Self-hosted alternatives to Notion
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Notion-style workspaces and wikis you can host yourself. Few publish hard RAM numbers, so we also show how many services each official compose file starts — a factual proxy for how heavy a stack is.
Requirements and stack size
| App | RAM (min) | CPU cores (min) | Disk (min) | Containers / services | GitHub stars | License | Spec source |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| AFFiNE | 2 GB (rec. 4 GB) | rec. 4 | 1.5 GB | 4 services in the official compose file (affine, affine_migration [one-time job], redis, postgres) | 73,732[1] | custom (GitHub reports NOASSERTION) | [2][3] |
| AppFlowy Cloud | not published | not published | — | 11 services in the AppFlowy-Cloud compose file (nginx, minio, postgres, redis, gotrue, appflowy_cloud, admin_frontend, ai, appflowy_worker, appflowy_search, appflowy_web) | 77,615[4] | AGPL-3.0 | [5] |
| Docmost | not published | not published | — | 3 services in the official compose file (docmost, postgres, redis) | 22,043[4] | AGPL-3.0 | [6] |
- AFFiNE: 2 GB RAM for basic use, 4 GB if documents exceed 10k words; at least 4 CPU cores recommended; ~1.5 GB for installation. Postgres grows ~100 MB per 1,000 docs and blob storage ~10 GB per 1,000 blobs[2]. The official compose has 4 services, one of which is a one-time migration job[3].
- AppFlowy Cloud: we found no official RAM minimum; its compose file defines 11 services[5].
- Docmost: no published RAM minimum; 3 services (docmost, postgres, redis) and an APP_SECRET of 32+ characters[6].
AFFiNE is not listed in awesome-selfhosted; its GitHub repository reports 73,732 stars and a custom license[1].
More options from the directory
| Project | Description (from awesome-selfhosted) | License | GitHub stars | Last update |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| AppFlowy | Build detailed lists of to-do’s for different projects while tracking the status of each one. Open Source Notion Alternative. | AGPL-3.0 | 77,615 | 2026-06-26 |
| docmost Community Edition | Collaborative wiki and documentation software (alternative to Confluence, Notion). | AGPL-3.0 | 22,043 | 2026-10-19 |
| Outline | Extensible wiki for your team. | BUSL-1.1 | 40,994 | 2026-10-21 |
| SiYuan | A privacy-first personal knowledge management software, written in typescript and golang. | AGPL-3.0 | 46,858 | 2026-10-20 |
| TriliumNext Notes | Cross-platform hierarchical note taking application with focus on building large personal knowledge bases (fork of Trilium Notes). | AGPL-3.0 | 38,428 | 2026-10-20 |
| Joplin | Note taking application with markdown editor and encryption support for mobile and desktop platforms. Runs client-side and syncs through a self hosted Nextcloud instance or similar (alternative to Evernote). | MIT | 56,820 | 2026-10-20 |
Descriptions, licenses, stars and dates from awesome-selfhosted-data[4] (CC BY-SA 3.0), snapshot 2026-10-21.
Outline's license (BUSL-1.1) is a source-available license, not an OSI open-source license.
AFFiNE plan fit
| Plan | vCPU | RAM | Disk | Price (checked October 2026) | Meets AFFiNE minimum | Meets recommended | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hostinger — KVM 1 | 1 | 4 GB | 50 GB NVMe | $6.49/mo promo, paid upfront; renews at $11.99/mo[7] | Yes | No | View plan |
| Hostinger — KVM 2 | 2 | 8 GB | 100 GB NVMe | $8.79/mo promo, paid upfront; renews at $14.99/mo[7] | Yes | No | View plan |
| Hostinger — KVM 4 | 4 | 16 GB | 200 GB NVMe | $12.99/mo promo, paid upfront; renews at $28.99/mo[7] | Yes | Yes | View plan |
| Hostinger — KVM 8 | 8 | 32 GB | 400 GB NVMe | $25.99/mo promo, paid upfront; renews at $49.99/mo[7] | Yes | Yes | View plan |
| Hetzner — CX23 (Cost-Optimized) | 2 | 4 GB | 40 GB NVMe | from €5.99/mo excl. VAT; hourly billing with monthly cap; listed as not available in some locations at check time[8] | Yes | No | View plan |
| Vultr — Cloud Compute High Performance 1 vCPU / 2 GB | 1 | 2 GB | 50 GB NVMe | $12.00/mo[9] | Yes | No | View plan |
| Vultr — Cloud Compute Regular 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB SSD | $20.00/mo[9] | Yes | No | View plan |
| Vultr — Cloud Compute High Performance 2 vCPU / 4 GB | 2 | 4 GB | 100 GB NVMe | $24.00/mo[9] | Yes | No | View plan |
| Vultr — Cloud Compute High Performance 4 vCPU / 8 GB | 4 | 8 GB | 180 GB NVMe | $48.00/mo[9] | Yes | Yes | View plan |
| DigitalOcean — Basic 2 GiB / 1 vCPU | 1 | 2 GB | 50 GB SSD | $12.00/mo GiB as listed[10] | Yes | No | View plan |
| DigitalOcean — Basic 4 GiB / 2 vCPU | 2 | 4 GB | 80 GB SSD | $24.00/mo GiB as listed[10] | Yes | No | View plan |
| DigitalOcean — Basic 8 GiB / 4 vCPU | 4 | 8 GB | 160 GB SSD | $48.00/mo GiB as listed[10] | Yes | Yes | View plan |
| DigitalOcean — Basic 16 GiB / 8 vCPU | 8 | 16 GB | 320 GB SSD | $96.00/mo GiB as listed[10] | Yes | Yes | View plan |
“Meets” is a mechanical comparison of the plan's listed vCPU/RAM/disk against the published figures cited on this page — not a performance test. Your apps, users and data add load on top. GiB (DigitalOcean) and GB are treated as equal here.
Only plans meeting AFFiNE's 2 GB basic figure are shown; “recommended” uses 4 GB RAM and 4 cores.
See also the wikis, note-taking and knowledge management directories.
FAQ
How much RAM does self-hosted AFFiNE need?
AFFiNE's docs list 2 GB of RAM for basic usage and 4 GB if your documents exceed 10k words, with at least 4 CPU cores recommended.
Is AppFlowy Cloud heavy to self-host?
We did not find an official RAM figure. Its official docker-compose file defines 11 services, compared with 3 for Docmost and 4 for AFFiNE.
Is Outline open source?
The awesome-selfhosted dataset lists Outline under BUSL-1.1, a source-available license.
Sources (checked October 2026)
- GitHub API: toeverything/AFFiNE — https://github.com/toeverything/AFFiNE
- AFFiNE docs: Self-host requirements — https://docs.affine.pro/self-host-affine/install/requirements
- AFFiNE docs: Docker Compose (recommended) — https://docs.affine.pro/self-host-affine/install/docker-compose-recommended
- awesome-selfhosted-data (CC BY-SA 3.0) — https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted-data
- AppFlowy-Cloud docker-compose.yml — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy-Cloud/main/docker-compose.yml
- Docmost docs: Installation — https://docmost.com/docs/installation
- Hostinger VPS hosting pricing — https://www.hostinger.com/vps-hosting
- Hetzner Cloud Cost-Optimized plans — https://www.hetzner.com/cloud/cost-optimized
- Vultr pricing — https://www.vultr.com/pricing/
- DigitalOcean Droplet pricing — https://www.digitalocean.com/pricing/droplets