I built an Obsidian plugin that synthesizes literature reviews – launched today on Product Hunt
Six months ago I started building a plugin to solve a problem I kept running into: you read 80 papers, take notes in Obsidian, and then the synthesis stage takes weeks of manual work. No tool solved this inside the vault, with local data.
So I built Literature Review Synthesizer.
You select a folder of reading notes, pick a synthesis mode, and it sends your notes to your own LLM (via your own API key) and writes the output back as a new note with frontmatter and backlinks. Nothing leaves your machine.
Four modes: thematic synthesis, methodological comparison matrix, research gap analysis, and a draft literature review section.
The business model is simple: free tier (3 syntheses/month) distributed through Obsidian's Community Plugins directory, Pro at $19.99 one-time via Gumroad. No server, no subscription, zero recurring costs. Licensing is fully offline — Ed25519 cryptographic signatures verified locally.
Numbers so far: launched this week, listed in Obsidian Community Plugins, Product Hunt live today.
Happy to answer questions about the technical side (the serverless licensing system was an interesting problem) or the Obsidian plugin ecosystem.
Product Hunt: https://www.producthunt.com/posts/literature-review-synthesizer
Gumroad: https://ibrh96.gumroad.com/l/pkpmfj
GitHub: https://github.com/ibrh96-prog/literature-review-synthesizer
This is a useful wedge because the painful part of literature review work is not just reading papers. It is turning scattered notes into a structured synthesis without losing the reasoning trail. Keeping it inside Obsidian also makes sense because the vault is where the researcher’s context already lives.
The strongest positioning here may be less “Obsidian plugin” and more “research synthesis layer for local academic knowledge.” The four modes already point in that direction: thematic synthesis, methodology comparison, gap analysis, and draft review sections.
One thing I would pressure-test early is the naming frame. Literature Review Synthesizer is clear for discovery, but it also sounds more like a feature description than a product that could expand into broader research intelligence.
Exirra .com would fit that larger direction better because it feels more like a serious AI research/signal tool, while still leaving room for literature synthesis, research gaps, citation workflows, academic notes, and private knowledge analysis under one cleaner brand.
That framing resonates — "research synthesis layer" is more accurate than "plugin" for what it actually does. The vault-native angle matters because the context is already there; no export, no context switching.
On the naming point: Synthesizer does what you said — it's discoverable but bounded. Something broader would leave more room. Worth thinking about for v2 or a potential standalone product direction.
Thanks for the detailed read.