A note-taking tool for networked thought
Web-based note-taking app pioneering bidirectional linking. Trustpilot: 2.8/5 but only 3 reviews (too small to be reliable). G2: 4.3/5. High pricing ($180/year) and slow development drive users to free alternatives like Obsidian and Logseq.
Patterns extracted from real user feedback — not raw reviews.
Roam Research doesn't offer a free plan at all. The minimum is $15/month or $180/year for the Pro plan. This is exceptionally expensive for a note-taking app, especially when alternatives like Obsidian and Logseq offer similar features for free. The 31-day trial converts to annual billing if not cancelled.
Users complain about being charged for a 12-month subscription after a 1-month trial, describing it as a 'try and forget' strategy profiting from forgetful people. The trial auto-converts to annual billing, catching users off guard with a $180 charge.
Development has been quite slow over the last year and the advantage over competition was mainly lost. Logseq and Obsidian have caught up and surpassed Roam in many areas. The Roam subreddit sometimes goes two weeks without any new user posts, suggesting declining engagement.
While Roam has a well-developed backlinking system, the graph visualization is described as unusable, so users can't get any benefits from that feature. For a tool that pioneered networked thought, this is a significant gap.
Users have reported data loss issues where hours and days of work disappeared. This has been an ongoing theme on Reddit and Slack. Sync indicator often gets stuck, and offline databases take a full minute to load compared to 2-3 seconds for hosted ones.
There are occasions when load times can take hours. The graph view gets slow particularly when users have many notes and the graph is large. Offline graph loading causes browser freezes and high CPU usage in some browsers.
Roam doesn't have first-class mobile support yet. The mobile experience is full of little bugs and usability problems. For a $180/year app, the lack of polished mobile apps is a significant gap compared to alternatives.
Users note a steep learning curve and desire improvements in UI design. The outliner paradigm is unfamiliar to most users. Without folders or traditional organization, new users often feel lost and struggle to build productive workflows.
Users report receiving rude responses from support when requesting features like inline LaTeX equations. The Roam team also banned users from their subreddit for negative posts, raising concerns about defensive community management.
Roam stores notes in a proprietary format in someone else's cloud, unlike Obsidian or Logseq which use plain Markdown. Exporting as JSON gives a format that is not importable back, with errors on re-import. Data portability is limited.
Pioneered bidirectional linking and block references
Roam Research revolutionized note-taking with bidirectional links and block-level references. The ability to reference individual blocks from anywhere created a new paradigm that competitors have since adopted.
Best-in-class search functionality
The search feature in Roam Research is amazing and considered the most accurate and quick found in any note-taking program. Finding specific content across your entire graph is fast and reliable.
Daily notes encourage consistent journaling
The daily notes feature creates a natural home for thoughts, reducing friction in capture. This workflow has been widely praised and copied by competitors including Logseq and Obsidian.
Block-based outlining is powerful for structured thinking
Everything in Roam is a block that can be nested, linked, and referenced. This outliner approach is ideal for researchers, academics, and engineers who think in structured hierarchies.
Users: 1 user
Storage: Not specified
Limitations: No collaboration, Limited mobile experience
Users: 1 user
Storage: Not specified
Limitations: No collaboration, Limited mobile experience
Users: 1 user
Storage: Not specified
Limitations: Locked in for 5 years with no refund if product declines
Researchers and academics
Pioneer of networked thought. Powerful queries, block references, and knowledge graphs. Ideal for connecting research concepts.
Engineering teams
Good for personal knowledge management but expensive for teams. $15/user/month adds up. Engineers often prefer free Obsidian or Logseq.
Researchers and academics writing papers
Roam's block references and search are excellent for research. However, Logseq and Obsidian now offer similar capabilities for free. Consider if Roam's specific features justify the premium.
Early adopters already invested in Roam
If you have years of notes in Roam and productive workflows, the migration cost to alternatives may not be worth it. But evaluate whether continued investment makes sense given stalled development.
Marketing teams
Outliner paradigm confusing for marketing workflows. No visual content, no campaign management. Marketing should use Notion or dedicated tools.
Budget-conscious users
At $180/year with no free tier, Roam is one of the most expensive note-taking apps. Free alternatives like Obsidian and Logseq offer nearly identical features. The cost cannot be justified for most users.
Users needing reliable mobile apps
Roam's mobile support is buggy and lacks polish. If you need to capture and review notes on mobile frequently, alternatives like Obsidian, Notion, or Craft provide better mobile experiences.
Users who value local data ownership
Roam stores data in proprietary format in their cloud. Data export has issues. For true ownership and portability, Obsidian or Logseq store notes as local Markdown files you control.
Teams needing collaboration
Roam is designed for individual use with no real collaboration features. For team knowledge bases, Notion, Confluence, or even shared Obsidian vaults work better.
Common buyer's remorse scenarios reported by users.
Users forget to cancel the 31-day trial and are automatically charged $180 for an annual subscription. The trial-to-annual conversion feels predatory, especially given the high price point.
Users who paid for Roam discover that Logseq and Obsidian offer nearly identical features for free. The realization that they're paying $180/year for something available free leads to regret.
Users who paid $500 for the 5-year Believer plan feel burned as development slowed dramatically. They're locked into a product that's falling behind competitors with no refund option.
Users experience data loss or hours of work disappearing due to sync problems. For a paid cloud product, this is especially frustrating as reliability should be a baseline expectation.
Scenarios where this product tends to fail users.
When Logseq and Obsidian matured to offer similar bidirectional linking for free, Roam's $180/year pricing became hard to justify. Most new users now choose free alternatives.
Roam's mobile experience is buggy and unreliable. Users who need to capture thoughts on-the-go often switch to apps with better mobile support like Notion, Obsidian, or Craft.
Roam stores everything in their cloud in proprietary format. Users concerned about data ownership, privacy, or long-term access switch to local-first alternatives like Obsidian or Logseq.
With many notes, the graph view becomes slow and unusable. Load times can stretch to hours. Performance degrades significantly for power users with extensive note collections.
Reflect Notes
Premium alternative with better UI/UX, AI features, and calendar integration. Similar networked notes approach but more polished. For users willing to pay but wanting better product.
RemNote
Combines bidirectional linking with spaced repetition for learning. Good for students and researchers who want to memorize content from their notes. Has free tier.
Tana
Newer entrant with advanced features like supertags and AI integration. Similar outliner paradigm but more innovative development. Currently invite-only with free access.
Obsidian
Users switch to save money and own data. Gain: free, local files, huge plugin ecosystem. Trade-off: no web access, setup required.
Logseq
Users switch for open-source and local-first. Gain: free, open source, privacy. Trade-off: less polished, smaller community.
Notion
Users wanting more structure switch to Notion. Gain: databases, collaboration, more features. Trade-off: different paradigm, not outliner-based.
