TheBrain vs Roam Mobile
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
TheBrain
This app helps you capture, connect, and visualize all your ideas, notes, and files across devices. It acts as a digital memory, showing related items and allowing for dynamic mind mapping and powerful search to help you recall information instantly.
- Award-winning visualization
- Networked notes with backlinks
- Dynamic mind mapping
- Easy idea capture
- Cross-device sync
- Powerful search
- Visual file management
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YOUR DIGITAL MEMORY. VISUALIZED. TheBrain is the unique knowledge app that helps you capture everything — ideas, notes, web pages, files, photos — and connect it all the way you naturally think. Stop hunting through folders, tabs, and search bars. Start seeing your knowledge as a living network you can navigate with a tap. Described by the Wall Street Journal as "Software that thinks like you do" and MacLife as "the most compelling mind mapping adaptation we've encountered." Winner of KMWorld's Trendsetting Products award. WHY THEBRAIN? Traditional notes apps trap your ideas in folders, tags, or endless lists. TheBrain lets every piece of information connect to anything else — so the right idea finds you the moment you need it. It's note-taking, mind mapping, file management, and AI rolled into one beautiful experience that works the same on every device. KEY FEATURES CEREBRO — TALK TO YOUR BRAIN WITH AI Our built-in agentic AI assistant. Ask Cerebro anything — and let it create new thoughts and notes, surface exactly what you need, summarize long documents, suggest meaningful links, or just have a conversation about what you know. It can do anything you can do — only faster. DYNAMIC THOUGHT NETWORK Move beyond conventional mind maps and folders. TheBrain's animated visualization shows your ideas, their context, and the relationships between them — at any scale. Tap a thought, and the entire network reorganizes around it. NETWORKED NOTES Rich notes shown in context with automatic backlinks and concept discovery. Hybrid WYSIWYG + Markdown writing, powerful tables, resizable images, math, and folding — all the modern editor essentials. EVERYTHING IN ONE PLACE Attach web pages, PDFs, photos, and documents to any thought. Link people, projects, files, and ideas in a single living workspace. POWERFUL SEARCH Find any note, file, web page, or idea in seconds. Every match appears in the context of your thought network, so you instantly see how it relates to everything else you know. SEAMLESS SYNC ACROSS DEVICES Your brain is always with you. Mobile, Mac, Windows, Linux, and web stay in sync — even with large brains. Smart Sync downloads attachments on demand, keeping your brain fast and lightweight on every device. INFINITE SCALE Effortlessly handles hundreds of thousands of items and many gigabytes of data — without slowing down. COLLABORATE AND SHARE Publish your brain online for the world, or sync thoughts privately with your team. Great for shared knowledge bases, project planning, and team research. ==================================== WAYS TO USE THEBRAIN • Build your second brain — a living reflection of how you think, ready when you need it. • Manage everything in your life: projects, people, goals, files, and ideas in one place. • Capture interesting articles, videos, and references so they're activated when you need them. • Organize trips, travel, and major life events with all the right context at hand. • Power your research — go deeper on any concept and see how it connects to everything else. • Turn goals into action by linking them with the resources needed to achieve them. • Build a knowledge base that sparks new ideas and breakthroughs. • Link people, projects, and information for a smarter view of your business. • Create topic brains around your passions, hobbies, and special interests. • Plan personal projects like home renovations, weddings, or major purchases. GET STARTED IN MINUTES Start with a single thought — your name, a project, an idea you want to explore. Add a few connections. Within minutes you'll understand why people have trusted TheBrain for over two decades. For the best experience, install TheBrain on your phone, tablet, and computer. Our iPhone, iPad, Mac, Windows, and other mobile clients all sync seamlessly — your best thinking is always with you.
Roam Mobile
This app helps you organize your research for long-term use. It functions like a document but offers the power of a graph database for efficient information management.
- Long-term research organization
- Document-like interface
- Graph database functionality
- Powerful information management
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As easy to use as a document. As powerful as a graph database. Roam helps you organize your research for the long haul.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: TheBrain at 4.8 against Roam Mobile's 2.6. TheBrain also leads on review sentiment (44% vs 26%). Roam Mobile's advantage is in-app purchases (none vs 2). On price, ratings volume, update cadence and ads there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. TheBrain sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $17.99 per month. Roam Mobile asks for nothing beyond the download.
TheBrain holds the better App Store score, 4.8 against 2.6. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 168 and 170 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 44% of TheBrain's written reviews are positive against 26% of Roam Mobile's.
TheBrain ships an update every 3 weeks, Roam Mobile every 2 weeks. The most recent releases landed on October 26, 2026 and October 21, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | TheBrain | Roam Mobile |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 4.8 (168 ratings) — better | 2.6 (170 ratings) |
| Positive reviews | 44.3% of reviews — better | 25.8% of reviews |
| Number of ratings | 168 | 170 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 3 weeks | Every 2 weeks — better |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | No — better |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free — better |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad, iPod | iPhone, iPad, iPod |
| Requires iOS | 15.0 | 14.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 252 MB | 61 MB |
| Age rating | 4+ | 4+ |
| Developer | TheBrain Technologies LP | Roam Research Inc. |
Customer experience
TheBrain
Roam Mobile
User reviews
TheBrain
From 168 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Seamless navigation
- 🔒 Secure cloud sync
- 👍 Intuitive interface
- 🚀 Powerful features
- 👍 Excellent for knowledge management
Room to improve
- 🐛 Crashes and freezes
- 🐛 Buggy on iOS 9
- 💰 Expensive subscription
- 🐛 Limited functionality on mobile
- 🐛 Confusing UI and navigation
Roam Mobile
From 170 App Store ratingsWhat we love
- 🚀 Fast mobile experience
- 🔒 Encrypted graphs with Face ID
- 👍 Native-like navigation
- 💡 Useful quick capture feature
- 🚀 Impressive pace of improvements
Room to improve
- 🐛 Slow load times and app crashes
- 🐛 Lack of offline mode and sync issues
- 👎 Limited functionality compared to desktop
- 👎 Unintuitive and buggy UI/UX
- 🐛 Incompatibility with external keyboards
Bugs and requests
TheBrain
Reported bugs
5 issues- Crashes on iOS 9
- Inability to open brains
- Freezing after each action
- Login and account issues
- Sync problems
Requested features
7 requests- Offline mode
- Improved mobile UI and UX
- Better integration with other apps
- More affordable pricing options
- Enhanced search and filtering
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- Split-screen support on iPad
- Handwriting and stylus support
Roam Mobile
Reported bugs
4 issues- Frequent crashes and loading issues
- Inability to edit or access notes
- Sync problems and lost data
- Incompatibility with certain devices
Requested features
5 requests- Offline mode and better syncing
- Improved keyboard support
- Dark mode and customization options
- Better integration with iOS features
- Ability to handle large graphs
In-app purchases
TheBrain
- TheBrain Pro Monthly$17.991 Month
- TheBrain Pro Annual$189.991 Year
Roam Mobile
No in-app purchases








