Key Takeaways
Logseq offers a seamless Roam Research experience with task management and whiteboard brainstorming - all for free. Hypernotes stands out with a generous free plan, native mobile apps, and smooth integration with other Zenkit tools. Obsidian is a robust and free alternative to Roam Research with Markdown support and a rich plugin ecosystem.
With its unique approach to connecting ideas and fostering a networked thought process, Roam Research has undoubtedly made its mark in the note-taking and knowledge management space. That said, its mobile and tablet apps leave a lot to desire, and the paid plans are also quite expensive, at $15 per month or $165 per year. If you have been looking to ditch your Roam Research setup with a similar alternative, you have come to the right place. Here are the top five budget-friendly alternatives to Roam Research.
Related
3 reasons you should and shouldn't be using Roam Research
Is it worth the hype, or is it just another note-taking app?
5 Logseq
With outlines and graph views, Roam Research users will find themselves right at home with Logseq. Right off the bat, you need to choose a local or cloud folder where the app stores your notes, ideas, and thoughts. It's the closest Roam Research alternative you will find on the list.
Logseq supports task management, PDF annotations, flashcards, and more. Whiteboard is a welcome add-on to easily brainstorm ideas on an infinite canvas. You can use text, shapes, arrows, highlighters, and much more to create an ideal board.
You can tweak between dark and light themes and pick another accent color for your account. Whether you are a student, writer, researcher, or project manager, you won't have a hard time managing your thoughts in Logseq. It is free to download and use.
Logseq
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4 Hypernotes
Source: Hypernotes
Hypernotes is another modern note-taking and knowledge management tool to capture and connect relevant information. Like Roam Research, Hypernotes lets you create a semantic network of your thoughts and ideas. It's even a step ahead of other rivals with native mobile apps, offline support, and built-in task management.
Since Hypernotes is a part of Zenkit suite, it offers seamless integration with other company tools like Zenkit To Do, Zenkit Base, and Zenchat. The list of features includes outlining, bi-directional linking, graph views, seamless sharing, favorites for easy access, Markdown support, Zapier integration to connect third-party tools, annotations, drawing tools, and more.
Hypernotes offers a generous free plan with up to 10,000 notes and tasks. The Plus plan starts at $8 per month. It unlocks 30 notebooks, 80,000 notes, theme customization, and more.
Hypernotes
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3 Obsidian
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Obsidian is one of the robust and free Roam Research alternatives out there. It offers cross-platform availability, Markdown support, a rich theme store, and a lot more to connect your notes and thoughts in style.
You just need to create a vault and start adding notes to it. You can connect all your relevant notes and check their relationships from a dedicated graph view. Obsidian also offers Canvas to help you brainstorm ideas and map out plans on an infinite whiteboard.
Obsidian absolutely shines with plugin support. It already comes with several built-in plugins, and you can head to the plugins store to download third-party ones, too. It simply elevates your Obsidian setup in no time. You can check out our dedicated post to find the top Obsidian plugins.
All Obsidian features are free to use. You only need to pay for the Sync add-on for cloud and cross-platform sync at $4 per month. However, if you use OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive, you can sync your Obsidian notes with any cloud storage and make them available on all devices. The $8 monthly plan unlocks the ability to publish notes on the web.
Obsidian
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Related
How to use Obsidian to create a Personal Knowledge Management system
Obsidian lets you interlink, organize, and search your notes effectively, harnessing the connectivity that turns your vault into an insight engine
2 Reflect Notes
In many ways, Reflect Notes is the perfect blend of Roam Research and Capacities. It doesn't feel as bare-bones as Roam Research and won't overwhelm new users with endless features. It comes with end-to-end encryption to keep your notes safe and secure.
The features list includes backlinking, instant capture to save snippets from the browser, calendar integration, web publishing, seamless search, and more. There is also a dedicated tab for daily notes where you can jot down your thoughts in no time.
Reflect has an AI assistant that uses GPT-4 to transcribe your voice notes, generate article outlines, fix grammar, and improve your writing with a single click. Like Roam Research, once you start backlinking your notes, their relationships start appearing in the Map tab. Reflect Notes comes with several basic templates, and you can create custom ones as you may like. Once your free trial is over, the paid plan starts at $10 per month.
Reflect
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1 Capacities
Source: Capacities
Capacities is another capable Roam Research alternative. When it comes to connecting notes, Capacities even goes a step further and lets you connect all types of objects, including cards, ideas, books, calendar appointments, and more, in your knowledge graph.
You can create a new notebook and start adding relevant objects to it. Capacities use a different approach where it categorizes everything into objects. It offers a bunch of objects like Projects, Quotes, People, Plans, Images, Recipes, Ideas, and more by default (with an option to create custom ones).
In many ways, Capacities is quite similar to Notion. It uses a block editor, different page layouts, custom properties, workflow automation, block linking, tagging, backlinks, and more. Capacities also supports an AI assistant to interact with any object in your notes. You can ask it to fill custom properties, organize notes via tags, and start a conversation right within a page.
Like Roam Research, it comes with an outliner tool to create different child blocks under a main block. Capacities has an excellent free plan with unlimited spaces, objects, and blocks. The Pro plan starts at $10 per month.
Capacities
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From chaos to clarity
Apart from a hefty price tag, Roam Research also comes with a steep learning curve and has an outdated UI compared to the competition. The above-mentioned apps offer enough options to help you easily create a mind-mapping wonder. Check out our separate post if you have been looking to invest in a note-taking software with AI integration.