The block-based editor: Notion's killer feature, open source
SiYuan edits documents as blocks, not pages. Every paragraph, heading, list item, and code block is an independently referenceable unit. You can embed blocks from one document into another, and changes sync bidirectionally. This is the exact feature that makes Notion powerful, but SiYuan does it locally with SQLite. Creating a dashboard page that pulls data from 5 other documents is a drag-and-drop operation. Updates propagate instantly because everything is in a single SQLite file.
Migration from Notion: what works and what breaks
I exported 200 Notion pages as Markdown and CSV. SiYuan imported 180 pages correctly. The 20 failures were: Notion databases (rollups, relations, formulas) have no equivalent in SiYuan, embedded Figma frames became broken images, and pages with 50+ nested blocks hit a performance issue where the import hung. The import tool is functional but needs babysitting for large vaults. After migration, I spent 2 hours fixing broken links and reformatting database content into SiYuan's attribute table format.
Chinese language support: the hidden advantage
SiYuan's full-text search handles Chinese word segmentation correctly. Search for '机器学习' and it finds documents containing '机器' and '学习' even when separated by punctuation. This is the single feature that makes SiYuan better than Obsidian for Chinese users. Obsidian's search is character-based (not word-based), so searching Chinese requires exact substring matching. SiYuan also has a Chinese UI, Chinese documentation, and an active Chinese community on Gitee and the official forum.
Sync: $2/month or bring your own server
SiYuan Cloud Sync costs ¥14/month ($2) and uses S3-compatible storage. It syncs the entire workspace (notes, assets, settings) across devices. End-to-end encryption is available. If you prefer self-hosting, SiYuan supports WebDAV and S3 backends. I use a MinIO instance on my HK server for sync. It took 15 minutes to set up and syncs 200MB of notes in about 90 seconds on first run, 3 seconds on subsequent runs.
SiYuan vs Notion vs Obsidian vs Logseq
SiYuan: best for Chinese users, block-based like Notion, local-first, $2/mo sync. Notion: best collaboration, databases, web-first, free tier. Obsidian: best plugin ecosystem, vault-based, $5/mo sync. Logseq: best for outlining, open-source, block-based, free sync via Git. My rule: Chinese-first users → SiYuan. Teams needing databases and collaboration → Notion. Plugin power users → Obsidian. Outliners and open-source purists → Logseq.
