AFFiNE vs BentoPDF
| Tagline | Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases | Privacy-first client-side PDF toolkit — edit, merge, and process in the browser |
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| Replaces | Notion, Confluence, Obsidian | Notion |
| GitHub stars | 70k | 14k |
| Language | TypeScript | Nodejs |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Docker Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | today | yesterday |
| View repo | View repo |
Where each falls short
The honest trade-offs — what you give up with each, versus the proprietary tools they replace.
AFFiNE
- Self-hosted real-time sync (AFFiNE Cloud) has historically lagged the desktop/local experience and can be fiddly to configure.
- Smaller third-party integration and plugin ecosystem than Notion.
- Mobile apps are less mature than the desktop client.
- Some advanced AI and collaboration features are gated to the paid cloud tier.
BentoPDF
- Client-side WASM processing is slower than server-side tools for very large PDFs.
- No OCR or text extraction capabilities.
- No user accounts, history, or saved workflows between sessions.
- Feature set is narrower than server-side tools like Stirling-PDF for batch or automated use.
Bottom line
Choose BentoPDF if you want the lower-effort setup; choose AFFiNE for the larger community and ecosystem. AFFiNE has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.