head to head · open source
SiYuan vs marksman
SiYuan has 47,064 GitHub stars, 3,097 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped today. marksman has 3,385 stars, 77 forks, 134 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. SiYuan leads on adoption by 1,290% (47,064 vs 3,385 stars). SiYuan is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; marksman is written in F# under MIT. SiYuan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, marksman 2%. SiYuan was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (markdown, 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
| SiYuan | marksman | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 3.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | F# |
| Last push | 2026-11-04 | 2026-09-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 77 |
| 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 marksman if
- You want the marksman feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches F#
- You evaluated both and marksman 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 marksman
Marksman Write Markdown with code assist and intelligence in the comfort of your favourite editor. Marksman is a program that integrates with your editor to assist you in writing and maintaining your Markdown documents. Using [LSP protocol][lsp main] it provides completion , goto definition , find references , rename refactoring, diagnostics , and more. In addition to regular Markdown, it also supports wiki link style references that enable [Zettelkasten like][zettel wiki][^roam research] , [^markdown memo] note taking. See more about Marksman's features below. Marksman works on MacOS, Linux, and Windows and is…
read the full marksman overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SiYuan or marksman more popular?
SiYuan has 47,064 GitHub stars and marksman has 3,385. SiYuan has the larger community by that measure.
Are SiYuan and marksman free?
Both are open source. SiYuan is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and marksman under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SiYuan and marksman?
SiYuan is written in TypeScript and marksman in F#. 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 marksman?
Choose SiYuan if you want the larger community (47,064 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose marksman if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.