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An open-source, local-first knowledge base that merges docs, whiteboards, and databases with AI, enabling versatile content creation.
Maintains one source of truth for strategy notes, roadmap tables, and visual brainstorm sessions in one workspace while keeping planning artifacts stored on team infrastructure.
Skip if you need deep portfolio-level reporting and enterprise PM tooling at day one.
Keeps client briefs, rough sketches, and meeting notes in a single structured space, then shares a workspace that still allows internal control over client files.
Skip if your process is already standardized in a heavily customized legacy PM suite.
Stores runbooks, FAQ drafts, and team playbooks with quick edits in one interface, plus canvas-based visual notes for incident workflows.
Skip if immediate integration with ticketing and incident systems is your top requirement.
Benchmarks against proprietary stacks to reduce lock-in risk and to move critical knowledge workflows behind existing access and identity controls.
Skip if cost and migration speed are your only criteria and self-hosting overhead is not acceptable.
Teams often run notes, planning, and whiteboard thinking in separate tools, which creates duplicated content and makes the right context hard to find. SaaS workspace suites usually tie that knowledge to a hosted service, while pricing and integrations can become expensive as teams grow. AFFiNE gives teams a single workspace where docs, databases, and canvases live together, with local-first storage so operational history, attachments, and workspace configuration stay on their own infrastructure. This design helps teams that want speed for everyday execution without giving up long-term control.
You can move between page-style writing, tables, and an edgeless canvas in one environment, which reduces handoff friction during planning and execution.
The official compose setup uses PostgreSQL and Redis services alongside AFFiNE, so teams can run their own instance behind their own network boundaries.
The project describes real-time sync and collaboration on web and cross platform clients, which supports distributed team updates on the same workspace.
The product provides AI-assisted writing, diagramming, and planning actions, useful for turning outlines into reports, slides, diagrams, or mind maps without leaving the workspace.
AFFiNE is MIT licensed and public on GitHub, with editor and block system design aimed at community extension.
Notion and AFFiNE overlap on knowledge-base use, collaboration, and workspace organization. The deciding factor is control of deployment. AFFiNE is self-hostable and MIT licensed, which lets teams avoid Notion subscription pressure as user counts scale and avoid relying on a single hosted service for core workspace data.
Notion is still better when a team needs a very broad enterprise ecosystem, mature template depth, and one-click provisioning with predictable managed support. AFFiNE is better when teams want local-first storage, fewer lock-in concerns, and a single workspace that also supports canvas-style thinking.
Miro remains strong for specialized visual collaboration and session-based workshops at scale. If your team only needs whiteboarding with fast visual facilitation, Miro often wins on workflow velocity.
AFFiNE is stronger when you also need structured notes, project tables, and a local-first data model in the same instance. It gives teams a migration path away from tool sprawl at the cost of more self-hosting operation.
mkdir -p affine-selfhost
cd affine-selfhost
wget -O .env.example https://raw.githubusercontent.com/toeverything/AFFiNE/canary/.docker/selfhost/.env.example
wget -O compose.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/toeverything/AFFiNE/canary/.docker/selfhost/compose.yml
cp .env.example .env
DB_PASS=$(openssl rand -hex 24)
sed -i "s/^DB_PASSWORD=.*/DB_PASSWORD=$DB_PASS/" .env
docker compose --env-file .env -f compose.yml up -dYes. The repository lists MIT licensing and a public GitHub source, including deployment files for self-hosting via Docker.
Yes. The official compose approach provisions PostgreSQL and Redis alongside the server, so you can run your own instance and keep data on infrastructure you control.
AFFiNE can replace Notion for teams that mainly need docs, tables, and visual planning in one workspace. It is designed as an open alternative that combines docs, databases, and canvas-style visuals, but migration effort depends on the amount of embedded templates and automation in the source tool.
The platform presents AI partner workflows in its positioning, and capabilities continue to expand, so exact availability and model behavior should be validated in the current release before production rollout.
#1 in the Notion guide
Full Notion replacement for small teams
#3 in the Notion guide
Polished team wiki and internal knowledge base
#4 in the Notion guide
Markdown-native docs that agents and teammates edit together
#5 in the Notion guide
Simple self-hosted team documentation
Run AFFiNE on your own server
Hostinger sets AFFiNE up as a one-click app on a VPS.
Deploy on HostingerFeatured
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