AFFiNE vs Gotenberg
| Tagline | Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases | Developer API to convert HTML, Markdown, Word, and Excel files into PDFs |
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| Replaces | Notion, Confluence, Obsidian | Notion |
| GitHub stars | 70k | 12k |
| Language | TypeScript | Docker |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Docker Docker Compose Kubernetes |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | today | 2 days ago |
| 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.
Gotenberg
- Conversion-only API; no storage, user interface, or document management.
- Complex CSS layouts and JavaScript-heavy pages may render inconsistently with headless Chromium.
- LibreOffice fidelity for intricate Word/Excel formatting can differ from native Office rendering.
- No built-in rate limiting or authentication — must be secured at the reverse proxy level.
Bottom line
Choose Gotenberg 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.