Roam Research vs Tana: pricing, features and which to choose

Roam Research helped make bidirectional links and block-based outlining popular in note-taking, and many later tools, including Logseq and Obsidian's linking features, are often compared with it. It was created by Conor White-Sullivan and is built for researchers, writers, founders and students who think by connecting ideas rather than filing them into folders. Instead of a hierarchy of documents, Roam is a graph of pages and blocks. You write in an outliner, wrap any phrase in double brackets to create or link a page, and every page shows the linked and unlinked references pointing to it. Over months, that reference list becomes a record of how an idea developed.

The block is Roam's core unit. Each bullet has its own identifier, so you can reference or embed it in another page and edits show up everywhere it appears. The daily notes page opens each day as a default place to write, which removes the decision of where a thought belongs. Tags, attributes and queries pull blocks from across the graph into one view, and a graph view shows how pages connect. Roam also supports to-dos, kanban and table views, a sidebar for working on several pages at once, version history for blocks and keyboard-driven navigation. Graphs can be private, encrypted or shared with collaborators for team use.

Roam Research's strengths are block references and embeds that work across the whole graph, a daily notes workflow that lowers friction, powerful queries and an extension system with Roam Depot and roam/js. Its weaknesses are the lack of a free plan, a higher price than rivals, a learning curve for queries and attributes, and AI that depends mostly on extensions and your own API keys. Logseq offers a similar outliner for free. Obsidian stores Markdown files locally. Tana adds structured supertags and built-in AI. Notion suits shared docs and databases. Choose Roam if you want block-level linking and already think in outlines.

Tana Labs, Inc. presents Tana as an agentic meeting platform separate from Tana Outliner. Native video calls bring team members, AI agents, and shared context into one workspace, while decisions, tasks, drafted pull requests, customer journeys, and project plans enter a persistent context graph. The graph can propose merging recurring people, companies, decisions, or topics. Integrations, an API, an MCP server, export, and access controls are included. Spaces can limit content to everyone in a location, the owner, or selected people. The Free plan includes five hosted meetings monthly, one calendar connection, AI transcripts and summaries, editing, and 50 AI queries. Pro adds unlimited hosted meetings, integrations, and full MCP. Business adds SAML SSO, audit logs, compliance options, and data controls.

Tana supports meetings in its native video environment or through a meeting agent for Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet. Its AI agents can use participant tools such as screen sharing, document editing, and canvas creation. During or after a discussion, Tana can create decisions, tasks, project updates, customer journeys, storyboards, proposals, and other artifacts. Calendar connections import events, while integrations support GitHub, Linear, Jira, Slack, HubSpot, Pipedrive, Claude, Cursor, Codex, GitHub Copilot, and Lovable. External agents can read and write workspace content through MCP, with proposal review for changes. The Free plan includes five hosted meetings monthly, one calendar connection, transcripts, summaries, editing, and 50 AI queries. Pro adds unlimited meetings, integrations, and full MCP for $20 early bird or $30 per user monthly.

Tana’s main limitation is its meeting-centered design. It is not an IDE, production-code host, room-system integration, or replacement for tools such as Lovable or Bolt, though it can pass context to coding tools. Teams must manage access settings, connected services, model-provider policies, proposals, and plan-dependent AI usage. The Free plan includes five hosted meetings monthly, one calendar connection, AI transcripts and summaries, editing, and 50 AI queries. Pro adds unlimited hosted meetings, integrations, full MCP, and a meeting agent for Zoom, Teams, and Google Meet. Business adds SAML SSO, audit logs, security controls, and data-residency options. Tana says it does not sell data, advertise with it, or train models on customer content without notice and an opt-out opportunity.