SiYuan vs VNote
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?
Compare SiYuan with
choose an app… AppFlowy AFFiNE Memos Mark Text Joplin Plane Logseq Paperless-ngx Outline Trilium Notes TriliumNext Notes Khoj Wiki.js Karakeep ArchiveBox Focalboard Notable Docmost Super Productivity Wekan Obsidian Linkwarden BookStack Foam Docs by Suite Numerique Omnivore OpenProject Notesnook Gollum Habitica Self-Hosted Zettlr Quartz Wallabag MarkText Workspace Planka Self-hosted LiveSync Shiori Leantime Linkding Blinko git-bug Kanboard Laverna TiddlyWiki Anytype Reor nb Notes Floccus Dillinger Kaneo Buku Athens Research org-roam Taskwarrior Markor Sync Livebook QOwnNotes SilverBullet TagSpaces Papra DokuWiki Mindforger Web CherryTree Shaarli Pinry Archivy Flatnotes Dnote Trilium Notes Next NoteDiscovery MindForger WizNote BatNoter Notea AppFlowy Cloud Jotty Atomic Server Knowledge RocketNotes QuillPad Beavers Notes Outline Desktop Writing Many Notes Notabase Notesnook Sync Server mdSilo Note Mark Turtl RedNotebook Tangent Notes DailyTxT TeamMapper Standard Notes WiseMapping MyTetra Mindwendel LibreKB Digimindmap memEx QST
Compare VNote with
choose an app… AppFlowy AFFiNE Memos Mark Text Joplin Logseq Paperless-ngx Outline Trilium Notes TriliumNext Notes Khoj Wiki.js Notable Docmost Obsidian BookStack Foam Notesnook Zettlr Self-hosted LiveSync Blinko Laverna TiddlyWiki Anytype Reor nb Notes Markor Sync QOwnNotes TagSpaces Papra Mindforger Web CherryTree Archivy Flatnotes Dnote Trilium Notes Next MindForger WizNote Zim QuillPad Beavers Notes Notesnook Sync Server OutWiker Tiddloid MyTetra WikidPad
Feature SiYuan VNote Category Notes & Knowledge Base Notes & Knowledge Base License AGPL-3.0 MIT Language TypeScript C++ Setup difficulty Medium Easy Min. RAM 512 MB 256 MB Deployment docker, binary, source bare-metal, binary GitHub stars ★ 45,670 ★ 12,885 First released 2020 2017 Replaces Notion, Evernote Evernote, OneNote
Why pick each one
Choose SiYuan if… Powerful block-based model Works offline and self-hosted SiYuan details
Frequently asked questions Is SiYuan or VNote better? Neither is universally better. SiYuan has the larger community, while VNote is simpler to set up (easy difficulty). Choose based on the comparison table above and your own setup.
Are SiYuan and VNote free and open-source? Yes. SiYuan is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and VNote under MIT. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run SiYuan and VNote with Docker? SiYuan: yes. VNote: check the project docs for container support.