Comparison

SiYuan vs HomeLab Watcher

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

HomeLab Watcher

Monitor the health of your homelab resources with a private, one-glance dashboard. View HTTP services, Beszel machines, and Proxmox VE nodes, with customizable widgets for your home and lock screens. All data and configuration remain on your device.

Highlights
  • Unified dashboard for HTTP, Beszel, and Proxmox VE
  • Real-time status and observation age
  • Home Screen, Lock Screen, and interactive widgets
  • Direct refresh from iPhone
  • Private by design: no accounts, cloud, or analytics
  • Read-only status checks
Features
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HomeLab Watcher gives you one calm, private glance at the latest known health of the homelab resources you care about. ONE HONEST DASHBOARD • See HTTP services, Beszel machines, and Proxmox VE nodes together • Separate the last successful observation from the latest refresh attempt • Recognize healthy, attention, unhealthy, unknown, aging, and stale states • Refresh all resources or one system directly from your iPhone USEFUL WIDGETS • Small Home Screen status widget • Medium resource overview • Lock Screen status • Interactive refresh without automatically opening the app • Explicit observation age because iOS controls background timing PRIVATE BY DESIGN • No HomeLab Watcher account • No cloud relay or hosted backend • No analytics, ads, tracking, or remote logs • Configuration stays on device • Credentials stay in Apple Keychain • Requests go directly to systems you configure READ ONLY HomeLab Watcher checks status and metrics. It does not start, stop, restart, delete, update, or otherwise administer your infrastructure. TRY BEFORE YOU BUY Sample Lab demonstrates every important presentation state without credentials or a reachable homelab. The free app also supports two HTTP or HTTPS resources and the small widget. LIFETIME UNLOCK A one-time purchase unlocks unlimited resources, Beszel, Proxmox VE, and every widget family. There is no subscription. SUPPORTED CONNECTIONS HomeLab Watcher works with addresses reachable from your iPhone over LAN, an existing private network route, or public HTTPS. iOS system certificate trust is required; the app never bypasses TLS security. HomeLab Watcher is not affiliated with or endorsed by Proxmox Server Solutions GmbH or the Beszel project.

Screenshots

SiYuan4 screens
HomeLab Watcher4 screens

Verdict

The call

The clearest difference is rating: HomeLab Watcher at 5.0 against SiYuan's 3.9. SiYuan's advantage is ratings volume (30 vs 2). On price, update cadence, ads and in-app purchases 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 HomeLab Watcher sells 1 one-off in-app purchase. Whichever you choose, the download price is not the number that matters.

ReceptionRating · Positive reviews · Number of ratings

HomeLab Watcher holds the better App Store score, 5.0 against 3.9. That said, the two scores are not equally well evidenced: SiYuan has 30 ratings behind it against 2, so its average is the more settled of the two.

UpkeepUpdate frequency

SiYuan ships an update weekly, HomeLab Watcher every 5 days. The most recent releases landed on October 24, 2026 and October 25, 2026 respectively.

Scorecard2 real differences · 8 level
SiYuan versus HomeLab Watcher: the parameters behind the verdict, then further details
ParameterSiYuanHomeLab Watcher
PriceFreeFree
Rating3.9 (30 ratings)5.0 (2 ratings) — better
Positive reviews66.7% of reviews—
Number of ratings30 — better2
Update frequencyWeeklyEvery 5 days — better
AdsNoNo
In-app purchasesYesYes
MonetizationFree with in-app purchasesFree with in-app purchases
DevicesiPhone, iPadiPhone, iPad, Apple Watch — better
Requires iOS17.017.0
Further details — not scored
Size434 MB15 MB
Age rating17+4+
DeveloperYunnan Liandi Technology Co., Ltd.YANCY SHEPHERD

In-app purchases

2 purchases

SiYuan

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

HomeLab Watcher

One-time1
  • HomeLab Watcher Lifetime$4.99

Questions

Is SiYuan free?
SiYuan is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Is HomeLab Watcher free?
HomeLab Watcher is free to download, with in-app purchases available.
Which has better reviews, SiYuan or HomeLab Watcher?
HomeLab Watcher is rated higher. SiYuan averages 3.9 out of 5 from 30 ratings, while HomeLab Watcher averages 5.0 from 2 ratings.
Do SiYuan or HomeLab Watcher have ads?
Neither SiYuan nor HomeLab Watcher shows ads.
Which is updated more often, SiYuan or HomeLab Watcher?
SiYuan ships an update weekly, and HomeLab Watcher every 5 days. Most recently, SiYuan was updated on October 24, 2026 and HomeLab Watcher on October 25, 2026.

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