head to head · open source
AppFlowy vs notes
AppFlowy has 76,833 GitHub stars, 6,021 forks, 1,030 open issues and last shipped 4 days ago. notes has 4,267 stars, 384 forks, 137 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. AppFlowy leads on adoption by 1,701% (76,833 vs 4,267 stars). AppFlowy is written in Dart under AGPL-3.0; notes is written in C++ under MPL-2.0. AppFlowy has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, notes 9%. AppFlowy was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (note-taking), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
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 | notes | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 77K | ★ 4.3K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MPL-2.0 |
| Written in | Dart | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-05-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 6.0K | ⑂ 384 |
| 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 notes if
- You want the notes feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and notes 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 notes
Notes is an open source, cross platform note taking application written in C++ with Qt, built for people who want a private, local first place to write Markdown notes on Linux, macOS, or Windows.
read the full notes overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is AppFlowy or notes more popular?
AppFlowy has 76,833 GitHub stars and notes has 4,267. AppFlowy has the larger community by that measure.
Are AppFlowy and notes free?
Both are open source. AppFlowy is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and notes under MPL-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between AppFlowy and notes?
AppFlowy is written in Dart and notes in C++. 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 notes?
Choose AppFlowy if you want the larger community (76,833 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose notes if its feature set, stack or MPL-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.