Foam 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?
Foam
Personal knowledge management on top of VS Code
VS
SiYuan
Privacy-first personal knowledge management system
| Feature | Foam | SiYuan |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Language | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Medium |
| Min. RAM | 256 MB | 512 MB |
| Deployment | source | docker, binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 17,328 | ★ 45,670 |
| First released | 2020 | 2020 |
| Replaces | Roam Research, Obsidian | Notion, Evernote |
Why pick each one
Choose Foam if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Mature project with 17.3k GitHub stars
- Written in TypeScript
Frequently asked questions
Is Foam or SiYuan better?
Neither is universally better. SiYuan has the larger community, while Foam is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are Foam and SiYuan free and open-source?
Yes. Foam is licensed under MIT and SiYuan under AGPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Foam and SiYuan with Docker?
Foam: check the project docs for container support. SiYuan: yes.