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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Siyuan is far far better than Obsidian. Its even better than some other open source alternatives out there.
- The most impotant thing is that Siyuan is open source unlike Obsidian which is very important.
- Extrememly featureful mobile platform: If you have used the obsidian's android app you'll find how limiting and basic it is.
- Versatile and generous sync mechanisms: Synching on Obsidian is pardon my language god awful. Even if you subscribe you can only sync through their servers.
- Obsidian fans are basically markdown cultists. Their main argument is that because it is markdown there is no vendor lockdown but this argument is moot because Siyuan is already open source. There was never a lockdown to begin with.
I have tried many note taking apps both open source and closed soure. I have tried anytype, affine, appflowy, logseq, simplenotes, joplin, trillium, notesnook and ofcourse notion and obsidian, hoewever they all either did not have the lackluster or the ease of use as as siyuan. Either they leaned heavily towards a very particular notetaking paradigm that was far from conventional and wysiwyg or they never were as featureful as siyuan.
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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.
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rali •PRO
- Open source: Unlike Obsidian, which is closed source, Siyuan's source is open. This gives a lot of benefits; some of them will be cited below
- Performance: Siyuan can handle millions of documents; Obsidian lags badly at the 280,000+ notes mark
- One-time payment for Sync & Versatility of choice: Obsidian offers only subscription-based sync; Siyuan offers one-time payment and also one-time payment for a subscription plan for limited seats
- Sustainability: Due to its small team, location, the enormous edge that Siyuan offers, and its rapid international adoption, Siyuan's sustainability looks stable.
- Posteriority & Aging: Siyuan's technical stack is future-proof, its usage of Go for kernel and pure HTML/CSS/JS for interface are good foundation for solid aging.
- Intentionality: Attention to details, precision, well-thought-out design decisions, focus on the right things...ect
- Experience & Wisdom: B3log dev team cumulated 20+ years of experience around markdown, editing and publishing. The remarkable adoption of Siyuan didn't come overnight, its the fruit of long years of making the right decisions.
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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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