AFFiNE vs Memos
| Tagline | Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases | Lightweight, self-hosted note-taking and memo hub |
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| Replaces | Notion, Confluence, Obsidian | Evernote, Notion |
| GitHub stars | 73k | 63k |
| Language | TypeScript | Go |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Docker Manual |
| Managed hosting | ||
| Last updated | yesterday | today |
| 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.
Memos
- Designed for short notes/memos, not long structured documents or wikis.
- No nested page hierarchy, databases, or board views.
- No real-time collaboration.
- Limited rich formatting compared to block editors.
Bottom line
Choose Memos if you want the lower-effort setup; choose AFFiNE for the larger community and ecosystem. Memos has seen more recent development. Open each guide below for deploy steps and the full feature gap.
AFFiNE
Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases