Side-by-side

SiYuan vs Jan

SiYuanJan

	SiYuan A privacy-first note and knowledge app with built-in AI. Visit	Jan Run open-source AI chatbots offline on your own computer. Visit
Votes	0	0
Pricing	Freemium	Free
Category	Note Taking	Chatbots
Tags	practical-ossopen-sourceself-hostedknowledge	practical-ossopen-sourceself-hostedoffline
Best for	—	—
Pros	Local-first storage in open files you own, usable fully offline Block-level references, two-way links, and SQL queries for deep organization Most features are free, even for commercial use Cross-platform: desktop, mobile, HarmonyOS, plus Docker self-hosting Built-in flashcards, web clipping, and a community plugin/theme marketplace	Runs LLMs fully offline on your own hardware, so conversations stay private by default Simple point-and-click model downloads from Hugging Face, no command line required Genuinely open source under the permissive Apache-2.0 license Exposes an OpenAI-compatible local API server (localhost:1337) for wiring into other apps Optionally connects to cloud providers and supports MCP for agent-style tool use
Cons	Built-in AI writing and chat require your own OpenAI API key Some conveniences, notably official cloud sync, are behind a paid membership The Docker/server mode is browser-only and drops PDF/HTML/Word export and Markdown import Documentation and UI occasionally show rough English, reflecting its origins	Local model quality depends heavily on your RAM and GPU; small models are far weaker than ChatGPT or Claude Decent performance effectively needs 16GB+ RAM and ideally a supported GPU Still maturing, with a fairly high open issue count and occasional rough edges Building from source on Windows is involved and requires a full compiler toolchain

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