Logseq Explained: Outliner-Style Notes and Who They Suit

Logseq is a free, open-source (AGPL-licensed) note-taking app that keeps notes on your own device, first released in 2020 by the developer Tienson Qin.¹ In Logseq every note is a bullet point, called a block, that you can nest, link and reuse anywhere else in your notes.² Since April 2026, Logseq has come in two versions: Logseq OG, which keeps your notes as Markdown text files, and a new Logseq that stores them in a database and was still in beta in October 2026.³⁴

Logseq is worth learning if you already write in short, dated bullets and like to connect topics as they come up, and if you want your notes on your own machine. It is a poor fit, for now, if your team needs stable shared documents or you do most of your note-taking on a phone. Outliners are one of several types of notes app, and note-taking apps compared by type sets them side by side. Every feature, price and version below was checked on Logseq’s own pages on 11 October 2026.

Prefer to watch? The video covers the same ground as this article.

VideoLogseq Explained: Outliner Notes, Two Versions and Who They SuitWiserHours

What Logseq is used for: an outliner built from blocks

Logseq is used for notes that grow by addition: daily logs, meeting notes, reading notes, research and task lists. Its project page on GitHub describes it as a platform for knowledge management and collaboration with tools for PDF annotation and task management, and names Roam Research, Org Mode, TiddlyWiki and Workflowy among its inspirations.⁴

The block is what sets it apart. In a document app, a paragraph only exists where you typed it. Logseq’s own guide explains that every block has an address, so you can point to it from any other page, and blocks are not bound to folders.² Indenting does the organizing: a bullet tucked under another belongs to it, and you can fold a whole branch away with one click.

Picture a weekly team meeting. You write the date’s notes as bullets, with each decision indented under the topic it settles. Months later you can pull one decision into a project page without copying it, and you still see where it came from. So write one idea per bullet, because a bullet that holds three ideas cannot be linked to any one of them.

Daily journals: where most notes in Logseq start

Logseq opens on today’s journal page, and its documentation suggests new users write everything there at first, rather than creating a page for each topic. A new journal page appears for each day, so every note is dated without any effort on your part.⁵

The guide’s reason is to avoid scattering notes over unconnected islands before you know how to link them. There is a practical gain too: a dated page removes one decision, where a note belongs, at the moment you are trying to write it. The journal also resurfaces things: Logseq’s guide notes that each day’s page shows the other notes that mention that date, which makes it a simple place for reminders to your future self.⁵

A typical Tuesday page might hold a call note, two tasks and a quote from a book, each a separate bullet. None of them needs a home yet. Once a topic keeps coming up, you link it, and the links do the filing. If you have never used a journal-first app, give it two weeks of writing only on the day’s page before you build any structure.

Bidirectional links and block references

Logseq’s links run both ways: when you link to a page by typing its name in double square brackets, the target page automatically lists your note in a section called Linked references. Logseq’s guide calls this creating two links at once, the one you write and the one that appears on the other side. It also shows Unlinked references, places where the name appears in plain text without a link, so you can connect them later.⁶

This is the same linked-notes idea behind a Zettelkasten slip-box of connected notes, applied to outlines. A page called “Client A” fills itself with every bullet, from any day, that links to the client, so the page becomes a running history you never had to write.

Block references go one step further. In the file-based version, typing two round brackets lets you search for any block and insert a reference to it, which shows the block’s full text in the new place, and a counter on the original shows how many times it has been reused.² The guide gives the reason as avoiding duplicate content: one block, shown in many places, rather than copies that drift apart.

Link sparingly but consistently. A link to “Budget” on every relevant bullet builds a useful page; links on every noun build pages nobody reads.

Logseq vs Obsidian and Notion: blocks, files or a workspace

The main difference between Logseq and Obsidian is the unit you write in: Logseq is built around blocks in an outline, while Obsidian is built around whole pages of Markdown you write like documents. Notion differs again, as a cloud workspace of pages and databases. All three link notes; they disagree about where notes live and what a note is.

Logseq OG and Obsidian sit close enough that you can try both on the same notes: Logseq’s guide explains that it can open an existing folder of Markdown files, including daily notes made in Obsidian, though it adds its own journals folder for new days.⁷ The verdicts below are our judgment from these pages, since no independent study has compared the apps. Choose Logseq if you think in bullets and want a daily log; choose Obsidian if you write longer notes and want its large plugin catalogue, which Logseq’s own guide mentions as a reason to use the two together; choose Notion if the notes are shared project documents.

Logseq OG or the database version: the choice since 2026

Logseq split in two in April 2026. Logseq OG keeps the original file-based graphs and, the team says, will receive security and Electron updates but no new features; the new Logseq runs database graphs, is where development now happens, and is the version new users are guided to.³ Nobody is forced to move: you can run both apps side by side.

Myth

Logseq keeps all your notes as plain Markdown files.

Fact

Only Logseq OG does. The new Logseq, where new features now go, stores notes in a database and exports Markdown without all of its data.

The reason the team gives is engineering: supporting both kinds of graph in one app meant building every feature twice.³ For you, the database version changes several habits. Pages and blocks become “nodes” referenced the same way, Org mode files are no longer supported, and whiteboards were removed as a built-in feature.¹⁰

The project’s README is blunt about the risk: the database version is in beta, its sync and real-time collaboration are in alpha, data loss is possible, and it advises backups and a test graph for a project you can afford to lose.⁴ The first Logseq 2.0 beta arrived in July 2026, and an update followed on 7 October 2026.¹¹

1. Logseq OG: each page and each day is a Markdown text file in a folder you choose; maintained, with no new features planned
2. Logseq (database version): the graph lives in a database on your device; exported as a SQLite file or EDN; in beta, where new features go

So it comes down to one question: do you want plain files you can open in any editor, or the newer features? If files matter, Logseq OG does the job and stays maintained. If you try the database version, keep its desktop backups switched on, which keep the last 12 copies. Its export menu offers a SQLite file, an editable EDN file, and a standard Markdown export that the documentation says cannot capture all of a graph’s data.¹²

Is Logseq safe and private?

Logseq is local-first: in both versions your notes are stored on your own device, not on Logseq’s servers, unless you turn on sync. The team’s 2026 announcement says a database graph runs only on your device, and that Logseq Sync encrypts data on your device with your own password before uploading it, end to end.³

Software researchers proposed the name “local-first” for this approach in 2019.

The study

Limited evidence

Local-first software: Kleppmann, Wiggins, van Hardenberg and McGranaghan, 2019

Researchers at Ink & Switch, a research lab that builds local-first prototypes, argued in a 2019 paper for an ACM programming conference that the copy of your work on your own device should be the main one, with servers holding secondary copies. They set out seven ideals, including working offline, keeping data usable long after the maker is gone and security by default, and warned that cloud apps can stop working, and take their data with them, when a service shuts down.¹³

The paper is a reasoned position, not a test of what happens to people’s notes, so treat it as a framework for questions rather than proof. Local storage keeps your notes out of a company’s hands, and it also makes backups your job: if your laptop fails and you never synced or exported, nobody can restore the graph. If you turn on sync, keep its encryption password somewhere safe, because encryption that stops anyone else reading your notes also leaves nobody who can recover them for you. And because the code is open source, people who read code can check what the app does.

Is Logseq free, and how does sync work?

Yes, Logseq is free to use. Its Open Collective page says the desktop and web apps do not and will not need a commercial licence, for personal or company use, as long as the data is stored locally and does not use Logseq’s servers.¹⁴ The paid part is sync.

For Logseq OG, the official Logseq Sync is a beta for active Open Collective supporters, listed at 5 or 15 US dollars a month, and the documentation describes it as end-to-end encrypted. The same page warns against combining it with another sync service such as iCloud, Dropbox or Syncthing.¹⁵ You can sync OG’s files with your own service instead, but the guide adds a caveat: use one device at a time and let the sync finish before opening the app elsewhere.¹⁶ For the database version, the documentation called sync invite-only as of April 2026 and says it can also be self-hosted.¹² In October 2026, Logseq’s Open Collective page described this database sync as in beta testing with sponsors paying 15 US dollars a month.¹⁴

To get notes from a work laptop onto your phone, either pay for Logseq Sync or point a sync service you already use at the notes folder and close the app on one device before opening it on the other. Prices and access change often, so check the sync page before you rely on it.

Is Logseq still being developed?

Yes. Logseq OG reached version 1.0.0 in April 2026, with downloads for Android, Linux, macOS and Windows, and is maintained for fixes.¹⁷ The database version keeps receiving the beta updates described above. The company behind it, Logseq Inc, raised 4.1 million US dollars in 2022 from backers including the heads of Stripe and Shopify, according to TechCrunch.¹⁸

Notes pile up for years and moving them takes work, so before you commit, open the project’s releases page on GitHub: the date of the latest release tells you more about a tool’s health than a review written months ago, this one included.

Is Logseq worth learning? Good fits and poor fits

Logseq suits people who think in short pieces and want them connected: researchers and students gathering notes over months, managers keeping a running log of meetings and decisions, and anyone who would rather write first and file later. It also suits people who want their notes in files on their own machine, which Logseq OG still offers. Nobody has studied which kind of person does best with an outliner, so this is reasoning from how the app works, not a finding.

Skip it, or wait, if you need a stable tool for a team today, or a polished mobile app now: the README still lists real-time collaboration and the new mobile app as alpha.⁴ Skip it too if you mostly write long documents, where a page-based app feels more natural. And skip any app, Logseq included, if tending the system starts to replace the work; a personal knowledge management setup is only worth what you do with it.

A cheap test is to spend two weeks in Logseq OG on one live project before moving anything else in.

A two-week Logseq trial

• Choose Logseq OG for plain files, or a test graph in the database version
• Write only on the daily journal page for the first week
• Link a topic once it appears on three different days
• Open the notes folder or export in another app
• Set up backups or sync before the notes matter
• Decide after two weeks whether you opened it without being told to

The bottom line

Logseq is an outliner for people who think in bullets: you write on today’s journal page, link topics as they recur, and let each topic page gather its own references. Since 2026 you also choose a version. Logseq OG keeps plain Markdown files and gets maintenance only, while the database version gets the new features and still carries a beta warning. Give it two weeks on one project, with backups on, before your whole archive goes in.