Key findings
- Logseq offers a seamless Roam Research experience with task management and whiteboard brainstorming – all for free.
- Hypernotes features a generous free plan, native mobile apps, and smooth integration with other Zenkit tools.
- Obsidian is a robust and free alternative to Roam Research with Markdown support and an extensive plugin ecosystem.
With its unique approach to connecting ideas and encouraging a connected thought process, Roam Research has undoubtedly left its mark in the note-taking and knowledge management space. However, its mobile and tablet apps leave a lot to be desired and its paid plans are also quite expensive at $15 per month or $165 per year. If you're looking to replace your Roam Research setup with a similar alternative, look no further. Here are the five best budget-friendly alternatives to Roam Research.

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3 reasons why you should and shouldn’t use Roam Research
Is it worth the hype or is it just another note-taking app?
5 Logseq
With outlines and chart views, Roam Research users will feel right at home with Logseq. Right at the start, you need to choose a local or cloud folder where the app will save your notes, ideas, and thoughts. This is the best Roam Research alternative you will find on the list.
Logseq supports task management, PDF annotations, flashcards and more. Whiteboard is a welcome add-on to easily collect ideas on an infinite canvas. You can use text, shapes, arrows, highlighters and more to create an ideal board.
You can switch between dark and light themes and choose a different accent color for your account. Whether you're a student, writer, researcher, or project manager, you'll have no trouble organizing your thoughts in Logseq. It's free to download and use.

4 Hypernotes
Source: Hypernotes
Hypernotes is another modern note-taking and knowledge management tool that helps you capture and connect relevant information. Like Roam Research, Hypernotes lets you create a semantic network of your thoughts and ideas. It even goes one step ahead of its competitors with native mobile apps, offline support, and built-in task management.
Since Hypernotes is part of the Zenkit suite, it offers seamless integration with other enterprise tools like Zenkit To Do, Zenkit Base, and Zenchat. The list of features includes outlining, two-way linking, diagram views, seamless sharing, favorites for easy access, Markdown support, Zapier integration to connect third-party tools, annotations, drawing tools, and more.
Hypernotes offers a generous free plan with up to 10,000 notes and tasks. The Plus plan starts at $8 per month and unlocks 30 notebooks, 80,000 notes, theme customization, and more.

3 Obsidian
Obsidian is one of the robust and free alternatives to Roam Research. It offers cross-platform availability, Markdown support, a massive theme store, and more to connect your notes and thoughts in style.
All you need to do is create a vault and start adding notes. You can link all your relevant notes and check their relationships in a special diagram view. Obsidian also offers Canvas to help you brainstorm ideas and draft plans on an infinite whiteboard.
Obsidian absolutely shines with its plugin support. It already has several built-in plugins and you can also download third-party plugins from the plugin store. It will enhance your Obsidian setup in no time. Check out our dedicated post for the best Obsidian plugins.
All Obsidian features are free to use, you just have to pay for the Sync add-on for cloud and cross-platform syncing for $4 per month. However, if you use OneDrive, Dropbox, or Google Drive, you can sync your Obsidian notes to any cloud storage and make them available on all devices. The $8 monthly plan unlocks the ability to publish notes to the web.


Related
How to use Obsidian to create a personal knowledge management system
Obsidian lets you effectively link, organize, and search your notes, leveraging connectivity that turns your vault into a knowledge engine
2 Reflect on notes
In many ways, Reflect Notes is the perfect blend of Roam Research and Capacities. It doesn't feel as spartan as Roam Research and doesn't overwhelm new users with endless features. It has end-to-end encryption to keep your notes safe.
The list of features includes backlinking, instant capture to save snippets from the browser, calendar integration, web publishing, seamless search, and more. There is also a dedicated daily notes tab where you can jot down your thoughts on the fly.
Reflect has an AI assistant that uses GPT-4 to transcribe your voice notes, create article outlines, correct grammar, and improve your writing style with a single click. Like Roam Research, the relationships of your notes will appear in the Map tab once you start backlinking. Reflect Notes comes with several basic templates, and you can create custom templates as you like. After your free trial ends, the paid plan starts at $10 per month.

1 Capacities
Source: Capacities
Capacities is another powerful alternative to Roam Research. Capacities takes note linking a step further and allows you to link all kinds of objects, including cards, ideas, books, calendar events, and more, in your knowledge graph.
You can create a new notebook and add relevant objects to it. Capacities uses a different approach where everything is categorized into objects. It provides a set of objects by default such as projects, quotes, people, plans, pictures, recipes, ideas and more (with the option to create custom objects).
In many ways, Capacities is quite similar to Notion. It uses a block editor, various page layouts, custom properties, workflow automation, block linking, tagging, backlinks, and more. Capacities also supports an AI assistant to interact with any object in your notes. You can ask it to fill in custom properties, organize notes via tags, and start a conversation right on a page.
Like Roam Research, it has an outliner tool that allows you to create various child blocks under a main block. Capacities offers an excellent free plan with unlimited spaces, objects, and blocks. The Pro plan starts at $10 per month.

From chaos to clarity
Aside from a hefty price tag, Roam Research also comes with a steep learning curve and has an outdated user interface compared to the competition. The apps mentioned above offer enough options to create a mind mapping wonder quite easily. Check out our separate post if you want to invest in a note-taking software with AI integration.