The difference between Remnotes and Roam over the long term

Off-topic Other Apps and Services
#1

Hi , I have been using Roam a lot lately and its replaced notion as my default tool.
And i started trying remnotes too - i was blown away by its integration with spaced revision and how good it integrates with reading books since you can make notes of your pdf/epub highlights - add your insights to them and make flashcards from them.

This makes me feel confused if i should stick to roam or remnotes as my default tool because of the enormous benefits in compounding of keeping all your thoughts at one place (second brain like effects). At the moment remnotes look like a more useful product,however with the vast funding and fan base once roam opens up its api i dont know were things will be 3 years from now? I

Could you please guide me on this?

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#2

There are many PKM apps now, RemNote, Obsidian, Roam Research, LogSeq, which will be around in three years, is anyone’s guess.

However, most of these tools (if not all) use Markdown, which means the notes you create are agnostic to any app. In other words, you can export from one app and import to another. So no matter which app is around in three years, your Markdown files will work with it.

Furthermore, RemNote and (I think) Obsidian pledge to give their code to the Open Source community to maintain and build upon it should they decide to shut up shop.

I think RemNote will be around in three years. Their product overlaps with many of the other PKM out there but has features that differentiate it. While these other apps are focused on offering a PKM tool, RemNote aims to be a PKM and Learning tool, and that’s the difference.

If you’re not a student (high school, college), do you need a ‘Learning’ tool like RemNote? If all you want to do is link your thinking, then any PKM tool can do that. However, if you are a ‘lifelong learner’ or someone who wants to recall what you learn (i.e., using Spaced Repetition), then RemNote is a good choice.

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#3

Hi

Thanks for the quick reply,it was exceptionally helpful.

It a relief to know that all my data will be movable across whatever service that comes.My insecurity about that started because roam allows import of only 10 markdown files and hence I couldn’t move my database from notion to roam.This looks like it’s a roam specific problem,and I hope they remove this limit in the future to make migration a low stakes things?(Right now if I completely shift to remnotes I won’t be able to import 1000’s of notes back to roam)

In my analysis and on the basis of this article

Roam Research vs RemNote - A Comparison. | Medium.

I couldn’t find anything that remnotes can do that roam doesn’t do, obviously that looks like a gap in my comparison,So could you please help me with what are things that roam can do that remnotes cannot?

Personally I am a student,and I read a lot of non academic self help book PDFs too,So I felt roam would be great long term to shift there.Also since I started using roam I have a lot of interconnected insights about my life but I loose track of them which I am hoping remnotes can solve.

Small questions:
1)Is the remnotes query function much weaker than roam?

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#4

@Karthikk, I think you’re best positioned to answer this.

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#5

Thanks for the ping @StephenApWales :slight_smile:

I have actually written a twitter thread about this same topic. I was an avid Roam user as well, before I found RemNote and this is one of the most commonly asked questions, so here it is : https://twitter.com/dr_kvj/status/1392434210040803332

This thread explains which features stand out in RemNote, and they are not just features mostly, they are core philosophies, as features can easily be built over any tools and hence pales as a comparison point. We have to choose tools based on their vision, philosophy and architecture.

About Queries, yes that’s currently the only downside in RemNote, you don’t have AND queries yet. It’s one of our biggest features as RemNote is much more flexible than Roam, we need a more elegant Query solution and we are experimenting with NLP to try and build a more friendly query system. So, yes Queries are definitely coming :slight_smile: They are on the high priority list for us.

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#6

By Query, you mean like a google search but google search in your knowledge base? If so, that’s amazing.

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#7

Correct, see

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#8

Thanks.
As a Roam user I learn very much from your twitter thread of Rem vs Roam https://twitter.com/dr_kvj/status/1392434210040803332
, much more than Remnote’s tutorial.

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#9

yes, the query is one of the main reasons why I still use other apps like obsidian to pull all the related topics to a table. That would be really nice to have in RemNote