AFFiNE vs AppFlowy

AFFiNE and AppFlowy are the two self-hostable Notion alternatives with the most momentum, and on a feature list they look alike: documents, databases, a Notion-style workspace, real-time collaboration, desktop and mobile clients. Self- hosting them is very different. AFFiNE's server is a Compose file you can start on a bare IP address in minutes. AppFlowy's self-hosted server is now a commercial product with a free tier limited to one user seat, and it will not start without a real domain and TLS. That makes this less a feature comparison than a question of how many people will use the server and how much setup you will accept.

What each one is

AFFiNE describes itself as a privacy-focused, local-first, open-source alternative to Notion and Miro. Its distinguishing idea is that docs and a whiteboard are merged: you can place rich text, sticky notes, embedded pages, multi-view databases, shapes and slides on one edgeless canvas. The editor is local-first, so your data lives on your device and syncs to the server for collaboration. Its README also advertises an AI assistant.

AppFlowy pitches itself as the open-source alternative to Notion, built with Flutter and Rust so the same codebase serves native desktop (macOS, Windows, Linux), iPhone and Android apps. It covers documents, wikis, kanban boards and databases. If you want native apps rather than a web-first workspace, that is its strength.

Licences, honestly

Neither server is plainly open source.

AFFiNE's README says the Community Edition is free to self-host under the MIT licence. The repository's licence file is more nuanced: the backend directory carries its own licence, the AFFiNE Enterprise Edition licence, which requires a subscription for production use of the parts that are not distributed in the Community Edition. Everything shipped in the Community Edition, and the client side, is MIT or MPL-2.0. Read the licence file before relying on a feature.

AppFlowy's clients are AGPL-3.0, but the self-hosted sync server is a commercial, closed-source distribution under the AppFlowy Self-Hosted Commercial License. Its free tier includes one user seat per instance, up to three guest editors on selected pages, version history, page publishing and unlimited workspaces. Beyond that you buy a plan. The older open-source AppFlowy-Cloud repository is archived, so there is no free multi-user server to fall back on.

Setup and footprint

AFFiNE's install is the official Compose file (server, a migration job, PostgreSQL and Redis) plus an edited config file. It worked on a plain IP address, we rate it 2 out of 5, and it measured about 210 MB of RAM idle on our GCP test box. Upstream plans for at least 2 GB, which leaves headroom for the database and Redis.

AppFlowy is 4 out of 5. The server refuses to start on a non-loopback http:// address, so you need a domain pointing at the server, ports 80 and 443 open and a certificate, which we issued with Let's Encrypt and copied into the proxy. It then runs a bundle of services; it measured about 480 MB idle, on a larger test box than AFFiNE's, so treat the two figures as roughly comparable rather than exact.

Which to choose

Choose AFFiNE if you want a whiteboard-and-docs workspace, a quick Docker install that works on a bare IP address, and you are comfortable reading its licence terms.

Choose AppFlowy if the native desktop and mobile apps matter, you are the only real user (or have just a few guest editors), and you accept a commercial server with a domain and TLS requirement. Past one seat, price the paid plan first.

Not the only two options

For fully open-source Notion-style alternatives, our Notion alternatives page lists them side by side. The AFFiNE deploy guide walks through the install, and the AFFiNE and AppFlowy pages have the quick facts for each.