so ive been using N1MM for probably 5 or 6 years now mostly for contesting and it does what i need but ive been hearing a lot about Log4OM lately and people seem to really like it for general logging day to day. my problem is N1MM feels overkill when im just doing casual QSOs on a tuesday night and the interface isnt exactly friendly for just sitting down and logging a few contacts without feeling like youre about to enter a contest whether you want to or not.

i also run WSJT-X for FT8 and the integration with N1MM works okay but ive had some duplicate handling weirdness where it doesnt always catch dupes across modes properly, like if i worked someone on SSB and then they show up on FT8 it sometimes lets me log them again without a warning. might be a config thing on my end i honestly havent dug into it that much.

so the question is does anyone actually use Log4OM for contesting or is it really more of a daily driver thing and you keep N1MM around just for when a contest rolls around. running two separate loggers sounds annoying but maybe thats just how people do it. also does Log4OM talk to WSJT-X cleanly because thats probably my biggest requirement at this point.

yeah pretty much everyone i know does exactly that, Log4OM for the day to day stuff and N1MM just comes out when a contest weekend shows up. theyre solving different problems honestly. Log4OM has gotten really solid over the last couple versions and the WSJT-X integration is fine, it uses the same UDP logging that everything else uses so it just works once you point WSJT-X at the right port. the dupe checking across modes is actually better in Log4OM in my experience, you can set it to flag a dupe regardless of band or mode which is what you probably want for general logging anyway.

the only thing i'd say is dont expect to use Log4OM mid-contest, it's just not built for the rate game. N1MM is still king for anything serious, the keyboard macros and the bandmap and the SO2R stuff if you ever go down that road, nothing else really touches it for that. but for a random wednesday night working DX or whatever Log4OM is way more pleasant to sit in front of.

the dupe thing across modes in N1MM has bitten me too, i think theres a setting somewhere in the contest config for how strict it checks but i never bothered figuring it out for casual operating because like you said it wasnt really designed for that. for WSJT-X i actually just let WSJT-X keep its own log and then export to ADIF periodically and import wherever i want, bit of a workaround but its clean enough. probably not what you want to hear if youre trying to keep everything in sync in real time though.