#siyuan — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #siyuan, aggregated by home.social.
-
From Obsidian to SiYuan: Why Your Homelab Needs a Database, Not Just Notes 📚💻
As a system analyst, I’ve always been obsessed with structuring chaos. For years, Obsidian was my go-to "Second Brain." It’s powerful, but as my Homelab expanded, I realized I didn't just need notes — I needed a living documentation engine that I could access via web from any device in my network.
I’ve tested the whole spectrum: Docmost, Trillium, and AFFiNE.
- AFFiNE is beautiful (Notion + Miro vibes), but its "infinite canvas" often leads to visual chaos. It's great for sketching a network topology, but terrible when you need to find a specific CLI command via Ctrl+F.
- SiYuan changed the game for me. It’s currently at the heart of my local stack.
Why SiYuan is the "Final Boss" of Self-Hosted Note-taking:
1. Block-Level Granularity (JSON Power): 🧩
Unlike standard Markdown, SiYuan assigns a unique ID to every single paragraph and list item. This allows for transclusion—you can pull a specific VPN setup instruction into five different guides, and when you update the original, it updates everywhere.
2. The SQL Killer-Feature: ⚡
This is where it turns into a professional CMDB (Configuration Management Database). I don't manually track my 50+ Docker containers in a table. I just add custom attributes to my service notes:custom-ip: 192.168.1.10custom-port: 8080
Then, I use a native SQL query on my Dashboard to automatically generate a real-time "Service Matrix." If I change a port in a note, the master table updates itself. No more IP conflicts.
3. Performance & Sovereignty: 🛡️
- Resource Efficiency: While AFFiNE is a bit of a resource hog, SiYuan is incredibly light, idling at just 31MB in my Docker container.
- No Vendor-Lock: Even though it uses.sy(JSON) files for its advanced logic, the export to Markdown is flawless and can be automated via Kernel API.
The Verdict:
If you have 3-4 services, stick to Obsidian. But if you’re running a Proxmox cluster with complex networking, you need a tool that speaks SQL.
Don't let your documentation become legacy hardware. Give it a database-driven brain.
What about you? Are you a "pure Markdown" purist, or have you embraced the power of block-based databases like SiYuan or Notion? How do you track your Homelab inventory?
#SelfHosted #Homelab #SiYuan #Obsidian #KnowledgeManagement #SQL #SysAdmin #Documentation #TechStack #Privacy #OpenSource -
Huge respect mate.
There are two paths in front of us.
One cricles back.
The other leads into the mists of uncertainty where we forge our own destiny.One of the proto-hacker books "Shockwave rider" is exactly the vibe I got reading your comment. We barely can keep our head above water, but if we float, we will be made stronger by the experience.
#ClaudeAI has recently added (Sonnet 4.5 I think) the ability to use previous sessions as memory.
This is very cool and aids in dissecting your previous sessions.NB. I tried to collect logs too, but had issues with Markup language archiving... In the end I used a Knowledge Management System called #SiYuan to gather logs.
-
Getting to like the #SiYuan knowledge management system.
Bonus:
#markdown text is superbly rendered.
E.g. You can copy-pasta AI summaries you want to locally keep.Downside:
- You can insert PDF documents (after you install a widget, which is easy)
- You can NOT insert HTML documents.
Workaround:
a) Print them to PDF
b) You can create a widget for each HTML file (separate widget+index.html+json) /eyeroll -
Ok.
So this is a perfect example of how to get the #LLM to #Vibecode gud.I have wanted two instances of SiYuan. My efforts to do the obvious things to clone one from the other were failing (I had two instances but they were still interconnected somehow - in hindsight internal podman network most likely).
Prompt 1:
(abbreviated) gimme configs for 2nd Siyuan instance.
Result: FailurePrompt 2:
(abbreviated) gimme configs for 2nd Siyuan instance, given instance 1 is working. Gather all the data about instance 1 THEN give me config for instance 2.
Result: SuccessTLDR; Suprisingly, the computer STILL will do only exactly what you tell it to do. That has not changed.
Folks who insist AI takes away your critical reasoning... probably don't do much of it anyway (spicy take). -
ok so it seems like they are transitioning to some new system, while also somehow keeping the old one (?)
#logseq has a lot of open issues, most of them don't seem to get resolved. On Android, I can only use backspace to delete blocks if I use GBoard or Samsung Keboard - no FOSS keyboard :((
And I've read some things about data loss and privacy issues when using the "publish" feature.
I think I'll try something else. Any suggestions? I'm considering #joplin , #appflowy , #siyuan , #beavernotes , #zettlr -
Final Verdict... Im pretty happy with #SiYuan Knowledge management system. Happy enough to give it a whirl.
Easy to set up, and has some nice features.
As an aside... Its nice to see some SOLID Software come out of Peoples Republic of China.
-
If anyone cares... #SiYuan #NginX Seems rock solid stable now 😀
# === Essential Headers ===
proxy_set_header Host $http_host;
proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $remote_addr;# === Database Stability Timeouts ===
proxy_read_timeout 3600s;
proxy_send_timeout 3600s;
proxy_connect_timeout 300s;# === Disable Caching for Database Operations ===
proxy_buffering off;
proxy_cache off;
proxy_no_cache 1;
proxy_cache_bypass 1;# === Error Handling ===
proxy_intercept_errors off;
proxy_next_upstream off; -
So far... I am liking #SiYuan #Zettlekasten system. Unlike #obsidian its build for network hosting use.
Istallation was a breeze.
My major gripe, and I guess it goes to all systems like this is document conversion. But then I guess, they are NOT a document management system.
-
🔏 Gestiona tu Conocimiento Privadamente con SiYuan
Explora SiYuan: software de gestión de conocimientos que respeta tu privacidad. Desarrollado en TypeScript y Go, es ideal para organizar tu información. ¡Pruébalo ahora! https://t.me/aitorroma/1280 #TypeScript #Go #SiYuan
-
Discover SiYuan: #Privacy-First Knowledge Management System 🧠
🔒 #SiYuan offers #privacy-first personal #knowledgemanagement with fine-grained block-level references
📝 Features #Markdown WYSIWYG editing with list outlining and block zoom-in capabilities
🧵 👇 #ai #opensource #cms
-
Hi all. Latest #PKM Weekly (15-Feb-25) is live:
#tana Office hours and Skills
#Capacities latest release
#logseq Group views
#Obsidian Updates and alternatives
#Anytype Updates (lots of them)
#Heptabase Task view
#noteey and #SiYuan updates.- https://ednico.substack.com/p/pkm-weekly-2025-02-15
- https://ednico.medium.com/pkm-weekly-2025-02-15-90654afc1aec
Many thanks as always
-
Hi all. #PKM Weekly (19-Jan-25) is live:
#Capacities Update (and oops...sneak peek). #logseq DB Version updates.
#tana updates (no mobile), #obsidan Gems of 2024 vote and #appflowy AI (wow!).
Also:
- Orca Note
- #Heptabase
- #TwosApp
- Journal It
- #SiYuan
- #Notion
- Sen-Labs- https://ednico.substack.com/p/pkm-weekly-2025-01-19
- https://ednico.medium.com/pkm-weekly-2025-01-19-fd53559cd717
Thank you as always for reading
-
Tested the fourth PKM: #SiYuan (https://b3log.org/siyuan/), which is pretty similar to Anytype feature-wise.
It's also a product that starts off with saying that it's "privacy-first", supported by what might be the world's shortest privacy policy, which clearly states: "Does not collect user personal information and usage data."
Unfortunately, the Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager scripts that are loaded on start are nowhere mentioned. No warning, no consent question, on by default.
1/n
-
@candide @weaselshit
I'll add a vote in favor of #siyuanI've used obsidian for several years, but recently, I've started to use Siyuan more and more. It has so many features out of the box that require plugins in Obsidian.
It also scales incredibly well (from what I've seen). I think it's well served by storing every block in a #sqlite DB- it makes it really easy to write queries against your notes.
I don't disagree with any of your cons, btw.
-
#siyuan: A privacy-first, self-hosted, fully open source personal knowledge management software, written in typescript and golang. https://github.com/siyuan-note/siyuan
#knowledge -
@TobiasPaur An mir scrollte gerade #SiYuan in @fdroidorg vorbei ... könnte das passen?
#Notion #AlternativeTo #NoteTaking #KnowledgeMap #Mindmap #ConceptMap #ConceptBoard #Clipping #KnowledgeManagement #Wissensmanagement #Zettelkasten
-
@TobiasPaur An mir scrollte gerade #SiYuan in @fdroidorg vorbei ... könnte das passen?
#Notion #AlternativeTo #NoteTaking #KnowledgeMap #Mindmap #ConceptMap #ConceptBoard #Clipping #KnowledgeManagement #Wissensmanagement #Zettelkasten
-
@TobiasPaur An mir scrollte gerade #SiYuan in @fdroidorg vorbei ... könnte das passen?
#Notion #AlternativeTo #NoteTaking #KnowledgeMap #Mindmap #ConceptMap #ConceptBoard #Clipping #KnowledgeManagement #Wissensmanagement #Zettelkasten
-
@TobiasPaur An mir scrollte gerade #SiYuan in @fdroidorg vorbei ... könnte das passen?
#Notion #AlternativeTo #NoteTaking #KnowledgeMap #Mindmap #ConceptMap #ConceptBoard #Clipping #KnowledgeManagement #Wissensmanagement #Zettelkasten
-
@TobiasPaur An mir scrollte gerade #SiYuan in @fdroidorg vorbei ... könnte das passen?
#Notion #AlternativeTo #NoteTaking #KnowledgeMap #Mindmap #ConceptMap #ConceptBoard #Clipping #KnowledgeManagement #Wissensmanagement #Zettelkasten
-
One small feature I enjoy that both #logseq and #siyuan include is universal search.
For example, in Logseq, it's called "Search pages and blocks" and it lets you instantly search any text across your entire graph.
Being able to navigate and find any text at the speed of thought is what I mean when I say that these apps in particular are low friction.
-
@weaselshit #Siyuan Cons:
- Very small user base in the languages I can read/understand
- No stream of journal entries like Logseq
- Almost too many icons? Too many separate menu items?
- Some odd UX choices (esp media embeds), and jumpy popups when hovering to the left of blocks
- I kind of miss being able to go into edit mode by selecting a block in Logseq. This app is very much WYSIWYG(4/)
-
@weaselshit So far, I've narrowed down my wish list to the following: https://vis.social/@candide/112136340101035491
Currently testing:
#Siyuan (https://b3log.org/siyuan/en/) Pros:
+ Impressive feature set
+ Nice interface, for the most part
+ Good outliner + long-form hybridity
+ Block embeds are some of the best I've seen
+ Panels, tabs, modular windows, doc trees, page outlines
+ Can create columns of content like Notion
+ Inline text formatting toolbar(3/)
-
@Marco_Mindstone TBH I find myself really skeptical where they want to go with Skiff. While the Cron integration is well-executed, I think the core Notion UX could still use innovations and overhauls, and just slapping more and more quasi-distinct applications on the edges of the data model isn’t going to fix some gaps.
Mid- to long-term, I suspect Notion is going to run out of water compared to apps like #Capacities or open-source efforts like #SiYuan
-
#Tryingout #SiYuan 3.0.0 Alpha 2 #pkm
cc @nhan
SiYan defs are definitely moving. In Alpha 1, databases were only visible from the database block itself. Now when you open the attribute list of a block, there are three tabs at the top, one of which is for databases. You can now edit properties of each database row in place, with some present limitations.
Database membership is not yet indicated in the normal editor UI.