SHSelfHostIndex

Kaneo vs SiYuan

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted apps from related categories — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
KA Kaneo Project management platform focused on simplicity and efficiency VS SI SiYuan Privacy-first personal knowledge management system
FeatureKaneoSiYuan
CategoryProject Management & TasksNotes & Knowledge Base
LicenseMITAGPL-3.0
LanguageTypeScriptTypeScript
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM512 MB512 MB
Deploymentdocker, kubernetesdocker, binary, source
GitHub stars★ 7,637★ 45,670
First released20262020
Replaces—Notion, Evernote

Why pick each one

Choose Kaneo if…

  • Released under the MIT license
  • First-class Docker support for quick deployment
  • Kubernetes-ready with Helm charts available
  • Mature project with 7.6k GitHub stars
Kaneo details

Choose SiYuan if…

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

Frequently asked questions

Is Kaneo 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 Kaneo and SiYuan free and open-source?

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

Can I run Kaneo and SiYuan with Docker?

Kaneo: yes. SiYuan: yes.

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