RemNote vs Roam Research

RemNote

• Students who want notes and flashcards in one app
• Exam preparation built on spaced repetition
• Studying from PDFs and lecture slides

Roam Research

• People who work from daily notes and want every block to be linkable
• Researchers who reference and reuse individual blocks across notes
• Groups sharing a graph who do not want to pay per collaborator

RemNote

• The Free plan allows only a few uses of each Pro feature: 3 annotated PDFs, 5 image occlusion cards, 1 handwritten document and 1 exam.
• AI credits reset each month and do not carry over, and the frontier models in the AI tutor need the Pro with AI plan.
• The Life-Long Learner license covers Pro server features, such as larger uploads and AI credits, for 5 years rather than for life.
• Subscriptions bought in the iOS or Android app cannot use discounts, and the App Store lists Pro Monthly at $14.99.

Roam Research

• There is no free plan; after the 31-day trial a paid subscription is required.
• The lowest monthly-equivalent price, the Believer plan, is a single $500 payment covering 5 years.
• The local API used by the official MCP server and CLI works only in the desktop app, not the web version.

RemNote

Flashcards inside notes

Cards are written in the same outline as the notes, in types that include question and answer, fill in the blank, lists and image occlusion.

Spaced repetition and exam scheduler

Cards come back for review on a spaced schedule. The exam scheduler sets a daily practice plan around an exam date; the Free plan allows 1 exam.

PDF and slide annotation

Upload PDFs and slides and mark them up with highlights, drawings and shapes next to your notes. Free accounts can annotate 3 documents.

Handwritten notes

Write by hand on a tablet, add sketches and convert handwriting to text. The Free plan includes 1 handwritten document.

AI study tools

Generates flashcards, quizzes and summaries from notes and PDFs, explains cards and answers questions in a tutor chat, all metered in monthly AI credits.

Offline mode and sync

The desktop and mobile apps keep working without a connection and sync when back online. Every plan syncs an unlimited number of devices.

Roam Research

Bidirectional links and block references

Pages link to each other in both directions, and individual blocks can be referenced from other notes.

Daily notes

Writing starts in a dated daily note, and links from there connect entries to the rest of the graph.

Hosted, offline and encrypted graphs

A graph can be hosted in Roam's cloud or kept offline as a local-only graph, and graphs can be encrypted. Paid plans allow unlimited private or public graphs.

Shared graphs

Plans include unlimited collaborators with no per-seat charge, and a graph can be edited on mobile and in the web app at the same time.

Roam Depot extensions

A marketplace of community-built extensions, which developers submit through GitHub pull requests.

MCP server, CLI and SDKs

An official MCP server and command-line tool connect Claude, Cursor and other AI assistants to a graph to read, write, search and query it.

RemNote

• Free$0

  Unlimited notes, flashcards and synced devices, plus a few uses of each Pro feature: 3 annotated PDFs, 5 image occlusion cards and 250 AI credits a month.

• Pro$8

  per month, billed yearly ($96); $10 billed monthly

  Unlimited PDF annotation, image occlusion, tables, exam scheduling and handwritten notes, with 1,000 AI credits a month.

• Pro with AI$18

  per month, billed yearly ($216); $20 billed monthly

  Everything in Pro with 20,000 AI credits a month, covering AI flashcards and quizzes from PDFs, the lecture recorder and AI grading.

• Life-Long Learner$395

  one-time purchase

  Local Pro features for life, with Pro server features and 1,000 AI credits a month included for the first 5 years.

Roam Research

• Pro$15

  per month, or $165 per year

  Unlimited private or public graphs, unlimited collaborators, and API access and apps.

• Believer$500

  one payment for 5 years ($8.33 a month)

  Everything in Pro, plus first access to new features, community calls with the team and priority support.

RemNote

• Annual discount

  Save 20% on Pro with yearly billing

  Pro costs $10 a month when billed monthly or $96 when billed yearly, which works out to $8 a month.

• Education

  25% off Pro for students, faculty and staff

  People at an academic institution get 25% off Pro subscriptions, applied when the account uses an institutional email. It excludes Life-Long Learner, AI credits and app-store subscriptions.

• Lifetime license

  Life-Long Learner one-time license

  A single $395 payment gives local Pro features for life, plus Pro server features and 1,000 AI credits a month for 5 years.

Roam Research

No public discounts listed.