AFFiNE vs AppFlowy

Architecture comparison 2 projects Built from source-audited deep dives

Both are local-first Notion alternatives built on CRDT documents. AFFiNE is a TypeScript and React app on the BlockSuite editor, with Rust native modules and a NestJS + PostgreSQL server that syncs Yjs updates; AppFlowy is a Flutter app whose logic lives in an in-process Rust core, syncing through the separate AppFlowy Cloud project.

AFFiNE AppFlowy

AFFiNE: TypeScript · NOASSERTION
AppFlowy: Dart · AGPL-3.0
Updated: 2026-09-26

Which one should you pick?

Pick AFFiNE if…

You want docs, whiteboard and database views on one document model
Your team works in TypeScript and React
You want to self-host the sync server from the same repository

Pick AppFlowy if…

You want a native Flutter client with its logic in Rust
You want AI chat over your documents that runs locally against Ollama
Single-user use with nothing to host is enough for you

Side by side

Attribute	AFFiNE	AppFlowy
Written in	TypeScript Rust	Dart Rust
License	NOASSERTION	AGPL-3.0
Frontend	React TypeScriptBlockSuiteYjsvanilla-extract	Flutter DartAppFlowy Editoreasy_localization
Backend & APIs	NestJS GraphQL Socket.IO Rust OpenTelemetry	Rust Tokio Protocol BuffersDart FFIWebAssembly
Data & persistence	PostgreSQL Prisma Redis SQLite S3	SQLiteCRDT (collab)Tantivy
Infrastructure & deploy	Docker Kubernetes Render Sentry	DockerCodemagic
Key decisions	One CRDT document model for docs, whiteboard and tables Local-first storage, with the server as a sync peer Rust for the hot paths, exposed through napi-rs and uniffi	Flutter UI on top of a Rust core, joined by FFI and protobuf Local-first storage in SQLite with CRDT documents The editor is its own open-source package
Audited	2af3077 · 2026-09-17	5cf3a36 · 2026-09-17

How they differ

Client

AFFiNE is a React app whose editor is BlockSuite, built on Lit web components and Yjs; a single web core is reused by the web, Electron and Capacitor shells. AppFlowy is a Flutter app with flutter_bloc for state; the Dart code never touches storage or the network directly but sends protobuf events over FFI to the flowy-* Rust crates.

Storage and sync

AFFiNE persists documents locally (SQLite through Rust on desktop and mobile, IndexedDB in the browser) and syncs Yjs updates over Socket.IO to a NestJS server that stores them in PostgreSQL through Prisma, with Redis for caching and multi-instance rooms. AppFlowy stores data in SQLite through Diesel and models it with collab-* CRDT crates, so the same data can sync through AppFlowy Cloud without a rewrite.

Native code and AI

AFFiNE uses Rust for hot paths and exposes it through napi-rs to Node and Electron and through uniffi to mobile. AppFlowy’s backend is Rust in-process on a Tokio runtime, and its flowy-ai crate embeds ollama-rs and a local vector store so chat over documents can run on the desktop.

Architecture diagrams

AFFiNE Open SVG

AppFlowy Open SVG

Frequently asked questions

Do AFFiNE and AppFlowy work offline?

Yes. AFFiNE stores documents in SQLite through its Rust nbstore crate on desktop and mobile, and in IndexedDB in the browser, with the server acting as a sync peer. AppFlowy stores everything on the device in SQLite and models content with CRDT crates, so offline use is the default.

What do I need to self-host AFFiNE or AppFlowy?

AFFiNE ships a self-host compose setup and images for its NestJS server, which needs PostgreSQL and Redis, plus a persistent disk or S3-compatible storage for uploaded blobs. AppFlowy is a client application; teams that want sync run AppFlowy Cloud, a separate server project.

Which license does each use?

AppFlowy is AGPL-3.0. For AFFiNE, GitHub reports the license as "Other" while package.json declares MIT and both LICENSE and LICENSE-MIT files exist, so check both files before reusing code.

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