AppFlowy

Knowledge bases

AppFlowy combines projects, documents, and team knowledge in an open-source workspace. Evaluate which features you need before replacing a broader tool.

Who it may suit

A flexible workspace for teams managing notes and knowledge.

Replaces

  • Notion
Official positioning or migration source

"The leading open source Notion alternative" (repo description)

Checked: 2026-11-01

Strengths for small teams

  • Desktop apps for macOS, Windows, Linux plus iOS/Android Source

    Checked: 2026-11-01

  • Self-hosting guide for single-machine Docker deployment Source

    Checked: 2026-11-01

  • Managed AppFlowy Cloud with a free tier if you do not want to operate it Source

    Checked: 2026-11-01

Section checked: 2026-11-01

License

AGPL-3.0

Checked: 2026-11-01

Self-hosting effort

Moderate

Checked: 2026-09-24

The official guide supports a single-machine Docker deployment, but AppFlowy Cloud runs multiple interdependent services, including GoTrue authentication, PostgreSQL, Redis, and MinIO object storage. Exposing and maintaining these components, their persistent data, TLS, and backups is a meaningful operations burden despite the one-host deployment model.

Documentation-based estimate; not hands-on tested. Official self-hosting effort evidence

Pricing

AppFlowy Cloud has a free tier; Pro is $10 per user/month billed annually or $12.50 monthly.

Checked: 2026-09-24

Managed cloud

Available

Checked: 2026-09-24

Self-hosted: Available

Sections checked: see dates beside each section.

Repository activity

Stars: 78,049

Last push: 2026-10-28

Fetched 2026-11-01 · checked 2026-11-01

Repository metadata source

Docker Compose deployment

Upstream Compose preview; fetched 2026-11-02. Pinned public source file

version: "3"

# NOTE: Docker should be allowed to connect to the X server in your host prior
# to running `docker compose up`. Run `xhost local:docker` in the host to allow
# for those connections, otherwise the following error will occur:
#         Gtk-WARNING **: cannot open display: :0
# See https://stackoverflow.com/a/34586732/8401696 for more context.

services:
  app:

First 10 lines; see source for the complete file. Review all required companion files before deploying.

  • frontend/scripts/docker-buildfiles/Dockerfile
Official website

Sources