SHSelfHostIndex

Dillinger 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?
DI Dillinger Cloud-enabled Markdown editor you can self-host VS SI SiYuan Privacy-first personal knowledge management system
FeatureDillingerSiYuan
CategoryNotes & Knowledge BaseNotes & Knowledge Base
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyEasyMedium
Min. RAM256 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, bare-metaldocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 8,271★ 45,670
First released20122020
ReplacesStackEditNotion, Evernote

Why pick each one

Choose Dillinger if…

  • Clean writing interface
  • Easy to deploy
Dillinger details

Choose SiYuan if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Dillinger or SiYuan better?

Neither is universally better. SiYuan has the larger community, while Dillinger is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.

Are Dillinger and SiYuan free and open-source?

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

Can I run Dillinger and SiYuan with Docker?

Dillinger: yes. SiYuan: yes.

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