Knowledge & Docs Notes App stable

SiYuan

Privacy-first local-first block-based note-taking

26.0K stars Since 2020
Website → GitHub

Privacy-focused note-taking with block-based editing, bidirectional links, local-first storage, end-to-end encrypted sync, and SQL queryable content.

License
AGPL-3.0
Min RAM
256 MB
Min CPUs
1 core
Scaling
single_node
Complexity
intermediate
Performance
medium
Self-hostable
K8s native
Offline
Pricing
fully free
Docs quality
good
Vendor lock-in
none

Use cases

  • Private knowledge base with encrypted cloud sync
  • Block-based note organization with SQL queries
  • Bidirectional linking for knowledge graph

Anti-patterns / when NOT to use

  • Less polished than Notion
  • Sync requires paid subscription
  • Smaller plugin ecosystem
  • Chinese-origin — some docs not fully translated

Replaces / alternatives to

  • Notion
  • Obsidian

Technical specs

Language
GoTypeScript
API type
REST
Protocols
HTTP
Deployment
dockerbinary

Community

GitHub stars 26.0K
Contributors 0
Commit frequency weekly
Plugin ecosystem none
Backing B3log
Funding community

Release

Latest version
Last release
Since 2020

Best fit

Team size
solosmall
Industries
general

Tags

  • notes
  • local-first
  • block-based
  • bidirectional-links
  • e2e-encryption
  • sql-query
  • privacy