Provide a feature matrix CodiMD vs HackMD

[johanricher]

I really applaud your work on CodiMD, which is IMHO the absolute best free/ibre open source pad, but as a CodiMD user and potential customer of HackMD, I want to know the differences in features between the different products that you develop and sell.

For example, as of right now, it's not possible to know if the "Book Mode" feature is available in CodiMD. (spoiler: it's not, which is really a shame)

Please look into making a feature matrix, similar to what Gitlab does (see their Pricing, Gitlab.com and Gitlab self hosted feature pages).

Here a simple two-column comparison between CodiMD and HackMD would to the job.

[SISheogorath]

It sounds like an idea, even when I don't think it'll work out in a long run, since CodiMD is only maintained and developed by the community while HackMD is these days an own product making huge progress.

Since we started in late 2017 we started to develop into different directions and while the HackMD team is still proud of our work and tries to help for example by financing things like Stickers, we don't share any new feature since then, which makes it at some point a disjoined list.

I think one could create such a list, but to be honest I lost track of features on our as well as on their side. But a general feature list for CodiMD could definitely be a first step.

@jackycute you may want to have a look at this one and provide your input from HackMD side.

[johanricher]

Hi @SISheogorath thanks for your insights. Are you saying that CodiMD and hackmd.io don't share a codebase anymore? That seems weird to me, and not a good sign for CodiMD's future in my opinion. I assumed that CodiMD was the community edition of HackMD, both financed by selling services around the common/core software.

[ccoenen]

Yes, they are completely seperate projects now. It's not a CE / EE model.

[johanricher]

they are completely seperate projects now

... but sharing the same Github account, website and even identity (or lack thereof, in CodiMD's case). Hence my confusion. Maybe CodiMD should have its own identity, then?

It's not a CE / EE model.

Was there a reason to not follow this path, which is commonly adopted to sustain a FLOSS project?

[SISheogorath]

@johanricher We (on community side) wanted to avoid the problem OwnCloud had with CE vs. EE. And also HackMD was already working a lot on their own way when the discussion came up.

A little bit of history:

#531
#579
#720

TL;DR: Historically grown ^^

If you prefer to talk a bit more interactive talking, there is also a Matrix Channel.

Please notice: CodiMD moved on to its own GitHub organization now. See: hedgedoc/hedgedoc#10 and #1170 for details

[johanricher]

Alright this is clearer now, thanks for the explanations. Please consider moving to another Github account and adding a disclaimer on the HackMD website to avoid future confusion.

[itamargiv]

I'm not sure if this is the correct address for it, but I'm also interested in the book mode feature, I was actually sifting through the issues (and even read through the whole CE-EE-fork saga) but could not find any open issue about it. I think it is a feature that is perhaps worth investing time on. Can I open a feature request on it? Is there any procedure to follow?

[mlopezgva]

Yes, we started a project and we included CodiMD as documentation hub, but lacking book mode makes difficult to maintain, as well as the lack of "note import" ({%hackmd hash %} feature) which makes even more difficult to chop the documentation into samller parts and join them (a lesser solution than book mode).

So, we'l have to go to AsciiDoc and an ad hoc solution using the same server we put for CodiMD. :-(

[almereyda]

We know of at least one project, Growi, that integrates the real-time editing interface into a wiki writing environment #969 (comment), if that's close enough to book mode for now.

[reagle]

Even without a matrix, CodiMD could at least provide a list of its features.

[gogowitsch]

Why is there active development on both repositories?

• https://github.com/codimd/server
• https://github.com/hackmdio/codimd

They have the same license.

I highly recommend updating the CONTRIBUTING.md to explain why it is worthwhile that the community spends time on both - or better yet: let everyone know that this repo here will be set to read-only on a predefined date, like https://github.com/ariya/phantomjs. We can move all PRs and issues over to https://github.com/codimd/server.

[jackycute]

https://github.com/hackmdio/codimd (here) will be maintained by HackMD team.

[gogowitsch]

@jackycute Thanks for your quick response!

Is it correct to assume that the main advantage for the HackMD team is that this repo here has more predictability?

@ccoenen @jackycute I guess that keeping the repos in sync would be quite a lot of work and doesn't seem realistic. Let's say someone "from the street" finds the software useful and lacks a certain feature. What would be your advice where to open the issue or PR? In my opinion, the answer should be in CONTRIBUTING.md.

[ccoenen]

That's a long story, the short version is, both versions will probably develop further and further apart. Right now, they are mostly compatible, but I do not believe this will remain so forever.

The most important bits around that fork are probably in issues #1170, #720, hedgedoc/hedgedoc#10 and also #1219. I tried to write this up in a mostly neutral way in https://github.com/codimd/server/blob/master/docs/history.md

[lapineige]

Hello,
Is there any update on that point ? I can't find any feature comparison.

[jackycute]

Hello, Is there any update on that point ? I can't find any feature comparison.

We do have a draft for this, still WIP.
https://hackmd.io/@docs/hackmd-vs-codimd

[lapineige]

Great :)
Do you know if there is any translated version ? I can't read it 😅