I tried Roam for a few months, but decided to ditch it. Fortunately enough, I discovered Obsidian a couple of days later.
So, in short, here are my thoughts on it. Let’s start with the pros:
- an outliner with bidirectional links
- block referencing
- programmable (in-line queries and such)
- (kind of a Project Xanadu spiritual heir)
- Above all, made both users and industry aware of this “new” paradigm
But the cons, oh well, one of these would be enough:
- cloud only, DB driven
- fragile exports due to reference codes
- Ill-suited for long-form text
- ludicrous “privacy policy”
- creepy toxic cult following
- arrogant CEO/cult leader
One might thing that these last two were not that serious. Well, they are. I won’t trust a “tool for thought” that comes from such an intellectually dishonest crowd.
On the other hand, it looks like I’m forgetting the price. I’m not. I really could make that serious financial effort if Roam turned out to be as good as it seemed at first.
A few days after ditching Roam, I knew that Obsidian (early as it was in its beta stage) would be the right tool for me. I don’t think I need to tell you lot why.
Regarding portability, my advice to you would be to stay off anything with double curly braces, because they’re all you’re going to get when you export to .md. Also, long texts are really a pain, with an hyphen at the beginning of every line.