Free alternative

Free alternative to Notion

Notion costs €12 a month. AppFlowy does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.

Public entry price, taken from Notion’s website (notion.so). Over a year, that is €144 that stays in your pocket.

What replaces Notion

The main alternative

AppFlowy

🟢 Beginner⏱️ ~10 min to installSave €12/mo

AppFlowy takes Notion's idea: a blank page where you stack text, checkboxes, tables with their grid, kanban and calendar views, and relations between databases. The difference comes down to two things. It is a real installed application, written in Flutter and Rust, and on the first screen you can continue without creating an account: the app then opens a local space and stores everything in a folder on your disk, whose location you change in the settings. The AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy repo passes 76,000 stars on GitHub and the app is licensed under AGPL v3, with no house clause added. It exists for macOS, Windows and Linux, with iPhone and Android apps and a browser version. AI features can run on your own computer through Ollama, for free, with no key and no subscription. What is not local is syncing between devices and working together: that needs a server, theirs or yours.

Loucash’s verdict on AppFlowy

7/10

If you want to leave Notion without changing your habits, this is the closest thing. You find the pages, the blocks, the tables with their views and relations, and it is a native app: it opens fast and it works with no network. Local mode is picked on the first screen, your data sits in a folder you back up however you like, and local AI through Ollama is free for everyone. What gets in the way is everything server-side. The open source server repo, AppFlowy-Cloud, is archived, and its own README says it is no longer used by any of the vendor's products: self-hosting today goes through a closed commercial build, free for a single seat. Their cloud stops at 2 people and 5 GB, then it is around €11 per person per month, the price of Notion. And the app's public code has not moved since 26 June 2026 while two releases shipped in the meantime: the team explains that it develops in private repos and will push the code back later. Who it is for: you, if you work alone on one machine and want Notion's layout with no subscription. You will lose things on the way: publishing a page to the web, live collaboration and the Notion import all need an account, the mobile apps are less polished than Notion's, and databases full of formulas and automations do not carry over as they are. Do not mix it up with Obsidian either: here your pages live in a database, not in Markdown files you open with another tool. Markdown export exists, page by page.

Who it is for: You work alone on your machine and want Notion's pages and tables with no subscription and no account, even if it means giving up public sharing and working together.

See the full page →See the tool ↗

AppFlowy versus Notion: the match

  • Price

    AppFlowy

    €0, the app is free

    Notion

    €12 per member per month

  • Your pages

    AppFlowy

    In a folder on your disk, one you pick

    Notion

    On their servers

  • Account required

    AppFlowy

    No, you can do everything without signing up

    Notion

    Yes, from the very first page

Notion ↗

The prompt that installs AppFlowy

Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.

Installe AppFlowy sur ma machine (l'alternative open source à Notion, dépôt GitHub AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy) : commence par identifier mon système d'exploitation et ma puce, puis va sur la page des releases du dépôt officiel ou sur appflowy.com/download et télécharge la dernière version stable qui correspond (fichier dmg pour macOS Intel ou Apple Silicon, installeur pour Windows, AppImage ou paquet Flathub ou Snap pour Linux). Installe l'application, ouvre-la, et au premier écran choisis de continuer sans compte pour que tout reste chez moi. Va ensuite dans les réglages, rubrique de gestion des données, montre-moi où se trouve le dossier de stockage, et propose-moi de le déplacer dans un dossier que je sauvegarde déjà, en m'avertissant si ce dossier est synchronisé par un service en ligne. Crée avec moi une première page avec du texte, une case à cocher et un tableau affiché en kanban, puis ferme et rouvre l'application pour vérifier que tout est bien enregistré en local. Termine en m'expliquant en deux phrases ce qu'il faudrait faire si je veux plus tard synchroniser mes appareils. Explique chaque étape simplement, je débute.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.

Frequently asked questions

Is AppFlowy really free?
Yes. AppFlowy is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. Notion, on the other hand, costs €12 a month.
Do I need to code to install AppFlowy?
No. The level is beginner and the install takes about 10 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
How is it different from Notion?
AppFlowy does most of what Notion does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
Do I own my data?
Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.

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