SHSelfHostIndex

AppFlowy vs org-roam

A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted notes & knowledge base options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.

Not the right match-up?
AP AppFlowy Open-source workspace and Notion alternative VS OR org-roam Plain-text personal knowledge management for Emacs
FeatureAppFlowyorg-roam
CategoryNotes & Knowledge BaseNotes & Knowledge Base
LicenseAGPL-3.0GPL-3.0
LanguageDartEmacs Lisp
Setup difficultyMediumMedium
Min. RAM1,024 MB128 MB
Deploymentdocker, binary, sourcesource
GitHub stars★ 75,074★ 6,007
First released20212020
ReplacesNotion, EvernoteRoam Research, Obsidian

Why pick each one

Choose AppFlowy if…

  • Strong Notion alternative
  • Active development
AppFlowy details

Choose org-roam if…

  • Released under the GPL-3.0 license
  • Mature project with 6k GitHub stars
  • Written in Emacs Lisp
  • Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
org-roam details

Frequently asked questions

Is AppFlowy or org-roam better?

Neither is universally better. AppFlowy has the larger community; both share a medium setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.

Are AppFlowy and org-roam free and open-source?

Yes. AppFlowy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and org-roam under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.

Can I run AppFlowy and org-roam with Docker?

AppFlowy: yes. org-roam: check the project docs for container support.

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