Bioceramics used in hard tissue engineering applications should primarily meet the criteria of mechanical strength and apatite mineralisation of natural bone. In such a scenario, designing of bioceramic composites is inevitable as calcium silicates possess good apatite deposition ability and magnesium silicates show excellent mechanical stability. The present study investigates the influence of calcium (Ca) and magnesium (Mg) ions of the bioceramics on bioactivity and mechanical strength. Binary silicates such as wollastonite (CaSiO3), enstatite (MgSiO3) and forsterite (Mg2SiO4) were prepared by sol-gel combustion technique. Functional group identification and phase formation of the silicate materials were analysed by FT-IR and X-ray diffraction studies respectively. Furthermore, apatite mineralisation ability and mechanical strength of wollastonite were evaluated. Influence of wollastonite on the bioactivity of both enstatite and forsterite was also investigated. The obtained results conferred that the wollastonite possesses good apatite formation ability, moderate resorbability and low mechanical strength. The composites of wollastonite show improvement in the enstatite with respect to bioactivity and in forsterite with respect to superior mechanical properties. © 2019 Wiley-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim