AFFiNE vs SilverBullet
| Tagline | Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases | Extensible hacker-friendly Markdown knowledge base with offline-first sync |
| Category | Notes & Knowledge Base | Notes & Knowledge Base |
| Replaces | Notion, Confluence, Obsidian | Obsidian, Notion, Evernote |
| GitHub stars | 70k | 5.5k |
| Language | TypeScript | Docker |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Self-host difficulty | 3/5 Moderate | 2/5 Easy |
| Deploy options | Docker Docker Compose | Docker Manual |
| 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.
SilverBullet
- No native mobile apps; mobile use relies on the web interface
- Real-time multi-user collaboration is limited compared to cloud-first tools
- Plugin ecosystem is much smaller than Obsidian's community plugin library
- No built-in rich media embedding or database views comparable to Notion
Bottom line
Choose SilverBullet 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.
AFFiNE
Privacy-first, local-first workspace combining docs, whiteboards, and databases
SilverBullet
Extensible hacker-friendly Markdown knowledge base with offline-first sync