Atlas is privacy-first and AI-native, designed so research, briefs, and meeting notes accumulate compounding context across projects rather than dissolving into one-off chats. Every response is a cited answer back to the underlying document, with mind maps from multiple sources available when you need a structural view. $20/mo Pro. Get started.
At a glance: Obsidian launched 2020 by Erica Xu + Shida Li and grew past 2M users by 2024, many of them ex-Roam. The migration was driven by three factors: price ($0 vs ~$15/mo per public listings, May 2026), storage (local .md files in a folder you control vs proprietary cloud), and plugin ecosystem (Dataview, Excalidraw, Templater, Smart Connections, Block Reference, Calendar, Mind Map, covering ~80% of Roam's distinctive features through community work). Roam still has its strengths: a more polished native outliner, block-level transclusion built into the core editor, daily notes as the literal home page, and Datalog queries. But the community gravity is in Obsidian. The Roam-to-Obsidian importer is a community plugin; the migration path is well-documented.
The right framing for this comparison: why are you still on Roam, or considering it? If the answer is "the outliner UX specifically," Roam stays. If the answer is anything else, Obsidian probably wins. For ex-Roam users weighing other destinations, Obsidian vs Logseq frames the outliner-vs-vault choice and our Roam Research alternative roundup catalogues the broader field.
How we tested the migration path
For the deeper framework, Cognitive Load, Vendor Lock-in, and Knowledge-Graph Density, applied across eight leading second-brain apps, see our second-brain apps guide.
Tested over 5 weeks across two scenarios. Greenfield (new user picking a tool): daily-notes journaling for 30 days, 100 concept notes with cross-links, weekly research review on each tool independently. Migration (Roam to Obsidian): exported a 5,000-block Roam graph, ran the Roam-to-Obsidian importer, cleaned up block references, installed Dataview + Excalidraw + Smart Connections + Block Reference plugins, and continued the workflow in Obsidian. Obsidian free + Sync ($48/yr annual or $5/mo monthly per the Obsidian pricing page, May 2026). Roam Pro. macOS Sonoma, iPadOS 18, iOS 18, Windows 11, Linux (Obsidian only), Web (Roam only). Methodology drew on Karpicke & Roediger 2008 (the often-cited paper reporting roughly 80% one-week recall via active retrieval vs about 36% via re-reading) for grading retrieval workflows, and the broader recall research that underpins zettelkasten practice.
Disclosure: we make Atlas, one of the products discussed in this post. We aim to keep evaluations honest and document our scoring criteria openly.
1. Pricing
Obsidian. Free without limits for personal use per the Obsidian pricing page (May 2026). Sync $4/user/mo annual ($48/yr) or $5/mo monthly. Publish $8/site/mo annual ($96/yr) or $10/mo monthly. Commercial use $50/user/year.
Roam Research. Around $15/month or $165/year per public listings, May 2026 (the Roam pricing page is not always reachable for direct verification). Believer $500 for 5 years (~$100/year).
Verdict. Obsidian wins decisively.
2. Storage and portability
Obsidian. Plain-text .md files in a folder you control. Open in any text editor. Sync via iCloud, Dropbox, Syncthing, Git, or paid Obsidian Sync. The vault outlives the app.
Roam. Cloud-first proprietary database. Markdown export is available but round-tripping is one-directional; the export is a snapshot, not a live mirror. Your graph lives in Roam's infrastructure.
Verdict. Obsidian wins decisively. This is the largest reason for the historical migration wave.
3. Plugin ecosystem (Obsidian's moat)
Obsidian. 2,000+ community plugins. Dataview turns the vault into a queryable database (replaces ~70% of what Roam's Datalog does). Excalidraw embeds drawings. Templater scripts complex templates. Smart Connections + Copilot for Obsidian add semantic AI. Block Reference makes block transclusion ergonomic. Calendar, Mind Map, Charts, and 1,000+ more.
Roam. Smaller extension ecosystem, roam/js custom scripts, roam/css styling, a few hundred community extensions. Quality is high but quantity is not at Obsidian's scale.
Verdict. Obsidian wins decisively. The plugin gap is ~10× and is the second-largest migration driver.
4. The block-transclusion gap
Roam. Every bullet has an ID. Block references ((id)) transclude a single bullet into other notes, core editor behavior, no setup.
Obsidian. Bidirectional [[wikilinks]] core. Block references via ![[note#^id]] syntax, functional but feels like a workaround. The Block Reference plugin makes it more ergonomic; still not as smooth as Roam.
Verdict. Roam wins. This is the single feature that keeps committed Roam users from migrating; if your workflow leans heavily on transcluding bullets, Roam is the better fit.
5. Daily Notes
Roam. Daily notes are the home page. Open Roam, today's date opens automatically.
Obsidian. Daily Notes is a default plugin. One-click setup, then equivalent.
Verdict. Tie after Obsidian's Daily Notes plugin is enabled.
6. Plugins and Extensibility
Obsidian. 2,000+ community plugins. Dataview (query as database), Excalidraw, Templater, Smart Connections, Calendar, Mind Map, Charts.
Roam. Smaller extension ecosystem. roam/js (custom JS scripts), roam/css for styling, some community-built extensions. Not the same scale.
Verdict. Obsidian wins decisively.
7. Graph View
Both. Force-directed graph of notes and connections.
Obsidian. Local graph per note (filtered to surrounding notes). Customizable.
Roam. Global graph with node sizing by inbound links.
Verdict. Tie. Both functional, neither essential.
8. Mobile
Obsidian. iOS and Android apps. Sync requires Obsidian Sync ($48/yr annual or $5/mo monthly per the Obsidian pricing page, May 2026) or BYO (iCloud, Syncthing, Git).
Roam. iOS and Android apps. Cloud sync built-in. Outliner works well on mobile.
Verdict. Roam wins for set-and-forget mobile sync. Obsidian wins on flexibility.
9. AI Features
Obsidian. Smart Connections plugin (free, BYO OpenAI key) for semantic Q&A. Copilot for Obsidian, local LLM via Ollama.
Roam. No native AI. Community extensions exist; not official.
Verdict. Obsidian wins. The Ahrefs 600K-page AI-content study (86.5% of top-ranked pages use AI assistance) suggests AI inside PKM tools is now baseline; Obsidian's plugin model lets you swap providers, while Roam users wait for first-party support that has not shipped through 2026.
For comparing Obsidian against capture-style tools, Obsidian vs Evernote is the most direct neighbor; for tools with more guardrails, Obsidian alternatives (simpler) covers the lighter end of the field.
Pick Obsidian if data ownership and plugins matter
You want plain-text Markdown files in a folder you control, readable in any editor, syncable via any service, future-proof against any company's pivots. You want 2,000+ community plugins filling in feature gaps as you discover them. You're cost-sensitive (free for personal). You run Linux or want offline-first across all platforms. You'd rather invest 30 minutes in plugin setup than pay $15/month indefinitely. You're a probable Roam migrant looking for the lower-cost, higher-flexibility version of the same workflow.
Pick Roam Research if the outliner UX is non-negotiable
You've tried Obsidian and the Markdown editor doesn't feel right, you want every line as a bullet, indent-and-outdent for hierarchy, block IDs by default. You transclude bullets between notes constantly and Obsidian's ![[note#^id]] syntax feels like a workaround. You want daily notes as the literal home page, not as a plugin. You're willing to pay $15/month (or commit $500 to Believer) because the UX fit is worth it. You're fine with cloud-first proprietary storage because the editor is what matters.
When to Pick Atlas
Neither does AI synthesis with source citations at scale across mixed sources. Atlas turns notes, PDFs, and research into a navigable mind map and answers cross-source questions with citations to the specific passage. Pair Atlas with Obsidian (reads your vault) or Roam (export Markdown). $20/month Pro. Try Atlas.
Comparison Table
| Axis | Obsidian | Roam Research |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free + $48/yr Sync | $15/mo or $165/yr |
| Storage | Local .md files | Cloud (proprietary) |
| Editor | Markdown | Outliner |
| Bidirectional links | Page-level | Page + block |
| Block references | Plugin/syntax | Core |
| Daily notes | Plugin | Centerpiece |
| Plugins | 2,000+ | Smaller ecosystem |
| Mobile sync | $48/yr or BYO | Built in |
| AI | Smart Connections + plugins | None native |
| Best for | Plain-text PKM tinkerers | Outliner thinkers |
Three-Year Cost in Real Numbers
Obsidian is free for personal use; Roam is not. The three-year picture depends on add-ons.
| Scenario | Obsidian | Roam Research |
|---|---|---|
| Solo, free tier | $0 (free personal) | n/a (no free tier) |
| Solo with sync | $144 (Sync, $4/mo × 36) | $540 (Pro, $15/mo × 36) |
| Solo, Believer-equivalent | n/a | $500 (Believer, prepaid 5 years) |
| Solo with AI | bring own API key, ~$5-20/month | bring own API key (Roam plugins) |
| Commercial use | $1,800 (Commercial, $50/user/mo × 36) | $2,700 (Pro, $15/seat × 5 users × 36) |
Per Obsidian's pricing page, Sync is $4/month, Publish is $8/month, Commercial is $50/user/month. Per Roam's pricing page, Pro is $15/month and the Believer plan is $500 for 5 years. The honest cost picture: Obsidian is unambiguously cheaper at every tier except Roam's Believer plan, which is the cost-effective choice if you trust the company will still exist in five years.
Privacy and Data Handling
| Property | Obsidian | Roam Research |
|---|---|---|
| Encryption at rest | Local (your disk) | AES-256 (Roam cloud) |
| End-to-end encryption | Yes (Obsidian Sync) | Yes (Encrypted Graphs, opt-in) |
| Trains on your data | No | No |
| Data residency | Your machine | US (AWS) |
| Open file format | Yes (Markdown) | Partial (EDN export) |
Both tools offer end-to-end encryption as the strict-privacy option. Obsidian's default is the most private possible, the data simply does not leave your machine without explicit sync setup. Roam's Encrypted Graphs feature uses a passphrase only the user holds; even Roam's servers cannot read the contents. The catch with Roam Encrypted Graphs is that some collaborative features become limited.
Migration Between the Two
Roam → Obsidian. The most-traveled migration path in this category. Export Roam as Markdown. Obsidian imports the files cleanly, preserving wikilinks. Block references break (Roam's ((block-id)) syntax has no clean Obsidian equivalent without the Block Reference plugin). Daily notes import as dated files. A 5,000-block Roam graph takes 4-8 hours to clean up post-import. Per discussions in the Obsidian forum, most Roam-to-Obsidian migrations preserve about 90% of the structure cleanly.
Obsidian → Roam. Less common. Roam imports Markdown but flattens the folder structure into a single graph. Wikilinks convert; Dataview queries do not (Roam has its own datalog query language). Plugin-driven features have no Roam equivalent. A 1,000-note Obsidian vault takes 6-12 hours to migrate, and most users only migrate the notes that benefit from Roam's outliner-and-block-reference model.
Real-World Workflows Compared
A typical Obsidian day. Open the vault. Today's daily note auto-creates from the Daily Notes core plugin. Capture meeting notes, link to project notes with [[wikilinks]]. Run a Dataview query to surface all open action items. Tweak a Templater snippet to add a new field to the meeting template. End of day: commit the vault to Git for version history. The pattern is do-it-yourself and tinker-friendly.
A typical Roam day. Open today's daily note (auto-created). Capture five thoughts as bullet points. Reference an earlier idea by typing [[concept name]]; Roam autocompletes from the graph. Use (( to embed a specific block from another page. Click the linked-references panel to see every other place the concept appears. End of day: review three or four key concepts and their linked-references trails. The pattern is graph-driven and outliner-shaped.
The two tools answer different questions. Obsidian answers "what do I want to build?" Roam answers "what was I thinking about and how does it connect?"
Plugin Ecosystem and Extensibility
Obsidian. The community plugin store has 1,500+ plugins. Dataview alone (a query language for the vault) opens up workflows that other PKM tools require custom code for. Templater enables runtime template logic. Excalidraw embeds visual canvases. The downside: plugin sprawl. A vault with 30 plugins takes 5-10 seconds to open and develops obscure interaction bugs.
Roam. Roam supports user-developed extensions via Roam Depot, with about 200 community extensions as of 2026. The ecosystem is much smaller than Obsidian's, partly because Roam's user base is smaller and partly because Roam's core feature set already covers most of what Obsidian users add via plugins.
When You Should Run Both
Rare in practice. Both tools want to be the canonical knowledge base, and dual-writing notes wastes time. The exception: users in a long migration window from Roam to Obsidian (or vice versa) often run both for 30-90 days, with Roam as the read-only archive and Obsidian as the canonical capture point. After the migration, one of them is closed for good.
Performance at Scale
Obsidian at scale. Vaults of 100,000+ notes open without issue on modern hardware because each note is a flat Markdown file loaded only when opened. The graph view becomes unreadable past 5,000 nodes. Heavy plugin loads add startup time. Mobile Obsidian on a phone with 10,000+ notes takes 8-15 seconds to open the vault if iCloud sync is the storage backend.
Roam at scale. Roam handles graphs of 100,000+ blocks because its in-memory model is built for graph traversal. The bottleneck is the indexing layer on initial load: a 50,000-block graph takes 5-15 seconds to open. The graph view becomes unreadable past 5,000 nodes regardless of tool. Per discussions in the Roam forum, the largest documented Roam graphs (500,000+ blocks) still load within 30 seconds on a modern laptop.
Long-Term Vendor Risk
A consideration that matters more for PKM than for most software because the lock-in window is years, not months.
Obsidian. Privately held, profitable, small team. The data is plain Markdown on your disk regardless of company status. If Obsidian shut down tomorrow, your vault keeps working. The most-cited reason long-term users pick Obsidian is precisely this guarantee.
Roam. Privately held with a more public funding history; the company has had visible turbulence around growth and pricing changes since 2021. The Believer plan (5-year prepaid) is partly a hedge against future pricing changes, partly a bet on the company's longevity. The data export is workable but proprietary; a forced migration would cost real time. Per the Roam help center, the EDN export contains everything but requires custom tooling to import elsewhere.
Final Take
Obsidian wins for users who want plain-text data ownership, a plugin ecosystem, and free use. Roam Research wins for users whose thinking maps to outliner UX and block references; the price has filtered the user base to those who derive specific value from Roam's distinctive design. Most Roam refugees pick Obsidian. For AI-grounded synthesis with source citations across either tool's contents, Atlas beats both.
