Foam vs SiYuan
Foam
docs.foam.md
SiYuan
b3log.orgSide by side
| Figure | Foam | SiYuan |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | $148/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | Yes |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| iOS | — | Yes |
| Android | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 4 |
| Spec score · Personal Knowledge Management Software | 8.7 (#6) | 8.5 (#12) |
| Spec score · Note-taking apps | 8.4 (#65) | 9.1 (#12) |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | Foam documents compatibility with Obsidian vaults and says users can open the same Markdown folder in VS Code with Foam installed. | Paid options include third-party S3 and WebDAV data sync and backup; users must provide their own storage, and Nutstore is not supported for WebDAV. |
| Note sharing | Yes | Yes |
| Offline access | Yes | Yes |
| Platforms | Foam runs as a VS Code extension, and its installation guide says VS Code supports cross-platform use. | Windows,macOS,Linux,iOS,Android,web interface,Chrome/Edge extension,API,Docker self-hosting |
| Purpose | Foam is a personal knowledge management system built on Visual Studio Code and GitHub for organizing research, creating discoverable notes, and publishing knowledge. | SiYuan describes itself as a privacy-first personal knowledge management system supporting Markdown, block-level references, and bidirectional links. |
Plans
SiYuan
- FreeFree
- Subscription$148 a month
- PRO Features$64, paid once
- Subscription$148, paid once
In their own words
SiYuan
SiYuan is a personal knowledge management system for building a linked collection of notes. It supports Markdown, block-level references and bidirectional links, and organizes content into blocks with more than 20 block-level and more than 10 span-level element types. Backlinks can be filtered and searched; relationship graphs are available across a notebook and at block level. Databases support relations, rollups and templates, while flashcards use the FSRS spaced-repetition algorithm. Its AI feature connects to OpenAI for writing continuation, translation, summaries, brainstorming and grammar or spelling corrections. SiYuan supports offline access, and the maker describes multi-device synchronization as incremental and end-to-end encrypted. It is available on Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android and the web, with a Chrome/Edge extension, API and Docker self-hosting. The maker says data stays under the user's control on their device. Free access is free; PRO Features is listed at $64 a month with lifetime-use wording, and Subscription at $148 a month with 8GB cloud storage.