AFFiNE vs SiYuan
| Tagline | Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases | Privacy-first personal knowledge management with block-level editing |
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| Replaces | Notion, Confluence, Obsidian | Notion, Obsidian, Evernote |
| GitHub stars | 73k | 46k |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Docker Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | 2 days ago | yesterday |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
AFFiNE
- Self-hosted real-time sync (AFFiNE Cloud) has historically lagged the desktop/local experience and can be fiddly to configure.
- Smaller third-party integration and plugin ecosystem than Notion.
- Mobile apps are less mature than the desktop client.
- Some advanced AI and collaboration features are gated to the paid cloud tier.
SiYuan
- Primarily single-user; no real-time team collaboration.
- Official cloud sync and some features require a paid subscription.
- Documentation and UI are translated from Chinese and can be uneven.
- Smaller English-language community and plugin ecosystem.
Bottom line
Choose SiYuan if you want the lower-effort setup; choose AFFiNE for the larger community and ecosystem. SiYuan has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
AFFiNE
Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases