Buy once instead of Roam Research
2 apps in the directory cover what people use Roam Research for. 1 of them is a one-time purchase, and one costs nothing at all.
Read the catch on each one before you switch — a one-time price is not automatically the better deal, and we say so where it is not.
The replacements
Obsidian
local-first markdown vault, free with no feature gates
Free Free
Multi-device sync is $48 a year unless you wire up iCloud or git yourself
Tinderbox
expensive, perpetual, and unmatched for notes that have to do work
$289 Paid upgrades
A year of upgrades is included, then a new version costs $98 or $83 a year to stay current