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Comparison · Collab
AFFiNE vs SiYuan
A side-by-side editorial comparison of AFFiNE and SiYuan — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Shared themes:self-hostedmobile
AFFiNE vs SiYuan: at a glance
What is AFFiNE?
AFFiNE is grinding through canary bug fixes — self-hosted config gaps, proxy correctness, and editor invariants — while adding iOS sharing and multi-account workspace flows.
AFFiNE is in heavy canary development, shipping daily builds that are predominantly bug fixes. This week's fixes address substantive infrastructure issues: a self-hosted deployment type mismatch between the Node and Rust runtime layers, a broken priority queue heap invariant in the outline view, and link preview failures on gzip-compressed sites. The two non-trivial additions are iOS sharing (bring external URLs, text, and images into a workspace from the system share sheet) and account switching when accepting workspace invitations.
What is SiYuan?
SiYuan 3.8.3 ships remote kernel access and tabbed blocks, hardening its self-hosted collaborative future.
SiYuan is a privacy-first, local-first block-based note-taking app that has shipped a significant architectural expansion in v3.8.3: desktop clients can now connect to a remote kernel over a network, enabling shared workspaces without cloud dependency. The 3.8.4 alpha series that followed is focused on polish—mobile UX, agent-configurable database fields, and Command Palette improvements. Security patches and bug fixes have been interleaved throughout.
AFFiNE vs SiYuan: editorial side-by-side
AFFiNE
5.0COLLAB
AFFiNE is grinding through canary bug fixes — self-hosted config gaps, proxy correctness, and editor invariants — while adding iOS sharing and multi-account workspace flows.
◆ Current state
AFFiNE is in heavy canary development, shipping daily builds that are predominantly bug fixes. This week's fixes address substantive infrastructure issues: a self-hosted deployment type mismatch between the Node and Rust runtime layers, a broken priority queue heap invariant in the outline view, and link preview failures on gzip-compressed sites. The two non-trivial additions are iOS sharing (bring external URLs, text, and images into a workspace from the system share sheet) and account switching when accepting workspace invitations.
◆ Where it's heading
AFFiNE is steadily expanding mobile surface area — iOS sharing is early groundwork for mobile as a primary capture surface — while fixing foundational self-hosted reliability issues. The canary cadence indicates fast iteration with daily correctness fixes; stabilization into a polished stable release is the evident near-term goal. The self-hosted fixes (deployment type env, proxy header handling) are important for the self-hosted community that represents a core AFFiNE user segment.
◆ Prediction
A stable or beta release addressing the self-hosted reliability gaps is likely imminent. The iOS sharing extension points toward a broader mobile-first workflow where content captured on a phone feeds directly into AFFiNE documents — a capability gap relative to Notion and Obsidian that the team appears to be closing.
SiYuan
6.3COLLAB
SiYuan 3.8.3 ships remote kernel access and tabbed blocks, hardening its self-hosted collaborative future.
◆ Current state
SiYuan is a privacy-first, local-first block-based note-taking app that has shipped a significant architectural expansion in v3.8.3: desktop clients can now connect to a remote kernel over a network, enabling shared workspaces without cloud dependency. The 3.8.4 alpha series that followed is focused on polish—mobile UX, agent-configurable database fields, and Command Palette improvements. Security patches and bug fixes have been interleaved throughout.
◆ Where it's heading
SiYuan is systematically narrowing the gap between its self-hosted experience and cloud-native alternatives. The push toward mobile parity (marketplace on mobile, configurable bottom bar, improved mobile interactions across several releases) and agent integration (custom AI provider headers, Responses API support, MCP server compatibility, bundled Skill resources) suggests the next phase positions SiYuan as connective tissue for AI workflows, not just a note-taking tool. The Electron upgrade and macOS 12 drop signal willingness to break backward compatibility to move faster.
◆ Prediction
The next milestone is likely a stable v3.8.3 or v3.8.4 release that consolidates remote kernel and agent features, followed by deeper MCP tooling—early signals (unified command registry, extensible custom blocks, plugin APIs) point toward a stable external automation surface.
Alternatives to AFFiNE and SiYuan
Other Collab products tracked by Sparkpulse, ranked by recent ship velocity. Each card links to a full editorial trajectory and lets you pivot into a head-to-head comparison with either AFFiNE or SiYuan.
Joplin
Joplin adds AI chat, semantic search, and an MCP server — local-first notes just became an AI knowledge hub.
Asana
Asana ships HIPAA for Gov and deepens AI-assisted rule management while completing its rich-text document overhaul.
Teable
Teable is assembling an agentic data platform — Scraper catalog, credential governance, and compute lineage are converging fast.
GitHub
GitHub ships GPT-6 Astra into Copilot while GHES 3.22 extends AI to enterprise self-hosted
Skedda
Skedda builds a data layer under its booking product with occupancy analytics and multi-venue insights
See all AFFiNE alternatives → · See all SiYuan alternatives →
Recent activity from AFFiNE and SiYuan
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 14h agoSiYuanSiYuan 3.8.4-alpha.4: agent database config, mobile polish, Command Palette expansion
- 16h agoSiYuanv3.8.4-alpha.3
- 19h agoAFFiNEAFFiNE: Fix collapsed heading restoration in readonly shared pages
- 1d agoSiYuanv3.8.4-alpha.2
- 1d agoAFFiNEAFFiNE: Fix priority queue heap invariant in outline tree sort
- 2d agoSiYuanv3.8.4-alpha.1
- 3d agoSiYuanSiYuan 3.8.3: remote kernel access, tabbed blocks, unified command registry ⚡
- 3d agoAFFiNEAFFiNE: Fix self-hosted deployment type environment variable mismatch
- 3d agoSiYuanv3.8.3-alpha.3
- 6d agoAFFiNEAFFiNE: Fix link preview on gzip/brotli-compressed sites
- 12d agoAFFiNEAFFiNE: Switch accounts when accepting workspace invitations
- 13d agoAFFiNEAFFiNE: iOS share extension for URLs, text, and images
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between AFFiNE and SiYuan?
Both compete on the same themes — self-hosted, mobile — within Collab. SiYuan is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is AFFiNE better than SiYuan?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. SiYuan is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 5.0), with 1 editorial sparks in the last 30 days against 0. For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to AFFiNE?
Top AFFiNE alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "AFFiNE alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/affine for the full list with editorial commentary on each.
What are the best alternatives to SiYuan?
Top SiYuan alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "SiYuan alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/siyuan for the full list with editorial commentary on each.