Obsidian VS Roam Research: Why I Chose Obsidian

[@BryanJenks]

Want to get your hands on my Obsidian templates, Custom CSS, and Mermaid Diagram code? 👉🏻️bryanjenkstech.ck.page/d4ec0713d5 00:00 Intro 00:11 What we're talking about today 00:29 PKM and what people are using these apps for 01:20 the TL;DR of the video 02:56 from vikwiki to obsidian 04:21 The approach of this VS video 05:03 Offline Usage and access to your data 06:44 File / Data portability 07:21 Block level referencing 08:35 Obsidians response to block level referencing 09:16 Why reference granularity may be important to you 11:16 Obsidian Offline use and downsides of Electron 12:30 Obsidian ease of customization 13:47 The cost comparison 15:10 Obsidian's Business Roadmap (how can they survive for free?) 16:10 FOSS Status of these apps 18:02 Why Obsidian meets my needs 22:35 Obsidian's welcoming community 23:19 Obsidian's amazing graph view 25:49 Closing

[@FaradayAcademy]

Do you not like to put the timestamps in the description for scrubbing?

[@BryanJenks]

I mass edit video descriptions with latest socials and links so if I pin time stamps I can do this without losing them means I can use the new time stamp feature but it’s worth it for me personally to keep all descriptions updated on all my old videos that still get a lot of traffic

[@ConradCarriker]

Obsidian now has block referencing. "Block references and block embeds are now available." version 9.5

[@BryanJenks]

☝🏻️

[@linkingyourthinking]

Excellent perspective. I will be asking you more about Anki, command line stuff, SED, and Regex!

[@BryanJenks]

Heck yeah dude, let me know, CLI is one of my favorite things, and I got a good book and notes on regex I could send ya!

[@FaradayAcademy]

Good video! For Roam Research, I don't see why I need more granularity than linking to headers and files. I think it would get way to hard to find specific text that way. I like that I can encrypt and sync Obsidian however I want from my local machine.

[@BryanJenks]

Thanks! i think that level of granularity is good is you need that detail but its kind of a catch all where you get WAY TOO MUCH detail on your searches where as one of the Obsidian Dev's said that obsidian is heard towards long term curated knowledge so you spend time formatting your notes and curating them and that then the headings and file names should be sufficient. and YES! the local files like Linux make it massively attractive to me for that reason, I love my local plain text file focused programs :) I got a lot more coming on obsidian!

[@SamiKankaristo]

Block level referencing is probably useful when writing research papers, where you want to link to specific quotes, and keep them verbatim. For personal knowledge management, I don't really see the point either... As a new-comer to both of them, it seems like Roam Research is academia first, while Obsidian is more for personal knowledge management. Just the name of Roam *Research*, and the first few sentences on the landing pages: - Roam Research: "Roam helps you organize your research [...]" - Obsidian: "A second brain, for you, forever." Obsidian seems to fit my needs better.

[@shanghaitatoo]

I don't see why I need to pay $15 a month for a note taking app. If I started using it I will potentially be paying them for the forseenable future JUST to access my notes. - no. Really appreciate that Obsidian is keeping it free and has such potential to be more powerful in the future!

[@BryanJenks]

plain text. this is the way

[@bp2300]

At least you know that by paying $15 per month they have a sustainable business model - if Obsidian goes under simply because their business model hasn't worked, you're the same level of screwed as with Roam going under. If you're going to be using the app that a team has to build and maintain for the foreseeable future, it's a good idea to make it as easy and attractive as possible to help them do that. If Obsidian can keep their business model going indefinitely - awesome. But it's not free of cost for others to make these things available to us, so who will give them the level of resources they need to keep doing this thing well? I'll help the Roam guys do that. People should help the Obsidian guys do that too, I hope they do.

[@shanghaitatoo]

@@bp2300 let's not pretend charging as much as $15 a month is the ONLY sustainable business model out there. And the way obsidian works is that you have all of your plain text file saved on your computer, so you can access it and open it with ANY text editor. If obsidian decide to all of sudden charging $15 for all the users across the board I can still access my notes. Plenty of apps and software charges a one off fee and strived because of the effort the developer put in and the support of the community that they've built. Modern business model cares more about going big and going big fast, letting the ego take the drive. frankly if I do have $15 to spare per month I wouldn't support that mentality.

[@lucasb3895]

No, you’re not the same level of screwed, that’s the whole point. If obsidian isn’t around in five years, that’s fine. You’ll be able to continue using the app you downloaded five years ago, and your notes will continue to be available on your computer. If properly backed up your notes can be used until the day you die and beyond, long after obsidian and roam are forgotten about, because they’re all just markdown files and don’t rely on Obsidian at all to be readable.

[@kartikeykushwaha3622]

@@bp2300 No, you're not screwed at all because any program can open text files. Anyone can then build an app that also connects them. Moreover, the devs don't just maintain Obsidian, they have other apps too.

[@senseibas8199]

Thank you so much. I was / am quite frustrated with roam so I think I'm gonna switch

[@BryanJenks]

I think roam is pretty cool dont get me wrong, but I think Obsidian can do a lot of what people want in a way that is a bit more palatable and maybe a bit less complex, while still providing the flexibility for one to configure the system to their unique workflow. Definitely check out the Obsidian Discord server, its a great resource and full of very friendly and helpful people, and let me know if you have any questions, Im also in the server like 24/7 so I'll likely see you there :)

[@senseibas8199]

@@BryanJenks thank you verry much. I love roam or at least the concept of it and it has thought me a lot. I think however that obsidian may be a better fit. Will check it out and see you on the forum! Have a great day!

[@RadhaKumari-ut8ko]

Block referencing has been added to obsedian

[@BryanJenks]

Yes! i made a video after the release: kzbin.info/www/bejne/fWecfaqYi62LpLc :)

[@bp2300]

Oh cool, that might be a game-changer!

[@SidhaSuccess]

Great content! Great presentation! You're one of the best on the subject of Obsidian, BASB, Zett, etc.

[@BryanJenks]

I appreciate the praise, though i don't know if I'm worthy of it 😅️ but thank you none the less!

[@kufahmeeran]

Thanks for sharing your story. I feel like you didn't really dive into Roam before making this comparison, and just went with your gut feeling, which is totally understandable; I did that too. Here are points worth considering: - Block referencing is not just about mentions, and more about transclusion and re-usability. For instance, you can have a block containing a short definition for recursion ("Recursion occurs when a thing is defined in terms of itself or of its type") on its own page, [[Recursion]]; then when you're writing out a tutorial for Recursion, you can just refer that block there instead of rewriting the definition. And if you found a better explanation of recursion, you only have to edit one block, and it'll be updated everywhere. Block references also allows better transclusion-- if you want to quote yourself or part of an article in a page, you can do so while preserving the original context--no duplication. You can't do either of those atm in Obsidian, because you can only refer blocks in the same page. - block-level referencing means many more links in your graph - Roam can easily be customized with themes, it's as simple as adding one line. - Roam has a graph view too, albeit less pretty. - In Roam, you just can't miss backlinks/linked references as it's at the bottom of the page (leads to more serendipity), whereas in Obsidian it's hidden, you have to click some small text at the bottom right which you're likely to not even notice. more on what makes roam roam here: roamresearch.com/#/app/holy-omniscience/page/Qlh3ac3w7

[@BryanJenks]

at the time of filming it was just a surface level impression which is why i don't really mention it much at all anymore - you can transclude blocks from any documents into any other document in obsidian blocks however do not have there own page as a primary different. But if you make your pages atomic enough you could replicate that behavior if you couldn't separate from the roam mental model - block references/transclusion is more links on the obsidian graph too - obsidian can easily be customized the same way because both applications rely on CSS for styling - obsidian allows back links but you have to activate the behavior as a plugin/feature. if you wanted back links at the bottom of every page you could simply put a query block at the bottom of every note via a template and have the query search for that file's name. in the end, the 2 apps have massive overlap with ways of compensating for most of each others native features. most of what roam can do can be done in obsidian albeit sometimes with more friction. What most important is what can users afford, what are their privacy and security concerns, and which tool actually lets them get more work done.

[@vishalkumar040393]

Came here after Keep Productive recommendation. Loved your content.

[@BryanJenks]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@thelstan8562]

Love your sassiness.

[@BryanJenks]

LOL thank you :)

[@LukeAvedon]

Excellent and very helpful!

[@BryanJenks]

Glad to hear it!

[@otaviodzb1]

Is there a way to transfer my Evernote notes to Obsidian?

[@BryanJenks]

i havent touched this at all myself as I've never been in evernote, but from the other Obsidian users this seems to be the most popular way: github.com/akosbalasko/yarle

[@climateteacherjohnj7763]

The problem I'm having with Roam is sometimes it just refuses to type what I want and just auto-corrects to something else, constantly. It's very frustrating. Sitting there watching the text change every single time... it's plain nuts. How is this supposed to work? No help or support on their site either...service is just non-existent. And they want $500?!

[@BryanJenks]

yikes... is there no way to turn auto correct off?

[@climateteacherjohnj7763]

@@BryanJenks I somehow solved it but then, that wasn't the only problem I had with Roam. The cost makes it feel like my data is being held for ransom. I've settled on Obsidian and use the Daily Note for my writing prompt and a Zettelkasten for any work or research notes.

[@gnostie]

Thanks, friend. You opened my eyes to the fact that none of these softwares do more than what Google doesn't already do better, namely search. I'll look into setting up my own system of marked up text files, using Google's search capacities.

[@BryanJenks]

not sure what you mean but good luck in your efforts!

[@MrZuper12]

Would it be too much to ask for you to timestamp the video by topic? Thx

[@BryanJenks]

i cant put the timestamps when the video is scheduled, only when it publishes so its a bit delayed, the timestamps are in the pinned comment. thank you for your patience

[@ditchcomfort]

I don’t find Obsidian to RAM heavy…? I don’t know, I have 128GB total on my machine.

[@BryanJenks]

i have 64 on this machine, but other machines I've had with 8gb or 16gb still no issues

[@Artur_Paprocki]

27 minutes of pointing out importance of local-based database.

[@BryanJenks]

plain text file knowledge base that can be loaded to github for version control. but yeah

[@iAnisBen]

Geart video

[@BryanJenks]

Thank you!

[@SriNiVi]

As much as you vouch for obsidian. It lacks a simple feature of Block referencing and embedding recursive lists. For that reason. I still consider roam as a far superior note taking tool because that is fundamentally how good the roam team has designed the datastructure. The only good competition I can say to roam is Remnote. Obsidian doesn't stand a chance.

[@BryanJenks]

Block refs have been around for a while now, not sure what you mean by recursive lists, maybe since this video the shortcomings have improved enough to change your view if not that’s fine, these tools aren’t meant to work for everyone just they people they do work for :) in the end it’s just a tool with no value if it doesn’t actually inspire you to DO work

[@kufahmeeran]

@@BryanJenks As of today you can only refer blocks in the same page. I'm not sure if that was the intented use of OP, but a recursive list is one that contains itself as an item.

[@BryanJenks]

@@kufahmeeran you are not limited to blocks contained only in the same page. you can global block search and tranclude in obsidian with [[^^]].

[@kufahmeeran]

@@BryanJenks oh thanks for clarification!

[@hugocastellanos135]

🐄

[@BryanJenks]

🐄