Doing well, thanks for asking.
Since a year ago: I gave up on Roam early on. I dabble in Obsidian half heartedly. I spend more time with TheBrain because it’s enjoyable, flexible, and just what I need. I also determined talking scads of notes didn’t make me wiser and is basically boring.
Well. There you have it. You are now wiser (Grasshopper).
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JJW
I’ve been a firm passenger aboard the Roam train. Dabbled in Obsidian, Noteplan3 and Bear for my needs but always ended up back in Roam.
Have been sticking with it since November without any dalliances on the side (thankfully). It gives me a great sense of comfort just being inside Roam knowing my thoughts are interlinked and navigating my brain is so much easier. It’s also become an efficient way to track all my Areas of Focus and use it for GTD instead of Things3 (which I now only use for home chores).
I never dabbled in Roam at all. The on-line only and lack of security prevented me.But what Roam did was get me to looking more at developing my own Personal Knowledge Management system, my PKM. I’ve been exploring Obsidian, Obsidian combined with DEVONThink and DEVONThink alone. To those I’ve added Zotero and GoodNotes as they have become integral to my system. I’m still on the fence with whether to go all in on Obsidian, partially in or go all in on DT with links but that will work itself ut as I finish my testbeds in each system and see what works for me.
Given the abrasive persona of Roam’s creator on Twitter, which is often rude and sometimes even borderline abusive, the insistence to make it a “cult”, I will never touch Roam even if it was the greatest product on Earth. I have zero trust in this person and his product.
I have settled on Obsidian and I am extremely happy with it. It’s powerful, I own my data, and it’s really opened new avenues of thinking and new workflows. Like you, I’m taking notes again, and this time, I can actually use them! I wish the app was a tad bit native on Mac; I am often eyeing Craft with a bit of jealousy, but I have decided I loved Obsidian’s power more.
Glad you asked this, I look forward to reading folks responses.
I’m using Roam and have been since [[October 27th, 2019]]. I’ve tried to use Obsidian, but as you say:
I also have tried Craft but the interface gets in the way for me.
I still manage tasks in OF, I still keep my ZKN in TBX. And I end up porting much of what I start in Roam to other software eventually, like Google docs. But, in my experience, I just get to work in Roam. The barrier to contribution is so low, I contribute a lot. I also find things and reuse them a lot, too. Say I’m writing out a presentation or lecture, it’s very easy to grab things from prior lectures. Or I’m planning an event and need to thread some [[Interactives]] into the mix. I’ve also found it a great place to store poems I come across and snippets of code I don’t want to forget and reflections on decisions I’m making as I complete my dissertation.
I had (have?) issues with this, too, but I think it’s more complex than that. In my observation, Conor is pursing pursuing progressive, democratic social change at scale. I sense he’s identified knowledge sharing as a fulcrum point to change a larger system of oppression and inequity. It will be interesting to see if these values persist as the software is filtered through Silicon Valley. It could be that those same personality irks will be a strength in playing that particular game.
Edit to fix typo
My issues with Roam remain as
Low Benefit/Cost Ratio - My habits are not in-grained to flow with the approach that Roam takes in making links to everything a core to it utility. I might claim that the reason is that training to make inter-connections was ignored if not shunned during my lessons in linear-thinking as the one true way for engineers to solve problem. While I can think in non-linear (multi-dimensional) frames, I don’t take yet seriously to the need to make literal hyper-connections between the various types of thoughts that I write down. So with Roam, I would end in essence paying a premium to play around to discover whether the adage of old dogs and new tricks is really a law of nature or just an old wive’s tale. Also as an old dog with yet-to-be-completed tricks, I don’t have the luxury in time to play around that way.
Not Robust with Local Data - I will not invest in something that promises me the beauty of their clouds yet cannot fully support me when I am grounded deep in the forest where I cannot even see those clouds. Alternatively put, if you need to have my data, you will do so only when I grant you permission; you do not have the right to insist that you will have to provide me the joyous permission to access my data in the way that you see best for me and also charge me a fee to do so.
I started a month or so ago to use Obsidian. I found it refreshing. Unfortunately, with my trained, linear approach to doing things and with my current, chopped up and scattered work load, I don’t have the luxury to do such refreshing things as often as I would like.
Finally, I do see great elegance in the design and strong utility in the features that Roam offers. So I am not at all suggesting by my review that Roam is not worth considering.
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JJW
I was genuinely interested in where others had ended up after the intense discussions last year, which descended into ad hominem attacks like this, mostly from one or two contributors
This a very polarized opinion and one explored earlier in this long long thread. I had replied earlier that the same might apply to the founder of Tesla, another example where a product has pushed the existing boundaries and others are scrambling to follow. I don’t want to detail Musk’s reprehensible online behavior except to say Roam’s creator doesn’t come anywhere close. And don’t get me started on the heads of FB and Amazon.
I just like the product, it works for me and I am happy to pay for it. I will probably also buy a Tesla in the future if I can afford one.
I would like think so too. Now lets concentrate on the software.
It’s fair to ask people to not talk about the team behind an app.
It’s also fair for people to ignore you and to incorporate the team into their reviews if they think it’s salient.
Obsidian for me.
I can keep going, but instead I’ll just say: I am very happy I stuck with it!
Unnecessarily hostile choice of words…
I’ve gone all in on Obsidian now, after dabbling in just about everything else. I’m taking the Linking Your Thinking course and in my quest to get my money’s worth, I am putting in a lot of hours with my notes.
I think in the end it’s more about learning the technique than which tool I choose. While they aren’t equivalent, I could switch to DEVONthink and apply the same principles. I could use index cards. I think the lack of having a system or at least a systematic way of doing things is what leads to a lot of the app churning that we are prone to do. (In the task management space, maybe OmniFocus/Things/Todoist/Amazing Marvin…)
My notes now make it easier to get back into my research after being away for a day or two. The connections between notes that I’ve made provide an external framework for chunking, so that I can things in my working memory as I work on my research. They are also serving as a kind of on-ramp to writing my article, as I have notes on concepts, replete with citations of sources. There’s still some friction there, but that’s probably due to my lack of experience.
Roam has brought note taking and the zettelkasten-esque system to a lot of people’s attention that wouldn’t have been aware of it otherwise. It has also probably been the catalyst for other projects like Obsidian.
I was genuinely interested in where others had ended up after the intense discussions last year, which descended into ad hominem attacks like this, mostly from one or two contributors
When you create something you become a public persona and you are responsible for what you do and how you behave with regards to your product. Conor White-Sullivan has been playing the game of Twitter very well: he is very present and active, sparks “engagement” with a provocative attitude in the name of Roam which I believe does not serve well the otherwise very interesting product he directs.
Given that he is the CEO and main face of Roam, I do not believe it is unfair to see what the spirit of the people making a product is when examining the product. It may inform even basic trust: can I trust these people with my data, even more when it’s as personal as notes? This is not an ad hominem attack any more than scrutinizing the practices of the previous Uber CEOs which did influence a whole corporate culture at the time - nor than viewing how Tim Cook’s publicly advocated values may have steered Apple to grounds of worker and ecological sustainability which it did not tread much, if at all, under Jobs. And let’s not even get started about Facebook.
As much as we’d like to think products are separate from the persona of their builders, they are not. As technology is so crucial to our lives, it’s becoming an ever increasingly political terrain in many regards and I believe it is not unfair to also keep an informed eye on that lens when we use products. Oh, believe me, I would very much like to keep talking about the sole technological aspects of things but not taking into account even just the economical agendas of tech has made us make so many mistakes as societies with regards to privacy, disinformation, and so on (you all know the list here).
So: yes, I have talked twice about Conor White-Sullivan’s personality in this thread. Indeed, I have not checked whether I did before: as you said, this is a long thread and I mostly use Discourse on my phone where it’s not always easy to check where you are exactly. However, if I had seen I already did, I would not have made the same point again, because it was, this is indeed fair, useless in that case.
@beck : your point about his endgame is infinitely more interesting. I won’t derail the thread any more, I will just say that if it’s the case, I do believe that the methods he uses make great disservice to a noble end.
Generally speaking: I have no desire to go into any kind of fight so that’s going to be all for me on that specific subject. Best wishes to you all. 
I’m interested in what prompted your change over to Obsidian?
Maybe for you. But I actually find great joy in locating and connecting the various bits and bobs of stuff I have collected over the years. I enjoy both reading old notes and references and writing new ones that connect things together or make arguments for or against various things I care about. I am getting some useful insights that I am using to guide and direct current and new projects.
This is so important to me. I’m realizing as I also am taking the LYT Workshop that now that we are finally getting to the design your own system segment I am much happier. I am actually using Obsidian now to collect all the various notes and ideas I have generated about what problems I want my PKM to solve, what features and workflows it must support and what additional things would be nice to have but are not critical.
I’m a bit of a glutton for punishment because I’m doing that whole thing first in Obsidian, then I will do it over in strictly DEVONThink and then probably do a hybrid version. At the end of it all I expect to have a decent set of system parameters worked out, a pretty good functional spec and also have figured out which toolset works best for me. I may have some tool holes that I need to go fill but I’m hoping for not too many of those.
A couple of things:
BTW, here’s a great video by Nick Milo that speaks to this topic that I really liked. The first ~5m especially I completely agree with. Once I saw this, I kind of knew my time in Roam was limited.
What is NVALT? Or what do you mean by that? Asking because I did google it after your mention but the only thing I found is an app.… However how a CEO can be like an app? You left me wondering
Obsidian is very good, just started as a cheap Roam copycat but today they have even surpassed 2 of Roam’s features. 1 Having a better graphics feature. 2 Having a better way of publishing with the Obsidian Publish. But for all the other stuff, let’s say 80% of the features you can not just compare Obsidian with Roam. Obsidian is just a markdown editor trying to copy Roam’s ability to make bidirectional links and transclusion and reference blocks, and that’s where they fall really short. Unfortunately being short in the ability to make blocks referenced and embed is being short at what the most powerful feature of the app. The ability to link blocks is what makes you think better and found ideas, that’s what Obsidian lacks. Even though I still use Obsidian for the last part of the process which is writing the final draft and publishing it to the web. But that’s the final 5% percent. The 95% that comes before that is where the power resides, where you create new original ideas by combining blocks from one part of the database to another.
I know the team behind Obsidian is the same team that made a copycat of WorkFlowy named Dynalist which with the year came to be almost as good as Workflowy, so maybe one day in the future they get somewhere else to quality of Roam’s powerful block references. But for what is it now, it is way too far.
I read here many people complaining mostly two things about Roam, one being its CEO and its supposedly cult and the second being the price. Which are not the things to focus on, if you just focus on the app itself, it is hands down the best note-taking tool there it is now creative people. That’s all, you don’t have to be part of any cult or follow anyone to get that. The only thing you have to do, yes, is paying the $15 but honestly, if you consider that to be too much for a tool that will enhance your creativity, help you connect ideas easily, help you write interesting essays after, et, etc, etc, then you might not be the one who should be using that tool. You can always use Obsidian for free, but you get what you pay for, even the best markdown editor is not a tool-for-thought, it is still just a markdown editor.
In my experience, when the only way to talk about one app is to bash another, it’s a sign there’s not a lot left to learn from the conversation…
Perhaps, instead, explain how you’re using those Roam features? I would love to know how you’re benefitting from e.g., transclusion of block “children” or editing transclusions in place.
even the best markdown editor is not a tool-for-thought, it is still just a markdown editor
I am currently writing a 1000-page long novel which was built almost entirely in Obsidian, so this statement could not be more preposterous. Obsidian has completely changed the way I think and approach art and it’s become a fundamental piece of my writing workflow.
Maybe the Roam cult did get to you. 
Since I’ve been using Roam since October 2019, I feel reasonably qualified to comment on this.
It started as an offline Roam copycat, as you ought to know - all data held locally under your control
It may help you find connections and therefore new ideas, but it doesn’t make you “think better”
Two extremely common complaints about Roam are:
I’m aware that if you have the time and inclination to go digging in Github you can find some user-generated add-ons that help with both of those. But if we’re using a “tool for thought” we want to be thinking and writing, not building personal tech infrastructure to keep our work safe. I know many people are happy to do that. But for those of us that just want to work, it’s a major obstacle.
Obsidian has its limitations - it doesn’t fit me very well at all - but it’s obviously working very well for many people. Just like Roam is
Roam introduced automatic backups (to a local folder) this week. We can configure hourly or daily backups of each graph.