Can We Stop Comparing Roam & Notion Now?

It's human nature to want to pit two things against each other. So we constantly make comparisons about the Roamans and the Notioneers through articles, videos, and podcasts. Sure there is overlap between the two, but at their core, they are completely different tools with different purposes.

Let's take a look.

Let's start with ROAM.

Roam describes itself as a note-taking tool for networked thought. And it does that VERY WELL. Roam works similar to how your brain works, networking nodes together to form connections from random things. It's fluid and serendipitous.

It's built predominantly for individuals (although you can share graphs) to take text-based notes. It works phenomenally as a research tool or a Zettelkasten for this very reason.

Now About Notion

Notion describes itself as one tool for your whole team to write, plan and get organised. They have a heavy emphasis on being an all on one tool that can solve many problems. It's built on databases and structured information that you can search, sort & filter.

It's built for teams, collaboration and sharing of all types of information. It goes beyond text to be able to bring in all types of media from images to gifs to embedding whole web pages.

Die Hards Create The Overlap

Now, if you love a tool you can usually make it bend to your will. So both Roamans & Notioneers get creative with the platforms to extend the functionality which is where you get the overlap.

But Notion & Roam at their core are not in the same category. A better comparison would be Roam & Obsidian. Or Notion & Craft Docs. Now those would be great discussions to be had.

Come join the conversation on Twitter, it's much more fun with friends.