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.
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Djo •VIP Warrior
Obsidian:
The interface is very confusing, IMO. Very difficult to get the hang of.
I find the editing experience awful with the Preview mode, where the markdown syntax keeps popping up. I don't care about markdown, full WYSIWYG is far better.
IMO Obsidian is stuck with the markdown format and files. They are trapped along with their community, some of whom are extremists from the markdown file, even though it actually has far more drawbacks than benefits to build an entire PKM program on it.SiYuan is so pleasant to work with. All the opposite of Obsidian for me. And it is great out of the box, no need to manage a tons of plugins. What a relief.
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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 - Visit all replies
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