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Comparison · Collab
Readwise vs SiYuan
A side-by-side editorial comparison of Readwise and SiYuan — release velocity, themes, recent moves, and the top alternatives to consider.
Readwise vs SiYuan: at a glance
What is Readwise?
Two big swings in July and August, and since then Readwise has been paying the bill.
Readwise shipped a full mobile rewrite in late July and library-wide Ghostreader a fortnight later, and the weekly changelogs since have been almost entirely repair. The August 28 week is typical: thirteen fixes against five real improvements, spread across EPUB handling, chart and video embeds, Ghostreader chat on both mobile platforms, and Boox e-ink devices. The one consistent addition each week is parsing coverage for more publishers.
What is SiYuan?
SiYuan re-tagged the same 3.8.2 changelog three times in thirty hours
The 3.8.2 line is a cumulative train: every tag republishes the full release list rather than a delta. Beta.1 was the superset, and beta.2, beta.3 and beta.4 all landed within thirty hours carrying a byte-identical changelog. The substance in that shared list is editor ergonomics (scrolling the viewport without moving the caret, configurable cursor surrounding lines), a broad mobile pass (configurable bottom bar, swipe gestures, marketplace access), and continued build-out of the AI Agent introduced in 3.8.0.
Readwise vs SiYuan: editorial side-by-side
Readwise
6.3COLLAB
Two big swings in July and August, and since then Readwise has been paying the bill.
◆ Current state
Readwise shipped a full mobile rewrite in late July and library-wide Ghostreader a fortnight later, and the weekly changelogs since have been almost entirely repair. The August 28 week is typical: thirteen fixes against five real improvements, spread across EPUB handling, chart and video embeds, Ghostreader chat on both mobile platforms, and Boox e-ink devices. The one consistent addition each week is parsing coverage for more publishers.
◆ Where it's heading
The fix list is a map of where the rewrite is still settling — pagination and layout stability on Android tablets, chat sheets and message sending on mobile, exports arriving with page CSS attached. Underneath that, small capabilities keep arriving quietly: Apple Books folder-EPUBs now upload, interactive charts render as linked images instead of an import notice, non-Latin titles survive the trip to Kindle. The company is broadening what it can ingest and export while stabilising what it rebuilt.
◆ Prediction
Expect the weekly cadence to hold with fixes still outnumbering additions, and the remaining Boox and Android tablet issues to keep appearing until the mobile rewrite fully settles.
SiYuan
6.3COLLAB
SiYuan re-tagged the same 3.8.2 changelog three times in thirty hours
◆ Current state
The 3.8.2 line is a cumulative train: every tag republishes the full release list rather than a delta. Beta.1 was the superset, and beta.2, beta.3 and beta.4 all landed within thirty hours carrying a byte-identical changelog. The substance in that shared list is editor ergonomics (scrolling the viewport without moving the caret, configurable cursor surrounding lines), a broad mobile pass (configurable bottom bar, swipe gestures, marketplace access), and continued build-out of the AI Agent introduced in 3.8.0.
◆ Where it's heading
Two surfaces are absorbing most of the work. The Agent keeps gaining reach rather than changing shape — image upload in agent chat, independent execution across sessions, skill inline markers, kernel log access for error analysis — all extensions of the capability 3.8.0-alpha.1 established. The plugin API is the other growth area, adding roughly a dozen hooks this cycle covering dock visibility, link interception, asset upload interception and breadcrumb buttons.
◆ Prediction
With four betas out and the changelog frozen since beta.1, the next tag in this line is most likely a 3.8.2 stable release.
Alternatives to Readwise 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 Readwise or SiYuan.
Hive
Hive is building the plumbing its Buzz AI snippets need to run on real team data
Mattermost
Mattermost is selling sovereignty and air-gapped AI, with releases buried in the argument
Paperless-ngx
Paperless-ngx is patching hard behind a 3.1 release that made AI a workflow step
Read the Docs
Read the Docs ships a dated release every week, and this one is documentation and dependencies
Zoho Sign
Zoho Sign is clearing the exit path off Docusign while stacking up regional legal assurance
See all Readwise alternatives → · See all SiYuan alternatives →
Recent activity from Readwise and SiYuan
Latest ship moves from both products, interleaved chronologically. ⚡ = editorial spark.
- 4d agoSiYuanFourth 3.8.2 beta re-tags an unchanged changelog
- 4d agoSiYuanThird 3.8.2 beta ships beta.1's changelog verbatim
- 4d agoSiYuanSecond 3.8.2 beta leaves the changelog unchanged
- 5d agoSiYuanBeta.1 adds caret-free scrolling and mobile draft recovery
- 5d agoReadwiseApple Books EPUBs, chart embeds, and non-Latin Kindle titles
- 6d agoSiYuanCustomizable startup screens and SVG notebook icons
- 6d agoSiYuanv3.8.2-alpha.6: Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/dev' into dev
- 12d agoReadwiseAuto-scroll preference persists and Kindle disconnect works properly
- 19d agoReadwiseFaster manual highlight entry and steadier highlight scanning
- 26d agoReadwiseGlobal Ghostreader reads and acts across your whole library ⚡
- 1mo agoReadwiseMastery cards, Discards, and multilingual scanning restored on mobile
- 1mo agoReadwiseReadwise 2.0 rebuilds the mobile apps from scratch ⚡
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between Readwise and SiYuan?
They serve adjacent needs but don't currently overlap on shipped themes. Readwise and SiYuan are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 6.3 vs 6.3, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). See the at-a-glance table above for a side-by-side breakdown of velocity, recent sparks, and editorial themes.
Is Readwise better than SiYuan?
Sparkpulse doesn't pick a winner — we score release velocity, not feature parity. Readwise and SiYuan are shipping at a similar cadence (velocity 6.3 vs 6.3, both within Sparkpulse's "active" band). For your specific use case, the alternatives sections above list other Collab products to evaluate alongside.
What are the best alternatives to Readwise?
Top Readwise alternatives in Collab are ranked by recent ship velocity. Browse the "Readwise alternatives" section above for the current picks, or visit /alternatives/readwise 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.