Org-roam

Health v2 · maintenance only

Adoption not part of the score

6015 stars · 490 forks observed · 2026-08-28

What it is AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, 2026-08-29, confidence not recorded

Org-roam is a plain-text personal knowledge management system for Emacs that replicates Roam Research's networked note-taking features using Org-mode. It supports non-hierarchical Zettelkasten-style notes with backlinks, graph visualization, and fully offline, private plain-text storage.

Use cases

• build a personal wiki in plain text
• take linked notes with backlinks like Roam Research
• practice Zettelkasten note-taking in Emacs
• visualize connections between my notes as a graph
• keep a private offline knowledge base I can encrypt with GPG
• manage a memex of networked thoughts

When to choose

• you already use Emacs and Org-mode and want networked note-taking
• you want plain-text, future-proof notes fully under your control
• you value offline privacy and GPG-encryptable notes
• you want an extensible PKM backed by the Emacs ecosystem

When to avoid

• you don't use Emacs and aren't willing to learn it
• you need a graphical, out-of-the-box note app like Obsidian or Logseq
• you need real-time collaboration or mobile-first note capture
• you want hosted/cloud-synced notes with a web interface

Facets

plugin · maturity active

editor search-engine data-visualization markdown documentation developer-tools text-editors cross-platform org-mode zettelkasten pkm note-taking backlinks plain-text roam-replica emacs-lisp knowledge-management emacs desktop

Member repositories

For agents

markdown · JSON · MCP: product_card(name="org-roam/org-roam")