so ive been using N1MM pretty much forever, mostly because thats what everyone at the club uses and its what i learned on. works great for contests obviously, ran the sweepstakes last fall with zero issues. but outside of contests its kind of a pain, the interface feels like its designed for contest ops and nothing else, which makes sense i guess but when im just doing casual rag chews or chasing DX on a sunday afternoon it feels like overkill.

someone at the hamfest last month mentioned Log4OM and i downloaded it and played around for like an hour but couldnt really figure out if its actually better for day to day stuff or if im just not used to it yet. also i run WSJT-X for FT8 and i need whatever i use to talk to that cleanly, ive had issues in the past with UDP logging not behaving right and i dont want to go through that again.

anyone switched from N1MM to Log4OM and have thoughts? or is there something else im missing that handles both contest and casual logging without being a nightmare to configure

Log4OM is genuinely pretty solid for everyday logging, i made the switch about two years ago and dont regret it. the WSJT-X integration works fine once you get the UDP port set right in both programs - i think mine is set to 2237 or whatever the default is, just make sure theyre matching and it just works. the QSO logging from FT8 comes in automatically and its nice.

that said i still fire up N1MM the second any serious contest starts. theres just no substitute for it in that context, Log4OM isnt even trying to compete there. so i kind of run both and have for a while now, which sounds annoying but honestly its not that bad since they can both write to ADIF and i just merge logs after a contest weekend. not a perfect solution but it works for my setup.

the UDP thing with WSJT-X bit me too when i first set up Log4OM, took me longer than id like to admit to realize i had the port blocked in the windows firewall. once thats sorted its pretty seamless. N1MM also does UDP from WSJT-X fine in my experience but yeah the interface outside of a contest environment is kinda clunky, youre not wrong about that. i think for just logging random contacts and keeping track of DXCC progress Log4OM is nicer to look at and easier to navigate. just my two cents, both programs are free so theres not much to lose by running them side by side for a while and seeing what sticks.