I hope my question isn't bothering anyone. I see that SiYuan is an excellent tool as a second brain, and I like it more than Obsidian, but I still have my doubts about whether it's worth migrating. Since I'm new to both tools, I'd like someone to explain the differences and advantages between them so I can make my decision.
Related articles
-
cirsid • • 1PRO
I haven't got a definitive pros and cons, but you could probably get that using ChatGPT or Gemini. I used Obsidian for a long while, but in the end I didn't like paying a monthly subscription to sync my notes, and couldn't get other Obsidian options to work cleanly. I also became annoyed with the number of plugins I had to use and maintain to make things work how I wanted.
Obsidian is a great tool and has huge community engagement, but I've found SiYuan a more complete PKM implementation which looks great and does everything I need, and I still retain control of my data.
- MiscReply
-
Mon •
Your question is valid imo and Im happy to share my thoughts/experiences on these two apps. Ive started using obsidian since its infancy stage and i was onboard with it because i wanted to use an alternative to notion that can be use offline and has better privacy. I got into the rabbit hole, like changing the layouts, formatting my templates, everything. But then i slowly realized that i spent a lot of my time customizing and optimizing everything that i end up not doing that very thing why i downloaded this app, which is to make notes! lol and at that time, it lacks proper tables and databases, although tables can be created now with the latest update but it still lacks the database that i need, it feels janky to me. Another thing, I struggle with text formatting in markdown without installing another plugin to suffice my needs. Also, just like what everyone has mentioned already, the plugins are overwhelming and annoying. These really lose my interest in note-taking in obsidian for a long while. Thankfully, i found about siyuan via reddit and i never look back ever since. I love WYSIWYG approach, making notes and organizing them is way easier for me. I only use minimal number of plugins in siyuan. Most of them are just QOL plugins like bookmark+, tab manager, link icon to name a few. There are still some room for improvement (still waiting for the official release of calendar view for database) and Im hoping for more features/updates to come.
1 OperateMon updated this reply at 2026-09-09 22:37:11 -
AlexSlender •PRO Author
Thanks for sharing your experience. I totally agree, and I'm amazed that there is so little information on the web (at last at Youtube) about SiYuan, having such great and many features! I met the app by this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2L3txd8_Psk&list=PLE_pXle7cark. Is SiYuan so young in the market? The only thing that makes me doubt for buying SiYuan is if the WebDAV sync will really work for me. I got a koofr account and I'm happy how it works for other apps I use, but by now I couldn't make it work with Obsidian plugins. I'm not sure if I'm wrong setting it up. They are not so clear in instructions.
-
- Visit all replies
Welcome to here!
Here we can learn from each other how to use SiYuan, give feedback and suggestions, and build SiYuan together.
Signup About