AppFlowy
Notes & Knowledge BaseOpen-source workspace and Notion alternative
Replaces Notion, Evernote
Best Real-Time Notes & Knowledge Base for self-hosting
The 8 best Real-Time notes & knowledge base you can self-host, ranked by community traction.
AFFiNE
Notes & Knowledge BaseWorkspace for docs, whiteboards and databases
Replaces Notion, Miro
Outline
Notes & Knowledge BaseTeam knowledge base and wiki
Replaces Notion, Confluence
Khoj
Notes & Knowledge BaseSelf-hostable AI assistant over your personal notes
Replaces Notion AI, Evernote
Docmost
Notes & Knowledge BaseOpen-source collaborative wiki and documentation
Replaces Confluence, Notion
Self-hosted LiveSync
Notes & Knowledge BaseSelf-hosted real-time sync backend for Obsidian vaults
Replaces Obsidian Sync
Athens Research
Notes & Knowledge BaseOpen-source networked note-taking and knowledge graph
Replaces Roam Research, Obsidian
Mindwendel
Notes & Knowledge BaseSelf-hosted brainstorming and idea capture board
Replaces Miro, Google Keep
No apps match these filters.
At a glance
| App | Deploy effort | Difficulty | Min. RAM | License | ★ Stars |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AppFlowy | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 77,300 |
| AFFiNE | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | MIT | 73,487 |
| Outline | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | BSL-1.1 | 40,889 |
| Khoj | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 2,048 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 37,676 |
| Docmost | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 1,024 MB | AGPL-3.0 | 21,969 |
| Self-hosted LiveSync | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 512 MB | MIT | 12,716 |
| Athens Research | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 512 MB | EPL-1.0 | 6,294 |
| Mindwendel | Under-an-hour setup | Medium | 512 MB | Apache-2.0 | 141 |
Quick picks
- Most adopted: AppFlowy (77,300 GitHub stars).
- Lightest footprint: Self-hosted LiveSync (from 512 MB RAM, against 2,048 MB for the heaviest here).
- Licensing: 3 of 8 use AGPL-3.0; check the rest individually if you plan to modify and redistribute.
Every option here is open-source and self-hostable, tagged Real-Time within the notes & knowledge base category. Deploy effort is graded from published container recipes, not vendor claims — see the methodology.