# Why Obsidian is better than Roam <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/AWUk8-6yG2g" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen></iframe> - [[Roam Research]] is not local; you don't have full control of your data. - There have been a few Roam users who have lost data due to various changes devs made. While this hasn't happened to me, I can't risk that happening. - Roam is slow. - Obsidian is moving faster, despite Roam's multimillion dollar valuation. - graph view This was my Roam graph when I made the switch: ![[roamgraph.png]] By comparison, here's what my Obsidian graph looked like after migrating: ![[graph_view-20210518.png]] ## What do I miss from Roam? ### [[Transclusion]] of blocks You can embed blocks in Obsidian now, too, but you can only edit them in the original note. Clicking on a note that's been embedded will just take you to the original note. ### Merging notes ~~You can't easily merge two notes. Example: in creating this note, I realized I'd already created a very similar one: [[Migrating from Roam to Obsidian]]. How do I merge them while retaining the references to each?~~ - This is now fixed by the Note Composer Obsidian core plugin! You'll have to enable it, but after that merging is as simple as clicking on the options icon on a page. ### TODO and DONE filters ~~Filtering out done tasks.~~ - While this hasn't been implemented in Obsidian, the issue has been resolved for my use case by the [Obsidian Completed Area plugin](https://github.com/DahaWong/obsidian-completed-area). ### Click and drag blocks Being able to option click and drag (and also just click and drag) a block from one note to another does not have a counterpart in Obsidian. :( ### `/` Context menu ~~To some extent (ie, for `/today`), this can be resolved by the [Natural Language Dates plugin](https://github.com/argenos/nldates-obsidian) and the presence of the CMD+P command palette in Obsidian.~~ Obsidian now has the slash commands-- and I'm finding I don't use them much anymore. ### Mentions I do miss just having linked and unlinked references within the note itself, because on Obsidian, mentions (both linked and unlinked) are a panel that you can drop anywhere on your workspace, but it changes to show the mentions for the note you're focusing on. ### Block embeds Editable note embeds. Roam's _Replace with > text, references, original; apply children as > text, references_ context menu for replacing block embeds with parents, children, etc., is sadly not available for Obsidian. ### Embeddable queries ~~Better queries that you can embed into notes. Obsidian's queries don't show parent blocks, and they sometimes weirdly don't even show the line if you search for tags - only the tags are shown, which is pretty useless. You have to "show more context", but that's not possible to do in an embedded query-- only in search within the UI.~~ - Fully resolved by the [[Obsidian Dataview]] plugin. ### Block versioning Obsidian doesn't have this. On the bright side, you could just make your Obsidian vault a [[GitHub]] repo, like me. You'll still get version control that way-- just not as nice an interface as Roam's block versioning, unfortunately. ## Things I really love about Obsidian that Roam doesn't have - The graph view is actually useful at allowing you to explore your own data. - You can create presentations and present FROM Obsidian just by using `---`!!!!!! - Aliases! No more multiple notes that mean the same thing. - Workspaces! Game changer for context-switching between work and play. - Comments (`%%`) are great for publishing, because you can keep unsightly data out of the finished page. - The plugins are mindblowingly useful and easy to install. I can't get enough! - It's way faster. - Obsidian Publish creates a frictionless experience for publishing and as a result, I publish a lot more frequently. - The developer support moves at lightning speed. - Obsidian has a mobile app! And a real, full-featured, native app too, not a web app that is crippled.