, hierarchical systems tend to break down. Tag-based systems or wiki-like linked structures generally perform better. This is especially true when the information is not intended to be shared with others—hierarchical systems become difficult to maintain in such cases.

Despite this, Trilium Notes appears to work well as an environment for practicing Luhmann’s classical method: storing atomic units of meaning as individual notes, then rearranging them to simulate the flow of logic, placing them where they become intellectually productive.

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references:

• https://www.w3.org/History/1989/proposal.html
• https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/microsoft-365-life-hacks/organization/how-to-use-the-zettelkasten-method

[OdeToOpenSource]

Thanks for the thoughtful post.

I have seen similar before, but what I am not understanding is: what specific feature do you think is missing from Trilium? Since Trilium already has hierarchical note trees, cloning, attributes, and relation/link maps, it would help if you could show a concrete example of the workflow you have in mind.​ IE: The Obsidian Zettelkasten examples I have seen look to me like how you organize your folders and link them (both Trilium can do).

If possible, screenshots or a small mock example would make your point much clearer. This will help go from 'in theory, the readme indicates it does not match a workflow', to actionable insights of potentially missing features.

[asano69]

Thank you for your response. To clarify: I was not pointing out anything missing from Trilium. My post was intended to share a use case, not a feature request. What I am genuinely curious about is why users who have been using Trilium effectively—especially those who have built a mature workflow over the years—choose Trilium, why it works well for them, and what the rest of us might be missing.

In my own case, after nearly a year of using Trilium on and off, I have come to see it less as a place to store documents and more as a kind of word processor in the spirit of Scrivener. For problem domains I want to explore and deepen my understanding of over several years, I do not use Trilium at all—I create a dedicated graph in Logseq and keep my research notes there. For smaller problem domains that I expect to resolve within a day to a few weeks, I take notes in Trilium, restructure them into something another person could follow, and when my interest fades, I export the branch as HTML and move it to a web server on my LAN where it can be referenced from other systems.

I think most of us occasionally notice that we have been thinking about a particular subject for a long time. We sometimes write small reflective notes that are not meant for anyone else. I am now planning to store that kind of writing in Trilium permanently. I have seen long-running bloggers reorganize their posts into books, and I would like to try something similar.

When I think about it, Luhmann's card index was not simply a place to store ideas. It was used for a clear—or at least latent—purpose: to publish philological research on complex systems such as society in the form of books. It was remarkably productive toward that end. In other words, the information system Luhmann used had the right structure for turning a certain kind of sustained thinking into a book. There is some research on the relationship between Luhmann's card index and computing systems, and his method seems to fall well within what Trilium can reproduce. However, since we are not Luhmann, it is not easy to put this to a proper test, so I cannot say for certain.

I am also interested in what problem Zadam—the original designer of Trilium—most wanted to solve personally, and the real reasons behind the design choices, which is to say the actual requirements. This is because software is a system, and every component of a system should be ordered toward its purpose. In most cases, the closer the purpose of the software aligns with the purpose of the user, the better everything works. Conversely, when a tool and its intended use are not well matched, things become awkward and friction appears in unexpected places. But only Zadam can answer that.

So while I would like to say I have no further feature requests, if I had to name one: in my case, it would be helpful to move items a little more intuitively in the note tree—something closer to a file manager. That said, it is workable with a bit of effort.