Roam Research
Notion
Logseq
Evernote
Joplin
Workflowy
TiddlyWiki
Trello
Obsidian.md
Notion
Joplin
Logseq
Evernote
OneNote
Standard Notes
TiddlyWiki
Roam ResearchPerhaps you know someone who swears by Obsidian, it may seem like a cult of overly devoted people for how passionate they are, but it's not without reason
I've been using Obsidian for over 3 years, at a point in my life when I felt I had to handle too much information and I felt like grasping water not being able to remember everything I wanted, language learning, programming, accounting, university, daily tasks. A friend recommended it to me next to Notion (of which he is a passionate cultist priest) and I reluctantly picked it and fell in love almost immediately.
Obsidian seems very simple, like a notepad with folder interface, similar to Sublime Text, but the ability to link files together in a Wiki style allows you to organize ideas in any way you want, one file may lead to a dozen or more ideas that are related
If you want to do something specific, Obsidian has a plethora of community created plugins that expand the functionality, in my case, I use obsidian to organize my classes both as a teacher and as a student, using local databases, calendars, dictionaries, slides, vector graphic drawings, excel-like tables, Anki connection, podcasts, and more
I've been using Obsidian for more than a year. It's been great. I think it offer a great balance of control, flexibility and extensibility. What is more, you own your own data, that's been a must-have feature for me. I just can't imagine putting all my knowledge into something that I don't have control over.
I think two of the most popular alternatives that people consider are Logseq and Roam Research. Although Logseq is a bit different, it's considered compatible with Obsidian. Supposedly, you can use them with a shared database (files. Both use simple text files for storage). I tried that once, a few months ago. It worked, yet it messed up a bit my Obsidian files ¯_(ツ)_/¯.
Based on our record, Obsidian.md seems to be a lot more popular than Roam Research. While we know about 1488 links to Obsidian.md, we've tracked only 103 mentions of Roam Research. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.
I'm somewhat surprised that 44 comments in, it looks like I'm the first to mention Roam: https://roamresearch.com/ It obviously wasn't the first note taking app, and it's very much not Free, but the nature of its linking sparked Obsidian and Logseq's growth. I've been a happy paid user since the early days. The biggest reason I stick with it is that it supports both being E2E encrypted and synchronising,... - Source: Hacker News / 20 days ago
Excellent article. IMHO it tackles the gist of what personal knowledge management should be about. True learning/understanding (and intellectual depth for that matter) seems like something that (due to neurocognitive reasons) cannot possibly be achieved only through the process of reading, but is rather a function of the reader's quality of elaboration on what has been read. This inherently requires the reader's... - Source: Hacker News / 4 months ago
Many of my cards include links back to my notes in https://roamresearch.com/. Source: over 1 year ago
Popper's criterion in a vacuum could seem to be exclusionary, but his philosophy of science involves his underrated idea of evolutionary epistemology. That all theories, seemingly pseudoscientific and the rest, compete to explain something, testable or not. Explanation is the most fundamental aspect, the rival statements compete to solve some problem in terms of how and why. Read Popper's Ch. 1. Conjectural... - Source: Hacker News / almost 2 years ago
Other tools I use: Superhuman for Email, Akiflow for tasks and calendar, Roam for notes/PKB, and one sec to reduce opening distracting apps. Source: almost 2 years ago
You can find out about Obsidian on their site It's free to use and open source. - Source: dev.to / 2 days ago
I don't argue that companies are obligated to distributing their products as open source. Not at all. One of my favourite pieces of software, Obsidian is closed source, and I have no objection to that. They as a company need to make a profit, and they are free to chose their own strategy.5. - Source: dev.to / 4 days ago
Obsidian Official Website Still an incredible tool for the right type of workflow. - Source: dev.to / 8 days ago
This is a plugin for Obsidian [1] that can extend Obsidian with custom functionality. There's a demo video in the readme. Why? Obsidian is a note taking app with tons of extensions. Even so, there must be hyper-niche use cases that aren't being served by any existing extension. LLMs are decent at coding though, so maybe an LLM can write custom functionality on demand. That's the experiment, to see if you can... - Source: Hacker News / 15 days ago
These are useful and beneficial for your reputation and branding. I use my email alias for GNOME-related work at AlirezaSh@gnome.org, have my blog at alirezash.gnome.org, and sync my Obsidian notes with Nextcloud on GNOME infrastructure. Unfortunately, I couldn't get my travel sponsorship as a speaker at events because I'm from Iran, and due to OFAC regulations which is so unfair. - Source: dev.to / 25 days ago
Notion - All-in-one workspace. One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized.
Logseq - Logseq is a local-first, non-linear, outliner notebook for organizing and sharing your personal knowledge base.
Joplin - Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to-do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor.
Evernote - Bring your life's work together in one digital workspace. Evernote is the place to collect inspirational ideas, write meaningful words, and move your important projects forward.
Workflowy - A better way to organize your mind.
OneNote - Get the OneNote app for free on your tablet, phone, and computer, so you can capture your ideas and to-do lists in one place wherever you are. Or try OneNote with Office for free.
I think both Roam and Obsidian are great apps. Although I've used only Obsidian, I did a serious research about both a year ago. What tilted me towards Obsidian was that it's a desktop app, I own the data (syncing through iCloud or Dropbox), and there's Vim support.
I recommend - Obsidian.md.