SiYuan vs Xlist
Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.
SiYuan
A privacy-focused personal knowledge management system that allows offline use and encrypted data synchronization. It enables users to combine blocks, outlines, and bidirectional links to organize their thoughts.
- Privacy-first knowledge management
- Offline data support
- End-to-end encrypted sync
- Fuse blocks, outlines, and links
- Refactor thinking
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SiYuan is a privacy-first personal knowledge management system that supports complete offline use, as well as end-to-end encrypted data sync. Fuse blocks, outlines, and bidirectional links to refactor your thinking.
Xlist
Manage and preview files from multiple Alist servers. Supports online viewing of various document and video formats, along with essential file operations like downloading and renaming.
- Manage multiple Alist servers
- Online file previewing
- Video and document format support
- File download, rename, move, copy
- Background download function
- Subtitle plugin support
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Xlist is an Alist client where you can configure multiple Alist servers for file management and previewing, supporting online previewing of multiple video formats and document formats. - Support downloading, renaming, moving and copying of files. - Supports online preview of files in doc, docx, xls, xlsx, ppt, pptx, pdf formats. - Supports online preview of most videos such as mp4, mkv, avi, flv, etc. Also supports srt and vtt subtitle plugins. - Support jpg, png, gif and other formats of pictures online preview. - Background download function, you can open the preview file with other apps after the download is completed.
Screenshots
Verdict
The clearest difference is rating: Xlist at 4.2 against SiYuan's 3.9. Xlist also leads on iOS requirement (12.0 vs 17.0). On price, review sentiment, ratings volume and update cadence there is nothing between them.
Scored on Price · Rating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings · Update frequency · Ads · In-app purchases · Monetization · Best chart rank · Devices · Requires iOS
Both are free to download. SiYuan sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Xlist sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.
Xlist holds the better App Store score, 4.2 against 3.9. Both are backed by a comparable volume of ratings — 30 and 39 respectively. Written reviews point the same way: 67% of SiYuan's written reviews are positive against 71% of Xlist's.
SiYuan ships an update every 9 days, Xlist every 11 days. The most recent releases landed on November 11, 2026 and November 3, 2026 respectively.
| Parameter | SiYuan | Xlist |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| Rating | 3.9 (30 ratings) | 4.2 (39 ratings) — better |
| Positive reviews | 66.7% of reviews | 71.4% of reviews — better |
| Number of ratings | 30 | 39 — better |
| Update frequency | Every 9 days — better | Every 11 days |
| Ads | No | No |
| In-app purchases | Yes | Yes |
| Monetization | Free with in-app purchases | Free with in-app purchases |
| Devices | iPhone, iPad | iPhone, iPad, iPod — better |
| Requires iOS | 17.0 | 12.0 — better |
| Further details — not scored | ||
| Size | 456 MB | 57 MB |
| Age rating | 17+ | 4+ |
| Developer | Yunnan Liandi Technology Co., Ltd. | BeiJing Ziyu Technology Company Ltd. |
Customer experience
SiYuan
Xlist
In-app purchases
SiYuan
- PRO Features$79.99
- Subscription$188.99
Xlist
- Xlist Premium$4.99
