Obsidian vs Roam Research

Obsidian

Productivity

Sharpen your thinking.

Obsidian is a powerful, local-first knowledge base built on plain Markdown files, with backlinks, graph view, and a rich plugin ecosystem.

Founder

Erica Xu

Founded

2020

Team

1-10

Listing

Free (nofollow)

Listed

May 2026

Roam Research

Productivity

A note-taking tool for networked thought.

Roam pioneered bi-directional linking in personal note-taking — a graph database for your brain, with a cult following among researchers and writers.

Founder

Conor White-Sullivan

Founded

2019

Team

1-10

Listing

Free (nofollow)

Listed

May 2026