SiYuan
by SiYuan · Privacy-first personal knowledge management built on content blocks
BenchRank score
Screenshots of SiYuan
Homepage
Overview
SiYuan is a personal knowledge management system built around content blocks, with WYSIWYG editing, block-level references, backlinks and a relationship graph. Notes are stored on the device and work offline, with end-to-end encrypted incremental sync between devices. It also has flashcards using the FSRS algorithm, databases with relation and rollup, and an OpenAI connection for writing help.
- Best for
- Individuals who want a local-first, block-based notes app with bidirectional links and encrypted sync
- Pricing
- No prices appear in the captured text; the homepage says the download is free to use and links to a separate Pricing page that was not captured.
Strengths and trade-offs
Strengths
- Data stays on the device and works with no network
- Block-level refs, backlinks and a global link graph
- End-to-end encrypted, incremental sync between devices
- Self-hostable with Docker; LAN access from mobile browsers
Trade-offs
- AI help needs an OpenAI connection rather than a built-in model
- Mobile access over LAN requires the desktop machine to be running
- Multi-user access only via self-hosted Docker with an access code
How SiYuan markets itself
A structured read of the promise, proof and page design on SiYuan’s captured homepage.
Homepage capture
“From thought to insight, with agents”
- Angle: Outcome / benefit-led
- Hero: Product screenshot
Pricing
Published plans and prices from SiYuan’s own pricing page.
How this score is made up
Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.
MCP support
Whether an agent can drive the product through the Model Context Protocol, and how much setup that takes.
Documentation
Publicly reachable docs — coverage, freshness, code samples and machine readability.
Agent friendliness
How readable the site is to an automated client: llms.txt, structured data, server-rendered content, crawler access.
Customer sentiment
Third-party ratings, shrunk toward the catalogue mean by review volume and corroborated across independent sources.
Changelog
A public, dated record of what shipped and when — the clearest signal that a product is still alive.
Marketing site structure
Whether the site answers a buyer's questions: clear positioning, the pages that matter, and accessibility.
Page speed
How fast the site loads for real visitors: Chrome UX Report 75th-percentile LCP, INP and CLS, with a Lighthouse mobile run standing in where a site has too little traffic for field data.
Operational trust
Status page and incident history, security disclosure, compliance and data-processing documentation.
Measured, but not part of the score
Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.
Openness
Source availability, self-hosting, data export and open standards. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — paid SaaS is not worse for being paid SaaS.
Maintenance
Release cadence and repository activity. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — it is only measurable for open repositories.
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Where this comes from
The SiYuan pages BenchRank reads when it scores the product — its documentation, release notes, status and security pages, and its repository where there is one.
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Is this your product?
Claim SiYuan to manage its profile. Claiming lets you suggest edits to the descriptive fields — it never changes scores or rankings.