SHSelfHostIndex

BatNoter vs SiYuan

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted notes & knowledge base options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
BA BatNoter Markdown notes web app that stores notes in your Git repo VS SI SiYuan Privacy-first personal knowledge management system
FeatureBatNoterSiYuan
CategoryNotes & Knowledge BaseNotes & Knowledge Base
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM128 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, sourcedocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 2,422★ 45,670
First released20222020
ReplacesStandard Notes, EvernoteNotion, Evernote

Why pick each one

Choose BatNoter if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Active community (2.4k GitHub stars)
  • Written in TypeScript
BatNoter details

Choose SiYuan if…

  • Powerful block-based model
  • Works offline and self-hosted
SiYuan details

Frequently asked questions

Is BatNoter or SiYuan better?

Neither is universally better. SiYuan has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are BatNoter and SiYuan free and open-source?

Yes. BatNoter is licensed under MIT and SiYuan under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run BatNoter and SiYuan with Docker?

BatNoter: yes. SiYuan: yes.

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