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Everyone was talking about Roam for a while, I wonder what happened.



The faithful are still on Roam. Others have moved to:

1. Obsidian: has bidirectional linking and knowledge graphs, is faster and better supported, but doesn't have the outlining structure that Roam is based on.

2. Logseq: basically an open source Roam with 90-95% feature parity and some cool stuff that is its own.

3. Foam/Dendron/Athens etc: Roam clones.

4. Notion/Evernote/something else entirely.


I don't think Dendron is a Roam clone. All notetaking apps of the new generation have certain similarities, but Dendron has a pretty different philosophy for how you should organize your notes.

Roam's about the block within an outline, interlinking and transclusion.

Dendron's core schtick is making traditional hierarchies easier to work with.

Like, with Roam a feelings of power scenario would be queries getting you subtrees from disparate outlines from which you pick out relevant trains of thought to synthesize your own writing, or just an outliner's ease in manipulating your text.

With Dendron it's more like, "oh, I've been thinking about this all wrong" and restructuring your notes so your new hierarchies reflect your new understanding.


Appreciate your input. I'll admit I haven't looked into Dendron as deeply.


Yeah, the app's built around a tree hierarchy like normal folders, but using dot namespacing (music.memes.ohno.rickroll.md) to make working with it more doable than with a file manager. I don't know if it's better, per se, but they have definite philosophy to their design, and it's explicitly against graphs and wikilinks as the be all end all solution to knowledge base organization.


Maybe they all switched to Obsidian or org mode.


Roam costs money; Obsidian is free.




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