AFFiNE: Next-gen knowledge base that brings planning, sorting, and creating all together
AFFiNE is a self-hosted wiki and note-taking tool. Next-gen knowledge base that brings planning, sorting, and creating all together.
Why self-host AFFiNE
Self-hosting AFFiNE removes the dependency on a third-party service. For anyone who values data ownership, that matters more than convenience in the long run.
What it does
AFFiNE falls into the Wiki, Note-Taking, Workspace category of self-hosted software. It is designed to be deployed on your own infrastructure, whether that is a home server, a VPS, or a local machine running Docker.
Community traction
The project has 36k stars on GitHub, which is a reasonable proxy for how widely it is used. Active repositories tend to ship bug fixes faster and have better documentation than projects that stall after the initial release.
Deployment
Most users run AFFiNE via Docker Compose. The typical setup involves one or two containers and a volume for persistent data.
Alternatives
If AFFiNE does not fit your needs, common alternatives include Evernote, Microsoft OneNote, Notion. The self-hosted versions of these tools often differ in resource requirements and feature focus, so it is worth testing the one that matches your workload.
Maturity
The current version is 0.15.7, which means the project is still pre-1.0. That is not a disqualifier, but it is worth checking the changelog before upgrading in a setup where stability matters.
License
It is licensed under MIT, making it freely available for personal and commercial use.
Links
For anyone already running a home server, AFFiNE is a natural addition. It handles wiki and note-taking without requiring a paid subscription or an account with a third party.