Why and How I use "Org Mode" for my writing and more

1. slideware

   1 2 0 2.0 TeX

   Where the conference talk slides are...

   

   Oh hei, HN! Post author here.

   Of all the giant blog posts I've written (brevity is not my strong suit), this one must have sent me the most traffic... Clearly there is a persistent unmet demand for Org Mode explanations / experience reports. Please write!

   For non-Emacs users:

   I've listed a bunch of alternatives that offer useful sub-sets of the Emacs version. On my Android phone, I use orgzly. I don't sync back and forth, preferring to hand-transcribe anything that is worth my while (I type fast enough on my computer). However it's good to know that my notes are just plain text, therefore always accessible.

   Recent-most epic win of using org-mode:

   Trivially exported the live demo version [1] of my talk [2] (org-babel) to a single web page [3] (reveal.js deck). It was a remote presentation, so it was great to be able to share the deck with the attendees.

   [1] clojure-web-app-workshop-functional-conf-2025.org here: https://github.com/adityaathalye/slideware/ (see raw source for export directives)

   [2] Talk video in this playlist: https://youtu.be/YEHVEId-utY (the playlist has video of the example I described in my blog post.)

   [3] All blog posts are just tiny websites :) https://www.evalapply.org/posts/why-and-how-i-use-org-mode/d...

2. Civic Auth

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3. orgzly-android

   2 46 2,724 0.0 Kotlin

   Outliner for taking notes and managing to-do lists

   

   org mobile exists[0], but I have yet to meet anyone actually using it in the wild, and requires you to have your own server to mediate from.

   An alternative is to use Git(hub) as the mediator, and here Orgzly is a decent Android app with Git support[1]. It just has a tendency of clobbering your git log with automatically generated commit messages.

   0: https://orgmode.org/manual/Org-Mobile.html

   1: https://github.com/orgzly/orgzly-android/pull/1037

4. organice

   3 86 2,502 7.3 JavaScript

   An implementation of Org mode without the dependency of Emacs - built for mobile and desktop browsers

   

   I just use syncthing, with https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncth... on Android and the official packages on desktop. On Android, I've been using the organice build from https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/issues/932# but have also installed https://orgro.org/ which is nicer for reading and simple edits. I've heard https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/synctrain/id6553985316?platfor... is nice for ios

5. orgro

   4 27 567 9.7 Dart

   An Org Mode app for iOS and Android

   

   I just use syncthing, with https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncth... on Android and the official packages on desktop. On Android, I've been using the organice build from https://github.com/200ok-ch/organice/issues/932# but have also installed https://orgro.org/ which is nicer for reading and simple edits. I've heard https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/synctrain/id6553985316?platfor... is nice for ios

6. orgajs

   5 10 628 8.3 JavaScript

   parse org-mode content into AST

   

   Completely agree, on both counts. Users often ask me how they can edit their BrainTool.org file outside the extension. There's no way I can in good conscience point the average knowledge worker toward installing an emacs distro!

   FWIW I use orgajs (https://github.com/orgapp/orgajs). Its well-supported and gives me a pretty complete AST. Highly recommend if you're working in JS.

7. zim-desktop-wiki

   6 172 2,020 9.3 Python

   Main repository of the zim desktop wiki project

   

   FWIW, I ended up doing a lot of org-mode-like things by starting with https://zim-wiki.org a VERY long time ago; I use it for notes, scheduling, publishing my own website, and even slides with the s5 thing.

   Somewhere in there, I gave org-mode 2 or so years and eventually gave it up entirely; it just really plays SO un-nicely with literally everything else.

   Anyone else looking for this sort of thing, I'd probably point to Obsidian first, but I'll probably stick with zim for the time being.

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