head to head · open source
SiYuan vs silverbullet
SiYuan has 47,039 GitHub stars, 3,095 forks, 18 open issues and last shipped yesterday. silverbullet has 6,445 stars, 527 forks, 345 open issues and last shipped yesterday. SiYuan leads on adoption by 630% (47,039 vs 6,445 stars). SiYuan is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0; silverbullet is written in TypeScript under MIT. SiYuan has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, silverbullet 8%. silverbullet 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 | silverbullet | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 47K | ★ 6.4K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.1K | ⑂ 527 |
| 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 silverbullet if
- You want the silverbullet feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and silverbullet 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 silverbullet
SilverBullet SilverBullet is a Programmable, Private, Browser based, Open Source, Self Hosted, Personal Knowledge Database — a fancy term for a "notes app on steroids". Yowza! That surely is a lot of adjectives to describe a browser based Markdown editor programmable with Lua. Let’s get more specific. SilverBullet combines a clean live preview editor with wiki style linking, a built in database and query language, and a fully integrated Space Lua scripting environment, turning your notes into a programmable system that grows with you. In SilverBullet you keep your content as a collection of Markdown Pages…
read the full silverbullet overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is SiYuan or silverbullet more popular?
SiYuan has 47,039 GitHub stars and silverbullet has 6,445. SiYuan has the larger community by that measure.
Are SiYuan and silverbullet free?
Both are open source. SiYuan is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and silverbullet under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between SiYuan and silverbullet?
SiYuan is written in TypeScript and silverbullet 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 silverbullet?
Choose SiYuan if you want the larger community (47,039 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose silverbullet if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.