I'm moving my main graph away from Logseq. Here are the reasons why

Hi, I was really enthusiastic about Logseq for a long time (kind of still am), but I now move away my main graph (~1000 pages) from Logseq.

This isn’t supposed to be a ragequit post, I just want to list my reasons to maybe help Logseq in the long run so that I can return.

So here are the reasons:

  • no way to export a page in a beautiful format by default

    • (I know PDF export plugin, Doc view exporter and logseq-hugo-export exist)
  • hard to master query language for power users

    • (I know there is a builder in the making)
  • high memory consumption

    • I tried this with my graph on multiple independent systems
  • slow UI with bigger graphs, navigating Logseq doesn’t feel snappy.

    • I think this is especially true with larger namespaces, but I’m not sure on that.
    • I know there is a database version in the making, maybe that will help.
  • stale flashcard feature

    • I know the Logseq Anki Sync plugin exists, it’s really good, but I think having the native flashcard feature in its current form does more harm than good.
  • requirement to have content fully synced on all devices

    • Example: When I want to quickly add a note from my phone it syncs all content (often via cellular network) I added since I last opened the mobile app. I don’t know if anything can be done about this one with the offline first approach. But I tend to have a lot of screenshots and PDFs in my graph and I don’t want to sync all of it to my phone.
  • a lot of issues I had with having two different graphs open simultaneously

I really appreciate what everyone is doing for Logseq, it’s a great community. Obviously, the pros outweigh the cons, but for my use case, I now have to switch.

I will still be using Logseq, and continue to report bugs on Github if I find any.

Sad to hear this but it is understandable.

I see from a screenshot you shared on Discord that Logseq uses ~5 GB of RAM on your system. This is not normal for any program, it looks like a memory leak (a bug) and maybe something in your graph is triggering it.


In case someone stumble upon this, here there is my approach to a couple of those issues:

  • requirement to have content fully synced on all devices

    • I keep large files that I don’t want to sync in an external folder and use absolute path reference them or symlinks or macros as explained here: Macros to improve assets management
    • I think the team is aware of this issue, I remember seeing something like “mounting” an external folder in 0.9.0, maybe it will solve this in a user-friendly way
  • no way to export a page in a beautiful format by default

    • I use Pandoc to convert Markdown files to PDF but I have to do some pre-processing because of Logseq-specific syntax. Indeed the situation is not ideal at all and even if we had standard Markdown, Pandoc is too advanced for many users.

Just out of curiosity, what are you moving to? How do you migrate to something else?

1 Like

I don’t know if you use the Graph view a lot but there is a long standing issue with memory not being released after using the graph view and specially when you search in it.

I have a 1400 notes graph myself and Logseq works perfectly without using the graph view. And when I use it sometimes I made the habbit of restarting Logseq after I did to clean it up.

My normal use is quite acceptable I must say, but I do not use namespaces so that might be another issue right there.

I am curious where you will end up … let us know.

3 Likes

Performance was the big reason I moved TO Logseq. I have 1681 pages and found Logseq to be incredibly fast. I didn’t feel like Roam was all that slow until I tried Logseq.

I haven’t restarted Logseq in weeks and it’s using a little over 1GB of memory. Thats pretty standard for Electron apps and less than many of the other Electron apps that I run.

I don’t have a single non markdown file in my graphql though. That might be another factor.

1 Like

Yeah, same here. I have 3k pages and I’m also seeing slowdowns and unresponsive UI. Though it’s only using 400MB of ram, I still have issues with this daily. Haven’t found a good alternative though.

Syncing is a major issue. I’ve been wanting to write a CRDT sync-server as an extension for that reason… but it’s hard to find the time (and I’m not familiar with Clojurescript).

The points addressed here are very relevant. In fact, I also started moving away from using Logseq as my only knowledge vault, into essentially turning it into an outliner diary for short notes and thoughts. Long-form thoughts would then happen in several small Obsidian vaults that my journal links to.

The reasons for this are mosre or less the same. Logseq keeps adding new features, but there is no easy option to toggle unnecessary ones. I, for example, make no use of the graph view, so I’d be happy to toggle it off for good, and not have the app even consider loading it. I could also make myself live without 3rd-party plugins if need be. However, that won’t bring resource consumption down by much.

As I have pointed out a few times already, I think that we need a separate “Lite” desktop option, based on the iOS mobile build. Not sure how many of you have tried it, but it is basically offering 80% of the available Logseq functionality, in an application as small as 30MB. I have done some tests and it also seems to consume much less RAM, as it is not a full-blown Electron deployment like the regular desktop app.

Unfortunately, not many people seem to have shared my opinion back in the day.

If you don’t click on the Graph View it doesn’t affect the rest of the app at all, so just don’t click on it. If you want to hide the button open Developer Tools, use the selection tool to select what you want to hide, check its class and then in custom CSS add .class-name {display: none;}.

I don’t know how iOS works but maybe it’s because iOS provides the Web engine while on desktop it is built-in via Electron? In that case check Tauri as an alternative to Electron, it would be indeed nice to have a Logseq build based on Tauri, as stated by many on other threads.

But why are you mentioning the size of the application on the storage? It has zero impact on performance at runtime.

Logseq is the same on all platforms (Windows, MacOS, Linux, Android and iOS) but with different UIs on desktop vs mobile. If iOS doesn’t require bundling Electron, nice.

From now on I will gently ask other users to explain their issues, ask questions like “how can I do…?” and provide feedback as opposed to complain and say “Logseq should just…”.

1 Like

Of course - I’ve been writing code for close to two decades now, I know the difference. What I was hinting at is a very rough assumption that if some version of Logseq doesn’t come with Electron shipped, it probably also doesn’t bring in all of its runtime baggage. That’s all.

You asked to remove a feature like Graph View like it could affect the performance of the rest, it was only natural for me to assume you had no experience with software development, sorry.

1 Like