EGroupware
EGroupware is pushing its old branch off a cliff on 15 August, and sweetening the landing with passkeys.
Comparison · Collab
Kavita vs SiYuan
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Kavita and SiYuan — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Kavita vs SiYuan: at a glance
What is Kavita?
A self-hosted reading server that spent two releases becoming infrastructure, then paid for it with a CVE.
Kavita ships two to four substantial releases a year with hotfixes trailing each one, and the last two years moved it well past a comic reader: OIDC login, an annotation system, a rebuilt epub reader, a reading-list overhaul, a stats system, and a scanner reported 50x faster. The most recent release is a critical security hotfix carrying CVE-2026-47202 that affects every prior version. Kavita+ remains the paid tier where metadata features land first.
What is SiYuan?
SiYuan opened a 3.8 branch and put AI agents, embeddings search and MCP in the first alpha.
The 3.7.4 alpha series ran as pure enhancement work with cumulative notes — each alpha restates the previous list and adds a line or two — covering mobile and HarmonyOS parity, database view refinements, drag-and-drop polish, and sync performance. The first 3.8 alpha breaks that pattern with a Feature block: secure OIDC authentication, an AI Agent, semantic search using embeddings and reranking, and Model Context Protocol support.
Kavita vs SiYuan: editorial side-by-side
Kavita
0.0COLLAB
A self-hosted reading server that spent two releases becoming infrastructure, then paid for it with a CVE.
◆ Current state
Kavita ships two to four substantial releases a year with hotfixes trailing each one, and the last two years moved it well past a comic reader: OIDC login, an annotation system, a rebuilt epub reader, a reading-list overhaul, a stats system, and a scanner reported 50x faster. The most recent release is a critical security hotfix carrying CVE-2026-47202 that affects every prior version. Kavita+ remains the paid tier where metadata features land first.
◆ Where it's heading
The arc is a hobby-scale project taking on the obligations of infrastructure — standard auth, an external API contract for third-party clients, sync with other readers, and formal vulnerability disclosure. Each of those decisions expands the attack surface, and the 0.9.x line shows the bill arriving: security hardening now leads the release notes rather than following them. The team has also visibly grown from one maintainer to a named pair, which is what made the parallel reader and foundation rewrites possible.
◆ Prediction
The next release is likely the delayed scanner-improvement work that 0.8.7 displaced, with continued API hardening rather than new reader surfaces. Expect the CVE details to be published once adoption of 0.9.0.2 is high enough.
SiYuan
6.3COLLAB
SiYuan opened a 3.8 branch and put AI agents, embeddings search and MCP in the first alpha.
◆ Current state
The 3.7.4 alpha series ran as pure enhancement work with cumulative notes — each alpha restates the previous list and adds a line or two — covering mobile and HarmonyOS parity, database view refinements, drag-and-drop polish, and sync performance. The first 3.8 alpha breaks that pattern with a Feature block: secure OIDC authentication, an AI Agent, semantic search using embeddings and reranking, and Model Context Protocol support.
◆ Where it's heading
Two years of this changelog have been editor and database ergonomics for a local-first note tool. The 3.8 opening moves the product into retrieval and agent territory in one step, and pairs it with OIDC — which suggests the target is shared or self-hosted deployments, not just single-user vaults. The mobile and HarmonyOS work continues underneath.
◆ Prediction
Expect the 3.8 alpha series to spend several releases stabilising the embedding and MCP surface, with the practical questions — which models, local or remote, and what leaves the vault — resolved in later alphas rather than this one.
Alternatives to Kavita 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 Kavita or SiYuan.
Ethico
The whistleblower hotline vendor is assembling a compliance suite, one module at a time.
Contractbook
Contract automation grows up: admin permission maps, 2FA, and forms that do their own arithmetic.
Tana
The knowledge graph quietly turned itself into a meetings product.
Miniflux
A minimal RSS reader that made passkeys the only way in, then went back to polishing the reading experience.
Shiori
A Go bookmark manager rebuilding itself around an API — and only ever shipping release candidates.
See all Kavita alternatives → · See all SiYuan alternatives →
Recent activity from Kavita and SiYuan
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 1h agoSiYuanSiYuan v3.8.0-alpha.1 ⚡
- 2d agoSiYuan3.7.4-alpha.6 adds tab dragging and child documents from selection
- 3d agoSiYuan3.7.4-alpha.5 adds S Pen hover and configurable tab startup
- 3d agoSiYuan3.7.4-alpha.4 improves Pandoc storage and mobile fonts
- 5d agoSiYuan3.7.4-alpha.3 improves sync performance and database toolbars
- 9d agoSiYuan3.7.4-alpha.2 improves opening rows from the relation selector
- 2mo agoKavitav0.9.0.2 - Security Hotfix
- 3mo agoKavitav0.9.0 - Reading List Overhaul and Spring Cleaning
- 6mo agoKavitaAuth Keys endpoint smoothed out for external app authors
- 6mo agoKavitav0.8.9 - New Stats pages, Journal Style reading, 50x Faster Scanner, and so much more! ⚡
- 7mo agoKavitav0.8.7 - Comic Metadata Downloading, Reading Profiles, Browse by Genre and More
- 8mo agoKavitav0.8.8 - Epub Reader Overhaul, an Annotation System and OIDC! ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Kavita and SiYuan?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. SiYuan is currently shipping more aggressively (velocity 6.3 vs 0.0), 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 Kavita 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 0.0), 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 Kavita?
Top Kavita alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Kavita alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/kavita 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.