{"slug": "org-roam", "name": "org-roam", "category": "notes", "category_name": "Notes and knowledge", "description": "", "recommenders": 4, "commenters": 7, "warners": 0, "score": 3.044, "rising": 0.02, "first": "2025-11-25", "latest": "2026-10-10", "why": "I've been using org-roam for a while without too much trouble", "why_is_quote": true, "has_verdict": false, "sentiment": {"recommend": 4, "neutral": 3, "compare": 1, "warn": 0}, "spark": [1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1], "listed": true, "loved": [], "caveat": "", "short_quote": "I've been using org-roam for a while without too much trouble", "kind": "", "icon": false, "domain": null, "github_repo": null, "official_url": "https://www.orgroam.com", "pricing": "", "aliases": ["org-roam", "Org-roam", "Org Roam", "Org-Roam"], "verdict": null, "praise": [{"label": "", "summary": "", "quotes": [{"id": 800511168, "item_id": 50031948, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50031948", "by": "frumiousirc", "date": "2026-10-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Org-roam helps this problem for me in two levels.", "excerpt": "Org-roam helps this problem for me in two levels. Sometime around the turn of the millennium, I started with org by writing files in a directory where I made a \"topic\" sub directory for each \"thing\" I wanted to note. This is rather high level and made creating each new \"topic\" feel too formalized, like I was writing a paper or a blog. That raised some mental bar to staring a new note and so I didn't write as much as ", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 768269392, "item_id": 48016837, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48016837", "by": "Zambyte", "date": "2026-05-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using org-roam for a while without too much trouble", "excerpt": "Very interesting. I've been using org-roam for a while without too much trouble, but I do think a ripgrep backed system over a sqlite based one sounds interesting. I will have to see if I can port my notes over and try it out.", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Grove.el \u2013 An Obsidian-like note-taking mode for Emacs"}, {"id": 767445603, "item_id": 47965350, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47965350", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-04-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have a few thousand notes in my Org-Roam note taking system", "excerpt": "I'm a die-hard vimmer. I use vim motions in my editors, my IDEs, my browsers, my WMs, my terminals. I use vim-like navigation system-wide - e.g. for the volume control I switch to \"media\" mode and press \"j/k\". Neovim is great, I use it almost every day. But it just can't replace Emacs. That is the most annoying part of Emacs - there's simply no alternative to it. If you accept it with all its quirks and weirdness and", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I have officially retired from Emacs"}, {"id": 736871858, "item_id": 46054491, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054491", "by": "sroerick", "date": "2025-11-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Org roam is unbeatable", "excerpt": "I just haven't found Emacs to be particularly productive over SSH. IMO it works best on a local machine, there's just too much in the GUI which isn't as workable over terminal. Font rendering, images, clickable text links all take a hit. None are really deal breakers, but Emacs TUI just kind of feels like an afterthought. X11 over SSH doesn't feel responsive to me. Its almost more of an aesthetic choice really, its j", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good"}]}], "caveats": [], "who": [{"by": "ryanobjc", "context": "Emacs user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46817202", "date": "2026-01-29"}, {"by": "rrix2", "context": "Emacs user", "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054348", "date": "2025-11-25"}], "tags": [], "use_cases": ["note-taking", "note-taking in emacs", "daily notes"], "compared": [{"slug": "gnu-emacs", "name": "GNU Emacs", "co": 5, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "org-mode", "name": "Org mode", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}, {"slug": "neovim", "name": "Neovim", "co": 2, "switched_from": 0, "switched_to": 0}], "makers": [], "threads": [{"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46021577", "title": "Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good", "mentions": 3}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47906651", "title": "I have officially retired from Emacs", "mentions": 2}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49998350", "title": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48016809", "title": "Grove.el \u2013 An Obsidian-like note-taking mode for Emacs", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46815899", "title": "Agent-shell: A native Emacs buffer to interact with LLM agents powered by ACP", "mentions": 1}, {"url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46618714", "title": "Ask HN: Could you share your personal website here?", "mentions": 1}], "sentiment_by_month": {"2025-11": {"neutral": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2025-12": {}, "2026-01": {"neutral": 2}, "2026-02": {}, "2026-03": {}, "2026-04": {"recommend": 1}, "2026-05": {"compare": 1, "recommend": 1}, "2026-06": {}, "2026-07": {}, "2026-08": {}, "2026-09": {}, "2026-10": {"recommend": 1}}, "versions": [], "version_unnamed": 0, "family_ref": null, "runs_on": null, "lines": [], "quotes": [{"id": 800511168, "item_id": 50031948, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50031948", "by": "frumiousirc", "date": "2026-10-10", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Org-roam helps this problem for me in two levels.", "excerpt": "Org-roam helps this problem for me in two levels. Sometime around the turn of the millennium, I started with org by writing files in a directory where I made a \"topic\" sub directory for each \"thing\" I wanted to note. This is rather high level and made creating each new \"topic\" feel too formalized, like I was writing a paper or a blog. That raised some mental bar to staring a new note and so I didn't write as much as ", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "I tried to move my notes out of Emacs. I failed. Again"}, {"id": 768269392, "item_id": 48016837, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48016837", "by": "Zambyte", "date": "2026-05-04", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I've been using org-roam for a while without too much trouble", "excerpt": "Very interesting. I've been using org-roam for a while without too much trouble, but I do think a ripgrep backed system over a sqlite based one sounds interesting. I will have to see if I can port my notes over and try it out.", "context": "", "use_case": "note-taking in Emacs", "switched_from": "", "story": "Grove.el \u2013 An Obsidian-like note-taking mode for Emacs"}, {"id": 767727185, "item_id": 47982949, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47982949", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-05-01", "version": null, "stance": "compare", "quote": "vanilla Org-Roam indexing became a bottleneck", "excerpt": "Wow, thank you of course, but honestly, you're giving me way too much credit. None of this stuff I mentioned requires some special skills - most of it is about finding the right package and installing it. My Emacs config is here\u00b9 - there's nothing to hide there, it's all pretty much public knowledge. - Org-Roam is a widely known and popular package. However, I moved to Vulpea, because it has much faster and improved ", "context": "Emacs user with few thousand notes", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "I have officially retired from Emacs"}, {"id": 767445603, "item_id": 47965350, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47965350", "by": "iLemming", "date": "2026-04-30", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "I have a few thousand notes in my Org-Roam note taking system", "excerpt": "I'm a die-hard vimmer. I use vim motions in my editors, my IDEs, my browsers, my WMs, my terminals. I use vim-like navigation system-wide - e.g. for the volume control I switch to \"media\" mode and press \"j/k\". Neovim is great, I use it almost every day. But it just can't replace Emacs. That is the most annoying part of Emacs - there's simply no alternative to it. If you accept it with all its quirks and weirdness and", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "I have officially retired from Emacs"}, {"id": 749075234, "item_id": 46817202, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46817202", "by": "ryanobjc", "date": "2026-01-29", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Every day I use org-roam-dailies-goto-today to make a new file", "excerpt": "I've used chatgpt-shell, but I have since turned my LLM usage to gptel inside org-mode buffers. Every day I use org-roam-dailies-goto-today to make a new file and turn on gptel (the use of org-roam-dailies is 100% optional). Then I do my interactions with gptel in here, using top level bullets and setting topics to limit context. I have 10 months of chats, and now I can analyze them. I even had claude code write me u", "context": "Emacs user", "use_case": "daily notes", "switched_from": "", "story": "Agent-shell: A native Emacs buffer to interact with LLM agents powered by ACP"}, {"id": 746599122, "item_id": 46662445, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46662445", "by": "schonfinkel", "date": "2026-01-17", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Mine is a forever ongoing experiment on Emacs + Orgmode + org-roam + Nix", "excerpt": "https://schonfinkel.github.io/ Mine is a forever ongoing experiment on Emacs + Orgmode + org-roam + Nix, among many other tools. I need to get back and write more.", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Ask HN: Could you share your personal website here?"}, {"id": 736922578, "item_id": 46057661, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46057661", "by": "sroerick", "date": "2025-11-26", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "Can I use an org-roam database?", "excerpt": "How does it handle things like project heirarchy? Does folder browsing work? Can I use an org-roam database? I've used TRAMP to open single files over SSH, but it seems less functional than mounting with FUSE. But I haven't looked into it extensively. I am definitely going to build out that bash script for the second use case, that sounds excellent. Thanks, I had no idea you could do that", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good"}, {"id": 736871858, "item_id": 46054491, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054491", "by": "sroerick", "date": "2025-11-25", "version": null, "stance": "recommend", "quote": "Org roam is unbeatable", "excerpt": "I just haven't found Emacs to be particularly productive over SSH. IMO it works best on a local machine, there's just too much in the GUI which isn't as workable over terminal. Font rendering, images, clickable text links all take a hit. None are really deal breakers, but Emacs TUI just kind of feels like an afterthought. X11 over SSH doesn't feel responsive to me. Its almost more of an aesthetic choice really, its j", "context": "", "use_case": "", "switched_from": "", "story": "Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good"}, {"id": 736869569, "item_id": 46054348, "url": "https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46054348", "by": "rrix2", "date": "2025-11-25", "version": null, "stance": "neutral", "quote": "the fdroid build of emacs doesn't really work very well with my org-roam", "excerpt": "Specifically for org, and specifically for org-roam, it's pretty good, but not good enough. It's not as good as desktop emacs, and it's also somehow not as good as a 1st class android app. the fdroid build of emacs doesn't really work very well with my org-roam, so i use a termux build,,, well nix-on-droid+emacs-overlay... and it's fine, for capture and recall. but i'm not authoring a lot of text with it. a custom ex", "context": "Emacs user", "use_case": "note-taking", "switched_from": "", "story": "Surprisingly, Emacs on Android is pretty good"}]}