In my experience, Roam has proven more reliable and more convenient to use. That was the extent of the use I made of the graph feature. As always, storing sensitive data in the cloud gives me pause. Constantly cycle between Edit and Preview mode using “cmd-e” in order to fully utilize and navigate your database. Let me start by saying, I think Roam is amazing. As I mentioned at the start of this post, no tool is perfect. AND searches for pages that have both terms, OR searches for pages that have one or the other, If no term is delineated, two phrases or words separated by a space automatically infers the AND syntax, If you want to search for exact text, enclose the word or phrase in parentheses, If you want to search specifically for a tag, use “tag:” syntax or enclose the actual hashtag in parentheses, If you want to exclude text, use “-” followed by the word/phrase/tag. My ~/org directory has everything. When you open Roam, it greets you with a blank daily notes page. It has also enabled other users to create truly amazing visuals within Obsidian: From a modifiable standpoint, I think Roam and Obsidian are on similar levels, though I personally think Obsidian is a more visually pleasing working environment. Each time, resolving the issue (which involved clicking around to find invisible, offensive line breaks and backspace over them) required several minutes. That alone was worth any other issues with the application (even the potential risk of data loss and lack of local storage). This will need a Special Counsel. This includes functions like task management, CRM work and linked journaling. Of course, these are just my personal opinions and are unlikely to be reflective of everyone in the community. If you use local-only storage alone, you can be sure your data stays private. They have the strengths and weaknesses of their approaches. There is so much to love about both Roam and Obsidian. At first, I was disappointed. Users may support development by making a one-time donation of $25.00 or more or by purchasing commercial licenses for $50.00 per year. Notes can be shared with other OneNote users over the Internet or a network. I can then convert any interesting unlinked references into linked references with a single click. On their wedding day Since you are essentially querying the entire page of notes, you don’t run into the current issue that Roam has where you can’t query multiple separate lines of attributes or links at the same time. Ren gives a great introduction for students, in the context of a comparison of features with Roam. In Obsidian, I can query any combination of page links, hashtags and random words or phrases. Obsidian works with separate markdown document files sitting on your own hard drive. A right-hand pane displays a list of linked and unlinked (but potentially related) documents. (Technologies exist, though, that can make Roam look and feel more app-like. It gathers users' notes, drawings, screen clippings and audio commentaries. As with Roam, users can apply custom CSS or any of a library of user-submitted themes to tweak the way the app appears. With Roam, it’s quick and easy to export your notes to a local folder. If you’re obsessed with privacy, Obsidian might be the better choice for you. For instance, a page that has multiple tasks each with different hashtags will undergo boolean search as one unit. This is what a simple query in Roam looks like: {{[[query]]: {or: [[learning]] [[mindset]]}}}. It is a note-taking tool for networked thought As easy to use as a document. tired of shoving notes into anything boxes, How to Take Smart Notes | Zettelkasten Method in Roam Research, Obsidian: Getting Started, Facts, and Pricing, I loaded more than a hundred entries from my dream journal into DEVONthink for analysis, I Fed DEVONthink My Dreams and Found a Stalker, Using Readwise to Supercharge Roam Research. A complete accounting of their respective strengths is provided below. The thoughtful little touches and frequent innovations delight me. Still, the more I worked in Roam, the more information I wanted to include in my database, the more I wanted to incorporate into the system I had built. There is very little decisions to make as long as you properly link things as you write. You would have to convert “genius” into a link and then convert all the unlinked mentions into links as well. There is no public roadmap outside of intermittent tweets from the company founders. I, however, personally do not mind. Roam Research is currently more a service than an app. Releases are brisk, but what’s being worked on at any given moment is vague. And the speed at which updates are released is crazy. I will be the first to admit I was never too concerned with data privacy when working with Roam — at least when I first started using the application. As someone who knows essentially nothing about CSS, this was initially very daunting. The navigation and linking experience is frictionless. If Christian bakeries a second brain. Unfortunately, this interaction is limited to creating new or editing existing notes. If a similar function is available in Roam, I haven’t found it.). Have two panels open for each note you worked on: one in Edit mode and one in Preview mode, or. I’ve been saying “at least 2x”. I think the pricing differences between Roam and Obsidian speak for themselves, so I won’t belabor this point. The block level structure provides much better support for things such as task and project management, building a CRM and interstitial journaling. Roam is $15/month or $500 upfront for a 5-year subscription. This may not be a huge priority for most people, but Obsidian is beautiful. Overall, block references are now possible in Obsidian. The Discord forum is the main hub where the most active members are at any given time, though there is also an official forum that is active as well. The human brain is non-linear: we jump from idea to idea, all the time. Bottom line? As an example, I have my saved boolean searches (essentially queries for Obsidian) to the lower left panel and my note outline panel to the lower right panel. I can tag individual sheets as drafts or tag them as complete when I’m done revising them. Page titles, however, are rendered in a tiny, fine text that can be difficult to read, especially in dark mode. Back on my original “Snowpiercer” note, in addition to the impressions I recorded, I’ll see two automatically generated lists. Each of these windows can display multiple views of the same document, multiple different documents, or any combination of these. That said: portability alone is not the only factor to consider when deciding how you feel about where an app stores your notes. Everything I needed to write this post came together without the usual last-minute sifting and searching. For example, coming from Roam, I did miss the outliner feature for some of my note-taking needs, as I often like to start with outlines, then convert to full form writing. I believe Roam’s decision to make blocks the smallest possible unit of thought make it a superior tool for knowledge work. Controls in a tool strip along the far left of the app window vary based on the number of plug-ins installed. Some of the more noteworthy ones, include: Currently, the Obsidian team is working on creating their beta API. As a result, my journaling practice — ragged at best, when I was using Day One — has become thoroughly integrated with my daily routine. I can also share that any time invested in exploring Roam is time well-spent. The last subtle trick of Obsidian is being able to move any panel and pin them to different places in each of the side bars. Roam works equally well on my iPhone, iPad, and Mac. Obsidian also has many community-developed themes, which are very easy to access. Boolean search is the Obsidian equivalent to queries in Roam, only I find them easier to use and, in some regards, more powerful. Edits in embedded blocks populate back to all instances where the block is embedded. During study time, I go deeper. Now you can link to individual paragraphs, without having to create a heading just for the explicit need of creating a linkable portion of a page. ... There’s also Apple’s Notes, Bear, Todoist, OneNote, Obsidian, Ulysses, TiddlyWiki, Workflowy and many others that, all in their own ways, try to help people stay more organized and efficient. When this happens, I lose access to my notes. Choose up to 4 apps for comparison (4 apps currently selected):. Its Introduction to Roam and Getting Started links provide most, if not all, of what a beginner wants to know. Feel free to drop me a line via twitter (@markmcelroy) or via email at mark@markmcelroy.com. I think this is why people feel so free in Roam. Occasionally, Roam simply will not load in the Safari browser. If this is a deal-breaker for you, then this app isn’t for you. To get access to it currently, you have to be on the Believer Plan, meaning you have to be willing to pay $500 up front. Block references allow you to embed content from one page into another, but at the atomic level of a single block (or in the case of Obsidian, at the level of a single paragraph). But every day, I come across new functionality. Unless you’re deliberate in your choices, this can quickly become bewildering. I Asked Roam Research, “What Do I Want?” The Results Devastated Me. It … I can certainly live without founders I’m uncomfortable with. 2/ contact your Rep; The major difference between Roam and Obsidian and by far the most talked about distinction. These days, I write in Ulysses. Obsidian is simply a tool that allows you to effectively work, manage and manipulate your own, personal, locally-stored markdown files. Backlinks are slightly less effective in Obsidian, given the lack of a base, block-level structure. This will show you the exact CSS code you need to edit to get whatever effect you want. Once I began thinking about documents in more granular terms, my productivity increased, and my work became easier. I would be amiss, however, not to thank Anne-Laurie Le Cunff (A Beginner’s Guide to Roam Research), Shu Omi (How to Take Smart Notes | Zettelkasten Method in Roam Research) Nat Eliason (Roam: Why I Love it and How I Use It), and Anonym-s (for the video series From Beginner to Superuser). RoamBrain.com offers links to high quality Roam-related resources. Clever users offer extensive tutorials on how to use CSS to customize Roam’s appearance. When you own your data, the options are essentially limitless. So when I first looked into Obsidian, I actually thought you needed to do one of two things to use the application successfully: Coming from Roam, where the writing and navigation experience is frictionless, this was a huge turn off. In my opinion, the block-based approach to referencing information is clearly superior to a page-based strategy. Obsidian is the brainchild of Shida Li and Erica Xu who have worked together on Dynalist. Additionally, I can search and access any file from my Vault using Alfred or even command line prompts. Help is spread out amongst an online forum, YouTube videos, Twitter, a Slack channel and a multitude of community-run websites and pricey online tutorial courses. Amplenote. How does block referencing work in Obsidian? And that gives away my choice, doesn’t it? That's my mood today. In addition, I’ve been using Roam to write corporate video scripts and create the outlines I use in the online classes I teach. Definitely have to applaud Roam for putting this into play. As a result, even though the terms Mr. Lincoln, Abraham Lincoln, and President Lincoln all reference the same individual, Roam sees these as three unique and not necessarily related references. When I want to illustrate a journal entry with an image, I just drag one in. Any note in your collection can be connected to any other (or to many others). If you want a clean, minimalist look from the get-go and have little interest in arcane configuration, Roam might be the better choice. Roam is a little like that. The developers have enable additional surrounding text to be shown with the backlinks, though it cannot completely duplicate the nested structure seen in Roam. This is a fairly new tool, so we’ll keep you posted on this! I find that if you enjoy spending time in an application, it definitely makes it easier to be productive. These CSS “hacks” and many others are readily available on the Obsidian forum for viewing and use: You can also easily modify the CSS of the base theme or any community theme yourself to get Obsidian to look how you want. Maybe even lacking in some ways. For another thing, Roam’s development is a bit haphazard. The larger the project, the harder it was to maintain a vision of the project as a whole. If you’re a budget-conscious person, Obsidian.md might be the better choice. Just open the help menu, click the themes link and with a simple click you can apply or preview any of the available themes. Obsidian performs these searches at the page level. This allows you more flexibility in how you break ideas down and mix and match thoughts. With a right-click of the graph, you can toggle between one of two layouts: Cose (more spherical) or Dagre (flatter and wider). In fact, Roam’s ability to gather and organize research made writing this very post much easier. To avoid the trap of paralysis by analysis, I gave myself two weeks to find a solution. So take this with a grain of salt. I had been using Roam for a long time and knew it well. Obsidian also has all it’s files synced locally. Very handy for looking at tags you are using and which ones are most active versus which ones are getting dusty. I can live without block-level transclusion and queries in Roam. Obsidian – The Power of Backlinks and the Knowledge Graph – Effective Remote Work – YouTube If you become what the #roamcult refers to as a “believer,” you can sign up for five years of service for $500.00. Links to pages that have not yet been created will appear gray in View mode to delineate them from pages that have already been generated. At a minimum, the strip includes buttons for switching databases, displaying an interactive graph of linked pages, and accessing help and settings. Each of these tags is also clickable from this panel, which then automatically pulls up a search for all the notes with that tag. Linking notes is a game changing feature. I’ve also come up with my own structure for documenting notes — inspired by, but not bound by, Tiago Forte’s PARA concepts — and organizing those notes in ways that spur creativity and action. That being said, I also think Roam has its issues. You create these connections in two ways. Exploring the resulting constellation of relationships reveals existing connections and suggests new ones. Obsidian: Obsidian is a markdown editor. Medical Information Medical Advice Hard Questions This Or That Questions Spaced Repetition Loaded Question Simple Camera Knowledge Management Music Beats. Obviously, another benefit that comes with a local-first note-taking system is lack of data loss and easy backup options. project management, task management, CRM, knowledge management, journaling, etc) will likely find it difficult to migrate away from Roam. By essentially “querying” your graph, you can much more easily visualize specific topics or trains of thought and see how you might create links between previously unconnected nodes. If you work primarily in iOS, I would say Obsidian is not yet a good option for you, despite the availability of some clever workarounds. I would say that this significantly increased my research productivity. In Rom, this could be as simple as creating a persistent page (like the existing TODO page, for example) called “Random.” Whenever visited, the Random page would display a single random block or collection of random blocks. It’s not just my notes repository. You end up relying on the longevity of the note-taking application, itself, instead of the longevity of your own thoughts. Obsidian, of course, is free to use. Nowadays, I spend around 90+% of my time in Obsidian in Edit mode. Obsidian:Amazing product, free, local support, markdown based and therefore portable data, privacy-focused. I tried using Obsidian, but I could not resolve the uncertainty of what should be a separate note file vs several items inside a note file. Because of the former, a lot of users will have pages that consist entirely of linked references. At the end of the day, things that require filtering at the individual block level will be more effectively assessed with queries in Roam. This provides additional context between pages, but also allows for impressive, block-level filtering capabilities. Passionate users of both applications provide free resources (and a number of paid courses) designed to jumpstart new users. If you enjoy tweaking settings until an interface is just right, both Roam and Obsidian will indulge you. ), Obsidian.md is currently available for Windows, MacOS, and Linux. There is a base-level of functionality that the application offers. While there is a local-only version of Roam, there are a few issues there: The Roam team has said that a local-based application is on the roadmap, though the timing of this is unclear, as other advances are taking priority: public API development, mobile application, etc. I can also access or edit my files using any text editor on my computer or iPhone, with changes automatically synced by my cloud storage. On my iPhone, I quick capture tweets, posts, articles, and video links of interest, and these appear on my Daily Page as well, making it easier to track when I first encountered certain ideas. Bottom line? Block-level, outliner based structure with second-to-none contextual linking capabilities. My goal here is not to be inflammatory or to build up one note-taking application over another, but instead to highlight my experiences over time with Roam and why I went looking for alternatives. How does Obsidian (launched 2019) compare to Roam (launched 2019) over 200 features? Since I had an account prior to the release of their subscription model, I was grandfathered in, so to speak. With Obsidian, you could save notes to a cloud-synced folder. A second, pale blue editing pane, capable of displaying blocks, pages, and their associated links, appears on the right whenever a link is shift-clicked. Blocks can be indented, making them subordinate to unindented blocks above them; once this is done, subordinate blocks can be collapsed into or expanded from their parents with a single click. Benefit that comes with a keystroke or two, I don ’ t care to about... 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