As a paid user and donor who has been using the software for half a year, I do not recommend its usage. Certain features of the software require account registration. However, the developers manage accounts arbitrarily, unilaterally changing account usage rules temporarily, and exercising speech control within the forum, directly altering or deleting posts that question their actions. You might consider using Obsidian or Logseq instead.
Version 3 has great additions to an already awesome app. General availability of databases and we can now set any LLM that is openAI or Azure compatible. I use ollama to serve Mixtral locally and use it in Siyuan.
My main writing app. Siyuan has all the features I need, it's extendable, and it works.
I deduct one star because the desktop application is Electron-based, which I am extremely against, and they ask users to pay in order to sync their notes. I self-host my own, so I don't have to deal with either of those issues.
I've been searching for months for the ultimate PKMS. SiYuan is it, and it's made by a power couple who are dedicated to FOSS. Offline first, beautiful transclusion support, completely cross platform. I'm in love. The pace of development is incredibly rapid as well, as opposed to some FOSS projects that seem to be on life support.
Disastrous usability and aesthetic appeal, infrequent updates, no free synchronization quota, all of which are indeed dissatisfying.
But in terms of functionality, it's almost impeccable, and flawless coupled with the plugins.
As an Obsidian user for two years, and continue to pay attention to applications such as Anytype.
I think the experience with Siyuan surpasses that of Obsidian.
Self-hosting allowed and local first, PDF annotation, block sync.
Looking forward to next year's maze feature (whiteboard).
