
AppFlowy
Open source Notion alternative
The Lens
By Erik Loyd, SaaS CEO and former COO/CFO of an AWS Premier Partner.
Updated Oct 2026
AppFlowy is the closest open source thing to Notion: docs, wikis and databases with grid, kanban, calendar, timeline and chart views, plus formulas and AI, in native desktop and mobile apps. The apps are AGPL-3.0, and the desktop app runs completely offline for free.
Self-hosting changed in 2026. The original AGPL server is archived; the maintained server is a closed-source commercial fork shipped as a dozen Docker containers. Its free tier gives one user seat per instance, three guest editors and web access only. Desktop and mobile apps need a paid plan.
The free cloud plan is a one-owner workspace with 100MB of storage. Pro is $12 per member a month billed annually, $16 monthly. Self-hosted One is $6 a month and Team is $10 per seat a month, annual only. Solo: free desktop app. Small teams: Cloud Pro. Larger teams: self-hosted Team, up to 1,000 seats with SCIM and LDAP.
The catch: AppFlowy now calls itself open-core. Every release since 0.13.0 is tagged to the same June 2026 commit, so downloads aren't built from public source. The old open source server has unpatched 2026 CVEs, including one that lets a logged-in user read other workspaces' documents.
Free vs Self-Hosted vs Paid
open coreFree: Desktop apps for macOS, Windows and Linux plus iOS and Android, AGPL-3.0; the desktop app works completely offline with data stored locally. Cloud Personal plan at $0: 1 workspace owner (no members or guest editors), 1 form, 1 chart, 100MB storage, 7MB file uploads, 7 days of version history, single-page PDF export, a limited trial of AI meeting notes, transcripts and responses, with AI search and Local AI included.
Self-hosted: The open source AGPL server (AppFlowy-Cloud) is archived and unmaintained. The maintained server is a closed-source commercial fork distributed under AppFlowy's commercial license, deployed from the AppFlowy-SelfHost-Commercial Docker Compose (nginx, Postgres with pgvector, Redis, MinIO, GoTrue, cloud, worker, search, AI, admin, web and backup containers). Free tier: 1 user seat per instance, web app only (no desktop or mobile), up to 3 guest editors, SSO including SAML 2.0, version history, publish pages, unlimited workspaces. One: $6/month billed annually, 1 seat, adds desktop and mobile apps, Local and Cloud AI, Vault workspaces, up to 10 guest editors. Team: $10/seat/month billed annually, up to 1,000 seats, workspace members, SCIM, LDAP, security audit log, priority support. Enterprise: contact sales, unlimited seats, managed deployment, whitelabel. No monthly subscriptions for self-hosters.
Paid: Cloud Pro is $12/member/month billed annually ($144/year per member) or $16/member/month billed monthly. Adds unlimited members (charged per member), free unlimited guest editors, unlimited storage and uploads, 90-day version history, full AI features, publish pages with a custom namespace, timeline with dependencies, dashboards, custom team spaces and permission groups.
Free for one person, offline or on the cloud Personal plan. Any team pays: Cloud Pro at $12 per member a month billed annually ($16 monthly), or self-hosted Team at $10 per seat a month on annual billing only.
What to do by team size
- Solo
- free; desktop app fully offline, or the cloud Personal plan
- Small team
- Cloud Pro at $12/member/month annual ($16 monthly); the free self-hosted tier is one seat, web only
- Medium team
- self-hosted Team at $10/seat/month (annual only) if data must stay on your servers, otherwise Cloud Pro
- Large team
- self-hosted Team up to 1,000 seats with SCIM, LDAP and audit logs; Enterprise beyond that
Get tools like this every Wednesday
One featured tool, three on the radar. No fluff.
Similar Tools

Open source self-hosted note-taking

A free, open source note-taking and to-do application with synchronization capabilities.

A platform to create documentation/wiki content built with PHP & Laravel

A fully open source & end-to-end encrypted note taking alternative to Evernote.

Open source Jira/Linear alternative

🌻 The collaborative editing software that runs Wikipedia. Mirror from https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/g/mediawiki/core. See https://mediawiki.org/wiki/Developer_access for contributing.
A low score is not a verdict on quality. Young and niche tools start low by design. How we calculate scores
Trust Signals
About
- Stars
- 78,279
- Forks
- 6,189
Explore Further
More tools in the directory
rea
Reverse engineer anything with agents, from app behavior down to native binaries.
435.8k ★openclaw
Your own personal AI assistant. Any OS. Any Platform. The lobster way. 🦞
394.0k ★everything-claude-code
The agent harness performance optimization system. Skills, instincts, memory, security, and research-first development for Claude Code, Codex, Opencode, Cursor and beyond.
298.1k ★