# Why I left Roam Research for Obsidian <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> ## Thumbnail ![[Roam vs Obsidian - thumbnail-02.png]] ### Inspiration ![[rachelm-why-i-left-notion-for-obsidian.png]] ![[dalton-mabery-why-i-switched-from-roam-research-to-obsidian-thumbnail.png]] ## Title 1. Why I left Roam Research for Obsidian 2. Roam vs Obsidian 3. ==Why I chose Obsidian over Roam (from a Roam investor)== ## Hook On the topic of Roam Research vs Obsidian for personal knowledge management, I'm not exactly impartial. I paid for the Believer plan and am a small personal investor... of Roam Research. Yup, Roam. If anything, I stand to gain money from more people using Roam.Here's why I think Obsidian is better anyway. ## Structure - 1. Owning my own data - Access: No chance of sudden data loss - Online only (come on, browser cache doesn't count as local storage) vs online or offline - Backup and dissemination: - Local storage means I can choose my own backup provider - Images not stored in Roam's Google Firebase account - An Obsidian vault is actually useful outside of Obsidian, which brings me to my next point... - 2. Futureproofing (Plain text) - Roam uses Markdown, but it's Roam-flavored Markdown. Many of the features that make it cool (like block embeds) won't work with anything other than Roam. - If both Roam and Obsidian went down irrevocably, I wouldn't be able to use Roam at all. But I'd still be able to use Obsidian and its plugins for a while. - Obsidian works well with GitHub repositories. They don't even need to know I use Obsidian. - I can open plain text in my IDE (VSCode) - 3. Linking and organizing vs creating - Obsidian is focused on writing and publishing. Obsidian Publish, but also just using static site generators. - Roam: outline only, Obsidian: either, plus more - 4. Performance - Roam treats every single bullet point line as an entry in a database. That's cool, until you realize that comes with significant performance overhead. For every 1 line I might have wanted to be in a database, there were 20 that were just items in a shopping list. - Obsidian performed more than 100x better than the competition. - 5. Community and Ethics - [Roam Research has a history of banning those that don't agree with them](https://www.reddit.com/user/cyberpsionic/comments/px88a5/rroamresearch_banning_spree/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf)... or those that just point out other available tools. Or those that question how long it takes them to release new features. Or those that don't do anything. [What if you were unfairly banned?](https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/q1v1qp/update_to_our_rules_a_note_on_recent_bans_from/) Tough luck, try again. - Roam interviewees asked if they could sympathize with Hitler. - Roam Cult - Elitism in the way the founder responds to constructive criticism or genuine struggles that would-be users share about getting started with Roam: https://twitter.com/Conaw/with_replies - In contrast, the Obsidian community is inclusive, friendly, and welcoming. - The two developers are very active on the Discord channel and forum. I've personally had interactions with both devs. They respond quickly and kindly to everything. - There are Obsidian Community Talks and other community initiatives - Bonus: Pricing - Roam - $200M funding - $500 believer plan for 5 years - $15/month - $13.75/month (annual) - Obsidian: free - Only two plugins are paid: Publish and Sync, both of which involve using their servers, so it makes sense you'd have to pay for them. Also both completely optional. ## Outro I'm not here to tell you which tool is better for you. But despite spending $1,500 of my own personal money and writing thousands of notes in Roam, Obsidian is hands-down the better tool for me. Even if I lose money by saying so. Thanks for watching! Obrigada! ## Related videos and resources Roam data loss issues (archived repo): https://github.com/Roam-Research/issues/issues/97 Reddit thread about Roam data loss: https://www.reddit.com/r/RoamResearch/comments/gdbq77/how_common_is_data_loss/ Downloading files uploaded to Roam Research for use with Obsidian: https://nicolevanderhoeven.com/blog/20210602-downloading-files-from-roam/ My public Obsidian vault: https://notes.nicolevanderhoeven.com Tools for Thought Performance: Obsidian: https://www.goedel.io/p/tft-performance-obsidian Tiago Forte's tweet about Roam and Conor White-Sullivan's reaction: https://twitter.com/Conaw/status/1489047406327050240 ## Timestamps 0:00 Intro 0:21 Reason #1 01:56 Reason #2 03:25 Reason #3 05:00 Reason #4 05:48 Reason #5 07:22 Bonus reason ## Pre-production - [ ] Take a thumbnail photo and create one for YouTube (1280 x 720). - [ ] Add description. - [ ] Include the title and any keywords in the first few sentences, but in a natural way. - [ ] Add related videos and resources as links. - [ ] Add end screen. - [ ] Add cards if necessary. - [ ] Add video to relevant playlist(s), or create a playlist if necessary. - [ ] Create captions using Descript or using the script, then edit them. - [ ] Add chapters for YouTube if longer than 5 minutes. - [ ] Schedule on YouTube. ## Post-production - [ ] Promote on personal social media. - [ ] Twitter - [ ] LinkedIn - [ ] Create a blog post on [site](https://nicolevanderhoeven.com). - [ ] Add to weekly newsletter.