DISCLAIMER: This page is for information only. It is not legal, financial or procurement advice and does not replace your own due diligence. Licenses, ownership, features and certifications can change: confirm what your decision rests on with the official sources.
🩺 Vitals
- 🟢 Last active: 2026-11-02
- 📦 Latest release: 0.15.0 (2026-11-02)
- 🐞 Open issues: 1027
- 🌟 Stars: 78.2k
What do these metrics mean?
- Last active: when code was last pushed, as of our last check. The dot is green when that was recent, grey otherwise. A long gap can mean a tool is finished and stable, not only unmaintained.
- Latest release: the most recent stable version the maintainers published as a release on the forge. Some healthy projects publish only tags, or publish their versions elsewhere.
- Open issues: unresolved reports and requests. A high number is normal for a popular project and is not a warning on its own.
- Stars: how many people bookmarked the project on its forge. A rough popularity signal, not a measure of quality.
🏗️ Profile
- Official: appflowy.com
- Source: github.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy
- License: AGPL-3.0-only (core; paid edition under its own terms)
- Deployment: Desktop Application | Mobile Application
- Jurisdiction: Singapore 🇸🇬 (APPFLOWY PTE. LTD.)
- Compliance (SaaS): AppFlowy Cloud: none published
- Compliance (Self-Hosted): Self-Hosted (User Managed)
- Complexity: Minimal (1/5) - A desktop and mobile app; its local mode needs no server
- Maintenance: Minimal (1/5) - App updates on each device, through the app's built-in updater on desktop
- User Management: Minimal (1/5) - Single-user in the free local mode; members, single sign-on, SCIM and an audit log come only with a paid edition's server
What the scores mean: Reading the Scores
1. The Executive Summary
What is it? AppFlowy is a workspace app for notes, wikis, tasks and databases, for Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS and Android. Its free local mode keeps one person's workspace on the device, with no account. Shared workspaces with real-time collaboration, a web app, AI features and page publishing come with the vendor's hosted service or its paid self-hosted server, which is closed source.
The Strategic Verdict:
- 🔴 For teams that share one workspace: Caution. The free build is single-user; members and single sign-on need the vendor's closed-source paid server or its hosted service (User Management, What is it?).
- 🟢 For individuals who keep notes, tasks and databases on their own device: Conditional Buy. If downloads built from unpublished source are acceptable: the local mode needs no account and no server (Risk Assessment).
2. Cost of Ownership
| Cost Component | AppFlowy (Desktop) |
|---|---|
| Pricing Model | No license fee for the core; paid edition for some features |
| Adoption | Manual migration (pages imported from Markdown and CSV files) |
| Operations | Desktop only; plus your team's time to run it (Maintenance, in the Profile) |
| Support | From the vendor: AppFlowy Cloud, a managed service, and paid support for self-hosted installs (enterprise support); elsewhere, a paid service provider |
| Exit | Per-page export (Markdown, HTML or CSV); the full export saves documents in AppFlowy's own JSON format |
What each row covers: Total Cost of Ownership
3. Risk Assessment
- Jurisdiction: APPFLOWY PTE. LTD., the project's vendor, is registered in Singapore, under that country's law. The vendor runs AppFlowy Cloud, a hosted service where your data can live; its hosts include a party domiciled in or controlled from the US. Data that party holds for AppFlowy Cloud is within reach of the US CLOUD Act, wherever it is stored, if the party is based in the US or its US parent controls the data. Since September 2025 its downloads are built from source kept private, which the vendor said in September 2026 it will publish later.
- The Compliance Shift: The app's default server is the vendor's hosted service; a workspace stays on the device only when the user picks the local mode at sign-in. Self-hosting moves the security and compliance duties of running the software to the operator (the operator's compliance checklist).
- License Risk: AppFlowy is under AGPL-3.0-only, an OSI-approved network copyleft license (what it allows and requires). The vendor holds the rights to relicense contributed code through a contributor agreement, so future versions can move to other terms without contributors' consent.
4. Market Landscape
🏢 Proprietary Incumbents
- Notion: Notion is a cloud workspace for notes, documents, wikis and databases.
Data held by: Notion Labs, Inc., United States 🇺🇸, subject to the US CLOUD Act for the data it holds, wherever it is stored.
Why teams leave: Its audit log and user provisioning come only on its top plan, priced per member.
Exit: Workspace export (Markdown and CSV, or HTML), partial export (other members' private pages, all but one view of a database) - Obsidian: Obsidian is a Markdown editor and knowledge base app that keeps notes on the user's own device.
Data held by: Dynalist Inc., Canada 🇨🇦. A self-managed install keeps the data with the customer.
Why teams leave: Its paid sync and publishing services offer no single sign-on.
Exit: Markdown files in a folder on the customer's own devices, partial export (Sync version history)
🤝 Open-Source Alternatives
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