head to head · open source
Joplin vs SiYuan
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars, 6,390 forks, 652 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SiYuan has 47,039 stars, 3,095 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Joplin leads on adoption by 21% (56,994 vs 47,039 stars). Joplin is written in TypeScript under a custom or non-standard licence; SiYuan is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. Joplin has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, SiYuan 7%. Joplin was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (note-taking), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Joplin | SiYuan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 47K |
| License | Custom / other | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.4K | ⑂ 3.1K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Joplin if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the Custom / other license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick SiYuan if
- You want the SiYuan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and SiYuan fits your workflow better
About Joplin
Joplin is a free, open source note taking and to do application, which can handle a large number of notes organised into notebooks. The notes are searchable, can be copied, tagged and modified either from the applications directly or from your own text editor. The notes are in Markdown format. Notes exported from Evernote can be imported into Joplin, including the formatted content (which is converted to Markdown), resources (images, attachments, etc.) and complete metadata (geolocation, updated time, created time, etc.). Plain Markdown files can also be imported. Joplin is "offline first", which means you…
read the full Joplin overview →
About SiYuan
From thought to insight, with agents English 中文 日本語 Türkçe Table of Contents 💡 Introduction 🔮 Features 🏗️ Architecture and Ecosystem 🗺️ Roadmap 🚀 Download Setup App Market Installation Package Package Manager Docker Hosting Unraid Hosting TrueNAS Hosting Test Channels ⌨️ Command line Interface 🏘️ Community 🛠️ Development Guide ❓ FAQ How does SiYuan store data? Does it support data synchronization through a third party sync disk? Is SiYuan open source? How to upgrade to a new version? What if some blocks (such as paragraph blocks in list items) cannot find the block icon? What should I do if the data repo…
read the full SiYuan overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Joplin or SiYuan more popular?
Joplin has 56,994 GitHub stars and SiYuan has 47,039. Joplin has the larger community by that measure.
Are Joplin and SiYuan free?
Both are open source. Joplin has no licence declared in this registry, and SiYuan is licensed under AGPL-3.0. Both are free to self-host.
What is the difference between Joplin and SiYuan?
Joplin is written in TypeScript and SiYuan in TypeScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Joplin or SiYuan?
Choose Joplin if you want the larger community (56,994 stars) or its Custom / other licence terms. Choose SiYuan if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.