head to head · open source
AppFlowy vs MiaoYan
AppFlowy has 76,826 GitHub stars, 6,021 forks, 1,030 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. MiaoYan has 8,646 stars, 511 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped 12 days ago. AppFlowy leads on adoption by 789% (76,826 vs 8,646 stars). AppFlowy is written in Dart under AGPL-3.0; MiaoYan is written in Swift under MIT. AppFlowy has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, MiaoYan 6%. AppFlowy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| AppFlowy | MiaoYan | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 8.6K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Dart | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-07 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.0K | ⑂ 511 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick AppFlowy if
- You weight community size — 77K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Dart
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick MiaoYan if
- You want the MiaoYan feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and MiaoYan fits your workflow better
About AppFlowy
AppFlowy is an open source collaborative workspace platform that combines note taking, project management, wikis, and AI features into a single interface. It runs as a desktop and mobile application and supports self hosting, built with Flutter for the frontend and Rust for the backend. AppFlowy lives in the productivity and knowledge management ecosystem, positioned explicitly as a Notion alternative.
read the full AppFlowy overview →
About MiaoYan
MiaoYan is a lightweight, local first Markdown note taking app for macOS, written in Swift and released under the MIT licence, aimed at people who want fast plain text notes on their own disk without accounts, telemetry, or a hosted service.
read the full MiaoYan overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AppFlowy or MiaoYan more popular?
AppFlowy has 76,826 GitHub stars and MiaoYan has 8,646. AppFlowy has the larger community by that measure.
Are AppFlowy and MiaoYan free?
Both are open source. AppFlowy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and MiaoYan under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AppFlowy and MiaoYan?
AppFlowy is written in Dart and MiaoYan in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, AppFlowy or MiaoYan?
Choose AppFlowy if you want the larger community (76,826 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose MiaoYan if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.