Roam Research, often known as a mind-mapping wonder, is one of the most polarizing note-taking apps out there. While some productivity nerds hail it as an ultimate digital brain to reshape how they think, others find it too complex to navigate and integrate into their workflow. In this post, we will explore Roam Research’s virtues and vices, to help you conclude if you should join the Roam cult or explore other alternatives on your laptop.

What is Roam Research?

You shouldn’t confuse Roam Research with traditional note-taking apps like OneNote, Evernote, and Apple Notes. It goes way beyond these tools to offer a dynamic ecosystem for your thoughts.

Roam Research employs connections whenever you create a link between two notes on your hosted graph. It’s not a one-way street and is often known as bidirectional linking. The software basically mirrors how our mind works and displays the relationship between our notes in a neat graph view.

Like other modern productivity tools, Roam doesn’t have a standard toolbar at the top and instead relies on the ‘/’ command to enter relevant blocks like to-do, code, streak, text editing tools, live timer, and more. Before you sign up for Roam Research, let’s have a balanced view of this double-edged sword.

3 Reasons to use Roam Research

Roam Research absolutely excels in the areas below.

Bidirectional links

Bidirectional linking is Roam’s secret sauce. You can link related pages and blocks, and even create a streak for updating a specific page. The latter is quite interesting, as you can pick a page and track how often you edit it. Roam tracks your edits and updates your streak accordingly. This comes in handy if you plan to use Roam Research as a journal and want to track your consistency.

Graph database

Roam Research has nailed the graph view where your notes turn into nodes and backlinks become a cosmic web. You may not find it useful at a glance, but once you start adding and linking your notes, you can check the graph view to explore connections, trace origins, and deduce insights.

Researchers and students find the graph view quite useful in their workflow. It acts as a neural network for your ideas.

Community extensions

As a dedicated software for power users, Roam Research may feel basic at a glance. Here is where Roam Depot comes into play. Roam has a cult following, and the community has developed third-party plugins to add new functionality to your graph.

Roam Research reviews each extension for security and even shares a portion of its revenue with its developers. You can add a color highlighter, AI extension, to-do trigger, and much more to your Roam setup. It also offers live collaboration with your team members to brainstorm ideas.

3 Reasons to avoid Roam Research

You may want to skip the Roam realm for the following reasons.

Learning curve

Roam doesn’t have a standard toolbar or clear organization method to easily save your notes. It uses a slash command and backlinks to connect your notes. It’s an unusual approach and requires a steep learning curve. It may discourage casual note takers.

Price

Roam Research comes with a hefty price tag. Once the monthly trial is over, you'll need to pay $15 per month or $165 per year to keep using your Roam graphs.

Outdated UI

The Roam Research interface leaves a lot to be desired. While it gets the job done, and may be ahead of the pack in many ways, Roam won’t win any awards in the UI/UX department.

Roam Research alternatives

If the above-mentioned potential Roam Research pitfalls are deal-breakers for you, we recommend checking out a couple of capable alternatives for your workflow.

Obsidian

Obsidian is one of the top Roam Research alternatives out there. It takes away the biggest Roam Research roadblock – price. Obsidian offers a capable plan where all the app features are free for personal use.

With features like backlinks, graph views, daily notes, canvas, community plugins, and themes, it matches and even edges out Roam Research in key areas. With the slash (/) command and markdown-based editor, Obsidian strikes the perfect balance between the complexity of Roam Research and OneNote’s simplicity.

Reflect Notes

Reflect Notes is another neat alternative to Roam Research. Apart from connecting your notes through backlinks, it offers an AI assistant to automate your workflow, with end-to-end encryption, calendar view, offline support, project management tools, and much more. Give it a try using the link below.

Roam pros, cons, and everything in between

As you can see from the list above, Roam Research isn’t for everyone. It comes with a steep price tag, requires a learning curve, and some of the limitations may throw you off. That said, unlike other software solutions, it doesn’t impose rigid hierarchies and empowers you to roam free in your own digital workspace. Keep the roadblocks in mind, start with a free trial, and see if the wild stallion will be worth using as a daily driver.

Check our separate listicle if you want to explore more such productivity tools on your PC.