AFFiNE vs Notion
Notion charges per seat forever: $10 on Plus and $20 on Business, per person per month billed annually. AFFiNE is an open-source workspace with the same three pillars - documents, an infinite whiteboard and databases - that you run yourself on a $15/mo pod, with as many members as you want.
AFFiNE vs Notion: The Verdict
AFFiNE is the closest thing to a self-hosted Notion that actually exists, and it adds something Notion does not have: every page is both a document and an edgeless canvas, so you can drag a doc onto a whiteboard instead of keeping Notion and a separate Miro. For a ten-person team the maths is stark, $180 a year against $2,400 on Notion Business. Where Notion still wins, and it genuinely does: the mobile apps are far more mature, the integration and template ecosystems are enormous, sync is not your problem to keep running, and Notion Agent is a real AI feature that AFFiNE has no equivalent for out of the box. AFFiNE is also not a lightweight app. It needs PostgreSQL and Redis alongside it, which is why the honest minimum here is the $15/mo Grow plan and not the $3 one. Pick AFFiNE if owning the data and killing the per-seat meter matter more than ecosystem depth.
Last updated: 2026-08-06Quick Comparison
| Feature | Notion | AFFiNE |
|---|---|---|
| Price, 10 members | $200/mo on Business billed annually ($2,400/yr) | $15/mo flat ($180/yr) |
| Price, 3 members | $30/mo on Plus billed annually, $60/mo on Business | $15/mo flat - members are not counted |
| Per-seat pricing | Yes. $10 Plus, $20 Business per seat per month billed annually | No. Unlimited members on one pod |
| Month-to-month price | $12 Plus, $24 Business per seat | $15/mo, no annual lock-in |
| Documents and wikis | Yes | Yes |
| Infinite whiteboard | No, you add Miro or FigJam separately | Yes, every page is also an edgeless canvas |
| Databases and views | Yes, deeper and more mature | Yes, kanban, table and grouped views |
| Local-first editing | No, cloud-first | Yes, edits apply locally then sync |
| AI | Notion Agent on Business, plus $10 per 1,000 credits | Bring your own key, pgvector is installed |
| Mobile apps | Mature native iOS and Android | Weaker. Web and desktop are the strong path |
| Integrations and templates | Very large ecosystem | Small by comparison |
| Where your workspace lives | Notion cloud | PostgreSQL 16 with pgvector on a pod you own |
| License | Proprietary subscription | MIT, ~69,000 GitHub stars |
Where Notion Gets Expensive
Trade-offs to weigh before committing.
The Bill Scales With Headcount, Not Usage
Business is $20 per seat per month billed annually. Ten people is $2,400 a year whether they write all day or open Notion twice a month. Hiring five more people is another $1,200 a year before anyone creates a page.
The Whiteboard Is a Second Subscription
Notion has no infinite canvas, so teams that need one end up paying Miro or FigJam on top. Miro Business is another $20 per member per month billed annually. That is two per-seat meters for one workflow.
AI Credits Are Metered Separately
Notion credits are sold at $10 per 1,000 monthly credits once the included allowance runs out. Usage-based pricing on top of per-seat pricing makes the annual number a forecast rather than a fact.
Your Company Wiki Is a Tenant
Documents, databases, comments and page history all live in the Notion cloud. Export exists, but exporting a workspace built on relations and rollups into flat Markdown loses the structure that made it useful.
Why Self-Host with AFFiNE?
What you get when you pick this stack.
Docs and Whiteboard in One Page
AFFiNE treats every page as both a document and an edgeless canvas. Write a spec in page mode, flip to edgeless, and lay it out next to a diagram and three other docs. That is the feature that removes the second subscription.
Postgres, pgvector and Redis Already Running
The InstaPods image ships AFFiNE with PostgreSQL 16, the pgvector extension and Redis installed and wired together on the $15/mo Grow plan (2 vCPU, 4 GB RAM, 50 GB storage). There is no compose file to babysit and no managed database to rent.
Unlimited Members on a Flat Bill
AFFiNE does not charge per seat. A three-person team and a thirty-person team pay the same $15/mo, which is the entire argument for self-hosting a workspace tool.
Local-First, So It Stays Fast
Edits apply to the local copy first and sync afterwards, so typing does not wait on a round trip. Your workspace data sits in a Postgres database you can dump, inspect and move.
Real Cost Comparison
A ten-person team running docs, a wiki and a shared whiteboard.
- Notion Business: $20 per seat per month, billed annually
- 10 seats: $200/mo, $2,400/yr
- A whiteboard tool on top, Miro Business at $20 per member per month, adds $2,400/yr
- Notion credits for AI: $10 per 1,000
- InstaPods Grow plan: $15/mo
- AFFiNE: free and open source (MIT)
- PostgreSQL 16, pgvector and Redis bundled
- Unlimited members, docs, whiteboards and databases
Frequently Asked Questions
Is AFFiNE a real self-hosted Notion alternative?
Yes, closer than anything else that is open source. You get documents, nested pages, databases with kanban and table views, and an infinite whiteboard that Notion does not have at all. What you give up is ecosystem: fewer integrations, far fewer templates, weaker mobile apps, and no equivalent of Notion Agent. For a team that mostly writes, plans and diagrams inside its own walls, that trade is usually worth $2,220 a year.
How much does Notion cost in 2026?
Notion lists Free, Plus at $10 per seat per month billed annually or $12 month-to-month, Business at $20 annually or $24 month-to-month, and custom Enterprise pricing. Notion credits for AI usage are $10 per 1,000 monthly credits. Prices checked on notion.com on 6 August 2026.
Why does AFFiNE need the $15/mo plan when Memos runs on $3?
Because it is a full workspace server, not a single binary. AFFiNE runs a Node service alongside PostgreSQL 16 with pgvector and Redis, and all three want memory. The $15/mo Grow plan gives it 2 vCPU, 4 GB of RAM and 50 GB of storage, which is the honest floor for a team workspace. If you only want notes, Memos on the $3 plan is the better tool and we have a separate comparison for that.
Can I import my Notion workspace into AFFiNE?
Partially. AFFiNE can import Notion Markdown exports, so pages, headings, lists and images come across. Databases with relations and rollups do not map one to one, because the two products model structured data differently. Plan on rebuilding your database views by hand and moving the prose automatically.
Does AFFiNE support real-time collaboration?
Yes. Multiple people can edit the same doc or canvas in a shared workspace on your server, and edits merge without a lock. Because it is local-first, each client applies changes immediately and reconciles afterwards, so the editing experience holds up on a slow connection.
What happens when my team outgrows the Grow plan?
Move the pod to the $25/mo Scale plan for 4 vCPU, 8 GB of RAM and 100 GB of storage. Nothing about the install changes and the per-seat bill still does not exist. That is $300 a year for a team of any size, against $20 per person per month on Notion Business.
Own your workspace for $15/mo
Instant launch with PostgreSQL, pgvector, Redis, HTTPS and backups already configured. Docs, whiteboards and databases, unlimited members.
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