head to head · open source
SiYuan vs orgnote
SiYuan has 47,137 GitHub stars, 3,104 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. orgnote has 548 stars, 7 forks, 22 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. SiYuan leads on adoption by 8,502% (47,137 vs 548 stars). SiYuan is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; orgnote is written in Shell under GPL-3.0. SiYuan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, orgnote 1%. SiYuan 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
| SiYuan | orgnote | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 548 |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-09 | 2026-11-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 7 |
| 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 orgnote if
- You want the orgnote feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and orgnote 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 orgnote
:PROPERTIES: :ID: orgnote :END: +html: +html: +html: +html: +TITLE: ✨ Org Note. Note taking application. +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: +html: Introduction +html: +html: +html: +html: What is this project for and who is it for? It's just a system of notes. There's another one. I've tried note taking in various apps like evernote, notion, obsidian, etc. for quite some time. Most of them, however, soon enough came to a state of littering. At this point, I simply gave up taking notes of any kind…
read the full orgnote overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SiYuan or orgnote more popular?
SiYuan has 47,137 GitHub stars and orgnote has 548. SiYuan has the larger community by that measure.
Are SiYuan and orgnote free?
Both are open source. SiYuan is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and orgnote under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SiYuan and orgnote?
SiYuan is written in TypeScript and orgnote in Shell. 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 orgnote?
Choose SiYuan if you want the larger community (47,137 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose orgnote if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.