Discussion of Roam-like Knowledge Managers

Posted by Paul Korm
Apr 16, 2020 at 12:23 PM

I experimented with export from Roam. It led me to consider that lock-in is going to be a major problem with Roam. The export of notes to markdown is minimally useful because all the inter-note linking is non-functional in the export. I reject the JSON export as unrealistic—I like most are not about to look for third-party software just to be able to recapture data from JSON. JSON is readable but entirely unfriendly for common users.

So if Roam is only offering the illusion of backup and export, but nothing truly portable, that’s a major failing—in addition to the cloud-only nature of the service, and the flakey proprietor.