This has been discussed elsewhere, but I felt it deserved its own thread.

Logseq is a Roam clone that stores its data as plain text files which are mostly markdown as well as some extra parameters, such as text to tell the app whether each part of the outline is open or collapsed. Lately Logseq released a desktop app that lets you save the markdown files in a folder of your choice. This means that you can open those same files in Obsidian and work on them from there as well. An added advantage of this is that you can then use the Obsidian mobile app to access and edit your Logseq files. Some of this is still a bit rough, but development is fast and it now seems to me that it is stable enough to start working with. I'm not (yet) ready to jump from Roam, but I spent some time setting everything up so I can continue to use it in parallel to my main Roam database.

To get Obsidian to play nice with Logseq there are some settings you need to change. It took me a while to figure it all out, so I thought I'd share those instructions here in case anyone else wants to give it a try. Some of this is because Logseq has its own dedicated folders for storing files and attachments, others because of how logseq handles daily journals, and also some to handle the unique way Logseq handles tasks (which is actually pretty nice):

# managing pages

- Files and Links > default location for new notes > in the folder specified below > "pages"

# managing attachments

- Files and Links > default location for new attachments > in the folder specified below > "assets"

- Files and Links > new link format > relative path to file

- Files and Links > Use Wikilinks > off

# Journal Daily notes

- Core Plugin > Daily Notes > On

- Daily Notes > date format > "YYYY_MM_DD"

- Daily Notes > new file location > "journals"

# Tasks

- Create a page called [[logseq tasks]]

- create queries on that page in the form:
- `match-case:DOING`

# outlining

- Install "Outliner" and "Zoom" community plugins

Link to the logseq desktop beta:

https://github.com/logseq/logseq/releases

Link to Obsidian:

https://obsidian.md/

Wonderful! Thanks so much for sharing!

Luhmann wrote:

To get Obsidian to play nice with Logseq there are some settings you
need to change. It took me a while to figure it all out, so I thought
I'd share those instructions here in case anyone else wants to give it a
try.

Didn't try it myself, but did you see this?

"Obsidian and Logseq - Why Use Both?" - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WpnbSWt_mgM

My own thoughts about why this is so amazing:

1. All files are stored in plain text markdown files on your local computer, not in a database.

2. No "loading" screen when you start - works instantly.

3. Mobile support that is pretty full featured, since the Obsidian mobile app is excellent.

4. Access to the Obsidian community plugin library and developer community which is pretty good, better in some ways than Roam's.

5. But still have a Roam/Workflowy/Dynalist like outliner interface when you want it via Logseq.

Put another way: Obsidian is in many ways superior to Roam (see the above reasons 1-4), but suffers from lacking a WYSIWYG interface or a Dyanlist-quality outlining interface. Logseq basically gives you those things but you can still use Obsidian when you need some Obsidian unique features, such as a mobile app, Readwise import, etc.

I am so pleased with how things are working that I decided to import my Roam Research database over. Here is how I did it:

1. Export to markdown and delete all files that are zero or 3 bytes. (Roam generates thousands of empty files.)

2. Open export folder as a new vault in Obsidian. Then run the conversion rules for tags and highlights. (But not TODOs, since Logseq handles those differently.)

3. Use BBEdit's multi-file search to replace {{\[\[TODO\]\]}} with TODO and {{\[\[DONE\]\]}} with DONE everywhere in the vault. This gets things working with Logseq's Tasks.

4. Convert all my daily journal files to the Logseq naming convention. This was tricky.

a. I used Name Mangler for the Mac to do it, first converting each month by name. January > 01_, February > 02_, etc. (12 operations in total.)
b. then I removed all the ordinals using (?

A recent update to Logseq seems to fix a big problem with the built-in Roam import. Now it uses "-" instead of "#" for bullet items.

Obsidian has had "WYSIWYG editor (like Typora)" on its roadmap as a "short-term" focus for a while. I think Erica and Shida have been busy trying to get the mobile app finalized first.

https://trello.com/b/Psqfqp7I/obsidian-roadmap

Not clear what that means though. Typora is not an outliner, and does not have the kind of experience Roam Research or Dynalist or Workflowy have - which is essential for my personal work habits. Logseq amazingly offers one all of this! I'm so impressed with what they've done...

I was mostly excited that Logseq would allow me to work with Obsidian to have my notes on my phone, but I actually think Logseq is better than Roam in many ways. For instance:

1. in Roam I had to learn all kinds of fancy queries to try to organize my tasks, but Logseq has basic task management built in.

2. In Roam I had to use a plugin to have my attachments accessible in Dropbox, but in Logseq all my attachments stay right on my computer (or in iCloud).

3. In Roam it was often difficult to navigate back to the previous page, but the back/forward navigation buttons always work for me in Logseq.

4. In Roam I had a constant problem with pages that were either lower case or upper case bifurcating my links, but Logseq avoids that problem by changing the title case of the page to whatever the last link going there used. (If I type [[Apple]] it will be Apple, but if I later type [[apple]] the page will change to [[apple]] rather than creating a new page. Which solves the problem for me.)

Thanks, @Luhmann, for all the good info. I'm glad you decided to give Logseq another shot!

Although I still prefer to do my "power outlining" in Tinderbox (on Mac) and InfoQube (on Windows), the Logseq+Obsidian combination is a dream come true for my personal approach to outline-based Zettelkasten.

For reference, note also the previous thread that discussed this: https://www.outlinersoftware.com/topics/viewt/9422

In that previous thread, I linked to the following thread on the Obsidian forums: https://forum.obsidian.md/t/new-roam-like-application-appeared-logseq/6164/45

In that thread on the Obsidian forums, it is pointed out that it may also be advisable to tweak how Logseq handles note titles. Logseq can be configured to get note titles either from file names or from titles at the top of notes. If you want to be able to create notes from within Obsidian and have Logseq read them properly, then it's generally best to tell Logseq to get note titles from file names. This can be done by adding the following text to the file logseq/config.edn:

:page-name-order "file "

I'm not sure if anything has been tweaked in the meantime, but in my case that configuration setting proved useful.

Thanks Lucas!

Someone else suggested a different way of handling file names as well. Quoting from the Logseq forums:

The only difference in how I do it is that I have my date format in both apps set to yyyy-MM-dd and I added this line to the Logseq config.edn so the filenames would be the same:

:journal/file-name-format "yyyy-MM-dd"

https://discuss.logseq.com/t/making-obsidian-play-nice-with-logseq/1185/2