Thread by @Templay

#roamcult
@RoamResearch took over Evernote in my #pkm workflow in late 2019. Doing a tool change requires a complex and heavy redesign of my working process.
1/15

I have thought several times to switch to @obsdmd. The new mobile app motivated me to spent an entire week “migrating” from @RoamResearch for an in-depth evaluation.
2/15

I watched many in-depth Obsidian videos (@tallguyjenks), took advice from “Roam expats” (@RobertHaisfield) to migrate workflow, imported 3600 notes from my Roam graph, wrote at least 50 original notes natively on Obsidian, created maps of contents, atomic notes, etc...
3/15

Testing Obsidian in depth was a serious investment. I use my PKM system to produce work, not just test apps. I am an entrepreneur and business owner.
4/15

I have about 25 000 notes (Evernote + Roam) and 360 GB of files archives (pdf, documents, images, videos...) in my PKM dataset built over at least 20 years.
5/15

I don’t have the capacity and the need to switch to @logseq or any new kids on the block every few months.
6/15

To invest the energy to switch to new software, it has to be massively superior to what I am already using AND have enough market traction that I am pretty sure of its longevity for at least 10 years. Only Roam and Obsidian qualify for this criterion right now.
7/15

Result: FOR MY NEEDS, @obsdmd is excellent, while I still believe that @RoamResearch stays a better platform for thinking capture and knowledge production.
8/15

Obsidian plugins are technically very impressive, but Obsidian is just too much that: a very technical tool.
Working with files and markdown is too much of an overhead between my thinking and my writing.
9/15

The mobile app is excellent, but the complexity of the Obsidian UI and the need to create atomic notes with complicated and fragile markups make it not much useful for mobile notes writings.
10/15

Obsidian mobile can only be used as a fancy inbox, not much more than what I am already doing with Roam on mobile.
11/15

Data ownership and privacy: well, yes, maybe, but as long as you work on a Mac or a Windows machine, nothing on your disk is really “private” to any 3 letters agency or skilled hacker.
12/15

Roam auto-backup copies my data on my hard disk every hour. The ownership and privacy argument is not that strong.
13/15

Obsidian community is great and much less “cultish”. The developers are very helpful. I am sometimes a bit pissed off by the way @Conaw is treated like a rock star.
14/15

As long as @RoamResearch does not fall asleep for too long producing important features, I believe that the core data architecture of Roam is far superior for knowledge production.
15/15