Why I replaced Bear, Obsidian, and Roam Research with Craft

I used to use and pay for Bear, Obsidian (free), and Roam Research.

These days, Craft (https://www.craft.do/) is my notes app of choice because:

• I find it the most pleasurable app to read, write, and annotate (bold and highlight) with. With Obsidian, I found it a pain to have to switch from writing to previewing mode, just so I can click a link.
• Linking notes and blocks within notes with each other (Backlinking) using the @ function is seamless.

• Search works well. Meaning, I find what I search for. I found it difficult to find notes in Obsidian.

For example, I have a “Life Goals” doc that I constantly refer to.

Somehow, I could never find this file using search in Obsidian.

• Unlike Roam Research, exporting text in Markdown, adding it in WordPress, and publishing it as a blog post is super easy.

With Roam, I need to spend a lot of time fixing the formatting to publish a blog post.

The formatting transfers well from Craft to WordPress.

Finally, I’ve wanted to create a similar “Digital Garden” since encountering Andy’s working notes. The key feature is being able to open a link and read the content, without losing your place in the original doc. With Craft, now I can have a similar “Digital Garden“.