Comparison

SiYuan vs Harbor Notes

Price, ratings, monetisation and update history for both apps, side by side — with what reviewers say about each.

Head to head
About

SiYuan

A privacy-focused personal knowledge management system that allows offline use and encrypted data synchronization. It combines blocks, outlines, and bidirectional links to help users organize and refine their thoughts.

Highlights
  • Privacy-first design
  • Offline data storage
  • End-to-end encrypted sync
  • Block-based organization
  • Outline structuring
  • Bidirectional linking
Features
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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.

About

Harbor Notes

Capture, organize, and secure all your thoughts, tasks, and files in one private space. This app offers rich note-taking features, robust organization, and instant search, even within images and scanned documents. Your data is yours, with optional end-to-end encryption and no ads or data selling.

Highlights
  • Rich notes with checklists, tables, and highlights
  • Notebooks, stacks, and tags for organization
  • Task management with due dates
  • Document scanning and sketching
  • Voice memos and file attachments
  • Instant search with OCR
  • Offline-first native apps
Features
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Harbor is your private second brain — a fast, native notes app for people who want to remember everything and own it for life. Capture notes, organize them into notebooks, tag anything, attach photos and files, scan paper documents, sketch ideas, and record voice memos. Then find any of it in seconds — Harbor's search even reads the text inside your images and scans. REMEMBER EVERYTHING • Rich notes with checklists, tables, images, links, and highlights • Notebooks and stacks that keep every part of your life organized • Tags that cut across notebooks • Tasks with due dates, right beside your notes • Scan documents with your camera; sketch with your finger or Apple Pencil • Voice memos and file attachments of every kind • Instant search across everything — including the text inside images and scans (OCR) YOURS, EVERYWHERE • Truly native apps for iPhone, iPad, and Mac — no web wrapper • Offline-first: your notes live on your device and sync automatically • The full web app at app.harbor.my from any browser • A web clipper that saves articles and pages straight into your notebooks PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No ads. No selling your data. No training AI on your notes. Ever. • Optional end-to-end encryption locks down your most sensitive notes so that no one — not even us — can read them • Export everything anytime in open formats. You are never locked in. SWITCHING FROM ANOTHER NOTES APP? Import your Evernote notebooks (.enex files) with the Mac or web app — your notebooks, tags, and attachments sync straight to your iPhone and iPad. SIMPLE, HONEST PRICING Harbor is free for up to 50 notes, 3 notebooks, and 20 tags — no credit card required. When you outgrow the free plan, Harbor Unlimited removes every limit: • $9.99/month or $99/year • Unlimited notes, notebooks, tags, tasks, and files • A written price-lock promise in our terms: your price won't go up for at least 3 years Subscriptions are billed to your Apple ID and renew automatically until cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Manage or cancel anytime in your App Store account settings. And even if you stop paying, you can always read and export your notes — Harbor never holds your data hostage. Privacy Policy: https://harbor.my/privacy/ Terms of Use: https://harbor.my/terms/ Questions? A real person answers: help@harbor.my

Screenshots

SiYuan4 screens
Harbor Notes4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: Harbor Notes at 5.0 against SiYuan's 4.0. Harbor Notes also leads on review sentiment (100% vs 70%) and update cadence (every 4 days vs weekly). SiYuan's advantage is ratings volume (29 vs 4). On price, ads, in-app purchases and monetization model 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

CostPrice · In-app purchases · Ads · Monetization

Both are free to download. SiYuan sells 2 one-off in-app purchases and Harbor Notes sells 2 in-app purchases, starting at $9.99 per month. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

Harbor Notes holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 4.0. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SiYuan has 29 ratings behind it against 4, so its average is the more settled of the two. Written reviews point the same way: 70% of SiYuan's written reviews are positive against 100% of Harbor Notes's.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SiYuan ships an update weekly, Harbor Notes every 4 days. The most recent releases landed on October 3, 2026 and October 11, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard4 real differences · 6 level
SiYuan versus Harbor Notes: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSiYuanHarbor Notes
PriceFreeFree
Rating4.0 (29 ratings)5.0 (4 ratings) — better
Positive reviews70.0% of reviews100.0% of reviews — better
Number of ratings29 — better4
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 4 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFreemium
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Mac — better
Requires iOS17.0 — better18.0
Further details — not scored
Size363 MB37 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperYunnan Liandi Technology Co., Ltd.Cloudmanic Labs, LLC

Customer experience

SiYuan

All ratings29 ratings
Positive75.9%
Neutral3.4%
Negative20.7%
Written reviews20 reviews
Positive70.0%
Neutral15.0%
Negative15.0%

Harbor Notes

All ratings4 ratings
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%
Written reviews1 reviews
Positive100.0%
Neutral0.0%
Negative0.0%

In-app purchases

2 purchases

SiYuan

One-time2
  • PRO Features$79.99
  • Subscription$188.99
2 purchases

Harbor Notes

Subscriptions2
  • Unlimited — Monthly$9.991 Month
  • Unlimited — Yearly$99.001 Year

Questions

Is SiYuan free?
SiYuan is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is Harbor Notes free?
Harbor Notes is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, SiYuan or Harbor Notes?
Harbor Notes is rated higher. SiYuan averages 4.0 out of 5 from 29 ratings, while Harbor Notes averages 5.0 from 4 ratings.
Do SiYuan or Harbor Notes have ads?
Neither SiYuan nor Harbor Notes shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SiYuan or Harbor Notes?
SiYuan ships an update weekly, and Harbor Notes every 4 days. Most recently, SiYuan was updated on October 3, 2026 and Harbor Notes on October 11, 2026.

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