head to head · open source
SiYuan vs MarkFlowy
SiYuan has 47,039 GitHub stars, 3,095 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. MarkFlowy has 2,428 stars, 96 forks, 28 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. SiYuan leads on adoption by 1,837% (47,039 vs 2,428 stars). SiYuan is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; MarkFlowy is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. SiYuan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, MarkFlowy 4%. SiYuan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (local-first, markdown), 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
| SiYuan | MarkFlowy | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 2.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 96 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick SiYuan if
- You weight community size — 47K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick MarkFlowy if
- You want the MarkFlowy 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 MarkFlowy fits your workflow better
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 →
About MarkFlowy
MarkFlowy beta Modern and intelligent Markdown editor. [![App Version][version badge]][release] [![Downloads][downloads badge]][release] [![Build Status][build badge]][build] [![Code of Conduct][coc badge]][coc] [![Commit Activity][commit badge]][commit] [![issues closed]]( [![PRs Welcome][prs welcome badge]][prs welcome] [![TypeScript version icon]]( [![Rust version icon]]( [![License][license badge]][license] [![codefactor]]( English 简体中文 日本語 Features High Performance: The rebuilt editor dramatically improves opening speed for large documents. A 2 MB Markdown file opened in around 1 second in testing. Built in…
read the full MarkFlowy overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SiYuan or MarkFlowy more popular?
SiYuan has 47,039 GitHub stars and MarkFlowy has 2,428. SiYuan has the larger community by that measure.
Are SiYuan and MarkFlowy free?
Both are open source. SiYuan is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and MarkFlowy under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SiYuan and MarkFlowy?
SiYuan is written in TypeScript and MarkFlowy 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, SiYuan or MarkFlowy?
Choose SiYuan if you want the larger community (47,039 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose MarkFlowy if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.