When comparing TiddlyWiki vs Dendron, the Slant community recommends TiddlyWiki for most people. In the question“What are the best knowledge base systems for personal use?” TiddlyWiki is ranked 5th while Dendron is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose TiddlyWiki is:
No commercial interests, no ads, no registration, no nonsense. You own your notes 100%.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Free and Open Source
No commercial interests, no ads, no registration, no nonsense. You own your notes 100%.
Pro Extremely customizable
This is a major aim and point with TiddlyWiki; people can relatively easily modify it to fit their particular application needs.
Pro Single html file
It's a single file and all your notes will be "accessible even in 25 years" because they can be seen in plain html text.
Pro Self-hosted and indefinitely accessible
All content is stored within the same html file as the interface.
Pro 10+ years mature
Mature software, active community with members from all over the world.
Pro Relational links
Allows for relational links and lists between notes to keep things organized.
Pro Lots of plugins
Pro Progressive user level, from ease of use to programming your own plugins
Basic users can start with simple note-taking, progressively discover predefined features and existing plugins, then start using more fancy features (like filters, widgets, macros), in order to adapt their wiki to their needs.
Pro Multiple, user-defined usages
The list of possible usages is practically infinite in TW, and more importantly it lets the user define their own method of dealing with their content.
Pro Easy to use
Low barrier of entry for the non IT knowledgeable.
Pro Backlinking and backtagging and brain graph visualization
Follow the link back-and-forth.
Pro Lightweight and very customizable
Variety of settings, and community themes & plugins, available from built-in marketplace (CPL library). Every community plugin is open-source which means you can learn from it and develop your own. Some plugin don't require programming knowledge (written using WikiText), and is very easy to learn.
Pro Support many text format (Markdown, WikiText, HTML, WYSIWYG...)
Suit for programmer, writer, Notion style WYSIWYG editor lover, and HTML UI designer.
Pro Locally stored, not dependent on cloud
Everything is stored in your device. You can back them up, encrypt and process however you want to. Works completely offline. Read your notes anytime, anywhere, in any platform, and sync between without cost.
Pro Backlink and BackTagging, advanced linking and cross-references in various ways
Every card can link to other card, and other card will see the way it's linked to. Use Tag for nesting and build folder structure. Tags are tree shaped, and count of tag is limitless. Backlink can be automatically generated or selectively generated using advanced filter.
Pro Update all links when renaming notes (required the Relink plugin)
Renames titles in "Tags" and "List" fields by default. Relink plugin updates titles in all links automatically.
Pro Host your TiddlyWiki file on GitHub for free
You can use the TiddlyWiki saver to save your TiddlyWiki file directly to your github repository. If you also use GitHub pages, then you can load your file wherever you happen to be, make changes, and update.
Pro Active and helpful community typically answers questions within hours
The official support forum is at talk.tiddlywiki.org. It's frequented by a large number of knowledgeable TiddlyWiki enthusiasts. You rarely see a question go unanswered more than 2 or 3 days, and in most cases questions are answered within minutes. For harder questions, the developer himself frequently wades in to add information.
Pro The equivalent of DataView/SQL already baked into the product
You can create lists of anything inside TiddlyWiki like tags, title structure, date, custom fields and present it as links, checkboxes, tables or whatever structure you need using a few lines of wikitext (a markdown-like language with powerful widget ability built-in).
Pro Official CodeMirror Plugins for a complete editing experience
The official CodeMirror plugins allow you to close brackets, close tags, auto-complete, use VIM, Sublime or Emacs keybindings, and edit CSS, HTML, XML or Javascript text.
Pro Tags are first-class objects in TiddlyWiki
In TiddlyWiki tags aren't some kludgey text-based add-on -- they're built into the design from the first. Tags can contain spaces and non-Latin characters. Tags are available at the top of each note. Click on a tag and you instantly see all the other notes that share that tag. You can then change the order of that list simply by dragging and dropping from the tag-pill. Tags can tag other tags, allowing you to create multiple types of TOC's with the built-in tag macros. You can create new notes tagged with the current note with just one click.
Pro Encrypt your entire Wiki with SJCL without additional plugins
You don't have to worry about leaving your TW somewhere it might get exposed. You can activate the built-in encryption ability, using the Stanford Javascript Encryption Library to have your wiki encrypted with 256 bit security.
Pro Can embed images and documents for a portable, single-file solution.
TiddlyWiki gives you the choice of whether you access additional resources (images, docx, pdfs) externally from the operating system or internally as embedded objects.
Pro Local-first
Dendron does not pull notes off your system unless you want to explicitly. There are easy guides for syncing with Github or you can always use Dropbox, Onedrive etc. to sync your notes wherever you want.
Pro Open-source
Pro Built into VSCode
If you're already developing in VSCode, it's great to have your notes in a familiar environment. Reduces switching costs and you can use familiar keybindings.
Pro Flexible hierarchies
Dendron makes it easy to create and refactor hierarchies at will.
Pro Powerful built-in publishing
Dendron ships with a configuration for publishing your notes with Next.js. The resulting site is searchable and easy to navigate, and the VS Code extension can easily place links to notes in your clipboard for rapid sharing.
Pro It works the way your brain works
You can literally just start writing; Dendron doesn't force you into bullets, folders, projects, etc. You build your vault the way you want it, and Dendron takes care of the presentation.
Pro Helpful development team
Dendron's developers are always putting out videos and office hours to help others become familiar with Dendron.
Cons
Con Too many backlinks can cause performance issues
With 100k+ notes, backlink and brain graph visualization can slow down the wiki.
Con Relies on browser performance, online or offline
TiddlyWiki is a single HTML file. Thus, if you directly embed e. g large images or videos in it (instead of using the features to display externally stored images and videos) it would make the file big and performance slow.
Con Without JavaScript nothing is visible
You need a browser that is not outdated to open the wiki, if you want to edit the HTML wiki file inside browser. Or you will need to download app like TiddlywikiDesktop or TidGi App to edit the wiki.
Con Unintuitive, complex official user interface
Too powerful for some new users, requires stribg ability to learn many interactions and advanced features sets. But this can be change at anytime by install community theme and plugins. Or use edition like TidGi app to get Notion style experience.
Con Little bit of a learning curve
If you're not familiar with VSCode, there may be a steep learning curve.
Con No mobile app
Dendron runs in VSCode so no ou-of-the-box mobile sync/experience.