Compare & migrate

Kition vs Roam Research: block refs vs Markdown + tables

Roam’s block-refs left a deep mark. Kition picks Markdown + tables — broader reach and easier migration.

Kition Team·Jul 20, 2026·6 min read

Philosophy split

  • Roam: every bullet is an atomic unit; everything is block-ref games
  • Kition: docs as the unit, plus tables / wikilinks / embeds
  • Roam makes "atomic thinking" feel great — but lock-in is high
  • Kition is plain Markdown — leave any day, files still yours

Migration reality

We have seen users migrate off Roam — the main pain is block refs becoming "plain text + annotations." If your Roam use is page-centric with block refs as accents, migration is easy; the other way around, hard.

Ready when you are.

Kition is a local-first AI workspace. Markdown documents, structured tables, and an AI agent — running on your own machine, against the model provider you choose.