Eyrie vs Logseq

Outliner-first or editor-first? Honest comparison.

Logseq is an excellent open-source outliner with a passionate following. Eyrie is a native Mac editor that ships AI features built-in. Both store your notes as plain Markdown on disk — but they're solving different problems. Here's when to pick which.

The fundamental difference.

Logseq is an outliner. Every note is a tree of bullets. Indenting, collapsing, and querying bullets is the central interaction.

Eyrie is an editor. Notes are prose with Markdown formatting — headings, paragraphs, lists where you want them. Bullets are bullets, not the universe.

Both have backlinks. Both have search. Both store .md files on disk. The choice between them is mostly a choice about how you think when you write.

Side-by-side.

The outliner vs editor question.

This is the choice that matters most. Outliners are great when:

• You think in hierarchical bullets
• You want to collapse / expand sections of your day
• You're capturing meeting notes or daily logs that naturally branch
• You like Roam Research's UX

Editors are better when:

• You write prose — articles, essays, drafts, research notes
• You want headings + paragraphs + occasional lists, not "everything is a bullet"
• You're capturing more "knowledge" than "log"
• You'd rather read your notes than navigate them

Most people who try outliners for a year end up wishing for both. The honest answer is that the document model you start with becomes the document model you think in, so pick deliberately.

When to stay on Logseq.

1. You love the outliner model. Logseq does outlining better than Eyrie ever will. If indenting and collapsing bullets is how you think, stay.
2. Open source is a requirement. Logseq is AGPL-licensed. Eyrie is closed-source. If that matters to you for ethical / contributor / fork-the-source reasons, stay.
3. You need Windows or Linux. Eyrie is Mac-only.
4. Free is the budget. Logseq is free. Eyrie is $79.

Migrating from Logseq to Eyrie in 5 minutes.

1. Logseq stores notes as .md files in your graph folder. Find that folder (Logseq → Settings → Graph location).
2. In Eyrie, open that folder directly. Your notes load instantly.
3. Logseq's bullet outline format renders as nested Markdown lists in Eyrie — readable, but you'll notice the difference. Consider flattening your most-used notes into prose over time.
4. Backlinks work the same way ([[note-name]] syntax). Daily notes work the same way (date-named files).