the catalog · 🧠 Notes & knowledge
AppFlowy
★ 75kAI-powered workspace with docs, wikis, and kanban boards built in Rust/Flutter
AppFlowy does the job of Notion, self-hosted. It is AGPL-licensed, so a hosted fork has to publish its changes, and setting it up is an afternoon, not a weekend. Notion bills $10-12/user for it. 75k stars on GitHub.
Open-source replacement for Notion.
- Licence
- AGPL-3.0
- Self-hosting
- Medium
- The paid one costs
- $10-12/user
- GitHub stars
- 75k
Is it actually a replacement?
We have written a verdict on what it replaces — what you lose, and why people still pay:
How AppFlowy runs
Where it runs
AppFlowy runs on your machine or their cloud.
Installing it
Official desktop/mobile package, hosted signup, or AppFlowy Cloud Docker Compose stack.
Where your data lives
The local app keeps workspace data on the device; AppFlowy Cloud/self-hosted sync uses PostgreSQL, Redis, and MinIO or S3-compatible object storage; pages export to Markdown or HTML.
What setup takes
The local app installs cleanly, but self-hosting requires a sizeable multi-service stack including PostgreSQL, Redis, object storage, authentication, secrets, domain, TLS, and backups.
The catch compared with Anytype
AppFlowy is a Notion-style page and table workspace, not Anytype's peer-synced typed object graph with relationship-driven collections.
AppFlowy questions
Is AppFlowy open source?
Yes — it is released under AGPL-3.0.
Can AppFlowy replace Notion?
Our verdict on Notion is YES. AppFlowy (75k stars), Joplin (56k stars), SiYuan (46k stars) are mature open-source replacements for Notion — self-host in one command and stop paying $12/mo.
Can I self-host AppFlowy?
Yes — we rate it medium to self-host, and it runs on your machine or their cloud. Official desktop/mobile package, hosted signup, or AppFlowy Cloud Docker Compose stack.