Why not use Obsidian and/or Logseq instead of Emacs Org-Roam+Org-Mode?

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Thanks for your input.

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When you say

those two

Are you referring to just Obsidian and Emacs? (I mentioned Logseq too so that’s why I’m asking to clear it up)

Interesting. So would you say that Emacs is more of the final boss or end-game setup at the end of one’s journey if they need it? Rather than something at the beginning of one’s journey?

As for why one would need to find a PKM solution within a week — that was just a theoretical question to better answer the question “Which one takes less time to learn?” which was a question to answer “Which one to use first?”

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Obsidian is the more well-known of those. For me they do all fall within the same category. Roam Research, Workflowy, Tinderbox, Scrivener, Devonthink and many more have backlinking capabilities, are more accessible (even Tinderbox) and do have commercial support.

How many different PKM solutions did Luhmann use? Wouldn’t it be great to have one system and add about 90000 notes during ones’ lifetime (as he did)? Emacs is the only one of these options that is almost guaranteed to be around in 30 years.

Easy to understand. Still, I would maintain, not necessarily the most important / correct question.

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But since Obsidian is in plain text and stored locally, if it were to suddenly disappear I would still have all my notes. They’re just markdown files stored locally and Obsidian is simply a processor for them.

So I can always transfer over to Emacs in the future quite easily with pandoc as you and @danderzei mentioned, right?

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Correct.

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Just what it sounds like. :slightly_smiling_face: It’s code written in R, a programming language for statistical and scientific computing.

Org has a killer feature for literate programming called org-babel, which allows you to write computer programs, run them with a key combination, see the results in the document itself, and then annotate those results in org. Common use-cases for this include writing a book about programming, writing a statistical report of some data, or writing a document that needs to be dynamically updated with data from, e.g., an API.

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I don’t do any programming at all.

It seems like the majority (90%-99%) of people who use Emacs don’t care about PKM or having a Second Brain and don’t use Emacs for that purpose.

Look at the size and activity of this forum and the size of the r/OrgRoam subreddit, there’s not that many members.

So Org-Roam’s community is much smaller than Obsidian’s or Logseq’s community.

It seems like there are more people to be found interested in PKM in Obsidian and Logseq communities than in the Emacs communities.

It seems like the subreddit (r/OrgRoam) and this OrgRoam discourse forum are the only communities that exist for people using Emacs for knowledge management/PKM. Look at the member count and activity for this forum and the OrgRoam subreddit, compared to Obsidian’s subreddit and forum (not to mention their Discord server having 60,000+ members)

So, to find more resources and like-minded people interested in knowledge management/PKM, you would be better off in the Obsidian subreddit/forum/Discord/community.

Emacs with Org-Roam seems to only be for people who have very niche needs where they do both programming and knowledge management/having a Second Brain.

@nobiot

Would you agree with these points?

Though, I recall you telling me that you don’t do programming. I’m curious to know why you picked Emacs with Org-Roam over other PKM solutions like Obsidian and Logseq.

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I have come to define a “PKM” system as a system that has the following 5 capabilities:

  1. Capture thoughts
  2. Store/organise thoughts
  3. Search/retrieve thoughts
  4. Connect thoughts
  5. Create new thoughts

The “system” does not have to be a computer application. A purely physical system with using pens, index cards, boxes, and a cabinet might do. Personally, I mix physical media (pens and notebooks) with computer applications such as Org-roam and drawing apps on iPad.

It seems to me that you are currently focused on 1 and 2. Apple Watch, the Draft app, and integration with ReadWise to me are all about capturing capabilities (capability 1). Org vs Markdown to me is a storage question (capability 2).

My main focus right now is capabilities 4 and 5 – connect and create thoughts. I’m asking this question myself: Do backlinks help me connect thoughts and create new thoughts better than without backlinks. I have yet found the answer for myself.

To this, the tool does not have to be Org-roam or Emacs. In relation to this, you ask:

Though, I recall you telling me that you don’t do programming. I’m curious to know why you picked Emacs with Org-Roam over other PKM solutions like Obsidian and Logseq.

It’s simple. They didn’t exist. I was introduced to Emacs and its keybindings about a decade before Obsidian, Roam Research, and Logseq. I would like to focus on creating rather than evaluating a new tool.

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Thanks. That makes sense.

Do backlinks help me connect thoughts and create new thoughts better than without backlinks. I have yet found the answer for myself.

I would think that they would help one connect thoughts and create new thoughts better than without backlinks.

Have you experimented with backlinks? I would think you have given that you are using Org-Roam which I assume has that feature.

That’s fair. It is up to you after all.

Have you tried Obsidian or Logseq before?

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Why do you think so? Have you used them enough to convince yourself that’s the case, or is this just your speculation and expectation? How do they help you connect and create more or better new thoughts?

I have been using backlinks but I have not come to that conviction yet. I’d love to hear more from you and others on how backlinks (and other features) support connecting and creating thoughts.

Yes. They didn’t stick for me. For backlinks, Org-roam, Obsidian, Logseq, Roam Research, and maybe Notion with recent backlink feature, I don’t see much of difference when it comes to backlinks. Pick one and use it. That’s more important, in my opinion.

One friction I found with Obsidian is that it uses the file name to link among notes. I have my file name convention (1) yyyy-mm-ddThhmmss_very-very-long-title-usually-too-long-for-linking-between-files-for-Obsidian or (2) yyyy-mm-ddThhmmss (just the time stamp) – I use the file system to organise my files in chronological order (for more than a decade now); it’s useful for me to find stuff. Neither of (1) and (2) worked well with Obsidian – I think the reason is obvious.

It’s a minor friction. If I had not been using Emacs, I could have continued to use Obsidian.

I’d invite you to start using one of the tools extensively. I’d love your thoughts based on your usage after a while.

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I’m having the same question.

  • Emacs user for two years. Configured based on Doom.
  • Switched to org-roam when it was v1.
  • Logseq user for about 6 months now.
  • Student in CS. Love building small projects. But interested in lots of other things (like philosophy, movies) as well.

Yes. I could go ahead and write about why I made the switch, and how I miss some of the features Emacs and org-roam had to offer. However, as you point out, the main problem is - does backlinks really help?

My experience is…

  1. Backlinks really helps me with the first 3 capabilities. I can just write within daily page without worrying about what specific location to put my notes, and when I finally have time to sit down and elaborate on some topic, I find in the backlinks all revalant materials that I’ve written down in previous days.
  2. Backlinks does not help me with 4-5, yet. But maybe it’s just me. I migrated to Logseq just 6 months ago and the volume of notes is still small. Idk… Maybe I’d visit Roam Research community, and see what they feel about roam / backlinks, since they are the earliest group to embrace this idea.
  3. What really helps me with 4-5, is output. By output I mean writing a document and sharing it with others, building a project, etc. I don’t think I need to explain it because I believe most people would share the same feeling. For this reason, I’ve been trying to output my notes / knowledge asap, while regarding logseq or other “second-brain” software as an “index” - lightweight repository not with tons of information but instead links to the detailed pages elsewhere, for example blog pages, project documents, etc. That being said, I’m not really confident about this point, because I don’t really consider myself a productive person at all. :confused: :joy:
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I see there is a lot of hype about Logseq recently…I’ve tried it and concluded that although being promising, it is not the right solution (for me) when it comes to task management, and I’ll continue with either Taskwarrior or Etm which can properly handle recurring tasks if I won’t simply switch to org-mode.

If someone is familiar-enough with Logseq, I’m curious if there is some compelling feature which is simply not present in org-roam?

There is e.g. pdf-annotation tool available in Logseq, but I believe it does exist for Emacs/org-roam as well.

I was just playing a little with org-mode not doing much, but I’m aware that using org-roam is much more considering it is built on top of Emacs.

Currently, I have working setup for org-roam with plain/Emacs bindings and use-package setup, but I like vim bindings and wonder what do you think about Doom’s support for org-mode/org-roam?

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About time to learn: Be aware that there is difference between learn how to use a software and its commands/buttons/features and how to do note taking (e.g. Zettelkasten).

A note taking system is independent from the software used to take and store that notes/nodes.

You better should ask which one of the software available does support your individual note taking workflow.

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