Outline
Outline gave AI assistants write access to the wiki, then spent months on the human side.
Comparison · Collab
noVNC vs SiYuan
A side-by-side editorial comparison of noVNC and SiYuan — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
noVNC vs SiYuan: at a glance
What is noVNC?
noVNC ships about once a year, and its betas and finals carry identical notes.
noVNC released 1.7.0 in April 2026, six months after its beta and thirteen months after 1.6.0. Each release pairs a beta and a final whose release notes are word-for-word identical — 1.6.0 and its beta were even published sixteen seconds apart. The 1.7.0 highlights are modest: Croatian and Hungarian translations, a styling fix for near-invisible buttons, and a warning before closing a session tab when view-only is off.
What is SiYuan?
SiYuan's 3.8 branch turns a local-first notebook into an agent-readable knowledge store.
SiYuan publishes near-daily alpha tags whose notes are cumulative, so each release restates the previous one's feature list and appends what is new. The 3.7.4 line was pure enhancement work — Android and HarmonyOS parity, export fidelity, Pandoc packaging, drag-and-drop and font handling. The 3.8.0 line, opened on 4 August, carries four genuinely new features that had no predecessor in 3.7.4: OIDC authentication, an AI Agent, semantic search via embeddings and reranking, and MCP support.
noVNC vs SiYuan: editorial side-by-side
noVNC
0.0COLLAB
noVNC ships about once a year, and its betas and finals carry identical notes.
◆ Current state
noVNC released 1.7.0 in April 2026, six months after its beta and thirteen months after 1.6.0. Each release pairs a beta and a final whose release notes are word-for-word identical — 1.6.0 and its beta were even published sixteen seconds apart. The 1.7.0 highlights are modest: Croatian and Hungarian translations, a styling fix for near-invisible buttons, and a warning before closing a session tab when view-only is off.
◆ Where it's heading
The project moves at roughly one release a year and spends it on polish and protocol compatibility rather than direction. The 1.6.0 cycle was the most substantial recently — declarative configuration through defaults.json and mandatory.json, relative WebSocket URLs, faster session resize — and 1.7.0 is lighter than that. This is infrastructure being kept correct, not extended.
◆ Prediction
Expect the next release around a year out, again paired with a beta carrying the same notes, and again weighted toward translations, encoding compatibility and interface fixes. Nothing in these entries points to a structural change.
SiYuan
6.3COLLAB
SiYuan's 3.8 branch turns a local-first notebook into an agent-readable knowledge store.
◆ Current state
SiYuan publishes near-daily alpha tags whose notes are cumulative, so each release restates the previous one's feature list and appends what is new. The 3.7.4 line was pure enhancement work — Android and HarmonyOS parity, export fidelity, Pandoc packaging, drag-and-drop and font handling. The 3.8.0 line, opened on 4 August, carries four genuinely new features that had no predecessor in 3.7.4: OIDC authentication, an AI Agent, semantic search via embeddings and reranking, and MCP support.
◆ Where it's heading
The mobile and export grind continues underneath, but the branch cut is where the direction changed. Semantic search plus MCP means the vault becomes queryable by meaning and reachable by external agents, while OIDC is the first real answer for multi-user or organizational deployment — a notable turn for a product built around single-user local storage. The alpha.3 addition of LAN peer-assisted sync acceleration points the same way: sync is being optimized for several devices, or several people, on one network.
◆ Prediction
Expect the 3.8 alphas to keep layering onto the AI Agent and MCP surfaces — most likely which blocks or notebooks an agent may read, since OIDC arriving in the same release implies identity is about to gate access rather than just login.
Alternatives to noVNC 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 noVNC or SiYuan.
Readarr
Six releases of small fixes and translations, then nothing since June 2025.
LibrePhotos
Five repos became one, and the authorization model got a public-safe user view.
Komga
A mature media server whose releases are format edge cases and Kobo plumbing.
Prowlarr
A steady indexer-maintenance cadence: fixes, definitions, translations, repeat.
Lidarr
Lidarr's release notes still tell you not to update Radarr — the fork's seams are showing.
See all noVNC alternatives → · See all SiYuan alternatives →
Recent activity from noVNC and SiYuan
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 12h agoSiYuanSiYuan 3.8.0-alpha.3 adds LAN peer-assisted sync acceleration
- 1d agoSiYuanSiYuan v3.8.0-alpha.2
- 1d agoSiYuanSiYuan 3.8 opens with AI Agent, semantic search, MCP, and OIDC ⚡
- 4d agoSiYuanSiYuan 3.7.4-alpha.6: tab dragging, child docs, S Pen hover
- 5d agoSiYuanSiYuan 3.7.4-alpha.5: database performance and mobile audio recording
- 5d agoSiYuanSiYuan 3.7.4-alpha.4: S Pen popovers and export file handling
- 3mo agonoVNC1.7.0 adds translations and a tab-close warning
- 9mo agonoVNC1.7.0 beta, identical notes to the final
- 1y agonoVNC1.6.0 beta, published alongside the final
- 1y agonoVNC1.6.0 brings declarative config and faster resize
- 2y agonoVNCTight gradient encoding and lock key syncing
- 2y agonoVNC1.5.0 beta, same notes as the final
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between noVNC 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 noVNC 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 noVNC?
Top noVNC alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "noVNC alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/novnc 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.