What is AFFiNE

AFFiNE is an open-source, privacy-focused "KnowledgeOS" that serves as a powerful alternative to established tools like Notion and Miro. It is meticulously designed to combine the structured editing of standard documents with an infinite, visual whiteboard canvas. Whether you are typing up weekly meeting notes, writing a blog post, or brainstorming a project timeline with sticky notes and flow diagrams, AFFiNE allows you to blend these entirely different workflows in one unified, edgeless space.

At its core, AFFiNE champions a local-first architecture. This means your data is saved to your local disk by default, giving you full ownership, data sovereignty, and privacy over your knowledge base without being locked into a cloud vendor. You have complete control over where your files live. However, the software does not sacrifice modern collaboration; it includes robust capabilities for real-time syncing across web and desktop platforms, allowing distributed teams to collaborate seamlessly whenever they choose to.

Features and Building Blocks

Most productivity applications force you to separate your text documents from your drawing boards. AFFiNE eliminates this barrier by deeply integrating them into a single environment. You can toggle back and forth between a "Page Mode" for structured, distraction-free writing and an "Edgeless Mode" for spatial, visual planning without having to switch applications.

Key features of the platform include:

• Unified Canvas: You can freely add rich text paragraphs, sticky notes, embedded web pages, and vector shapes to a single overarching canvas.
• Multi-view Databases: Organize your team's tasks or tracking data using familiar interfaces like spreadsheet tables and Kanban boards.
• AI Assistant: An integrated multimodal AI partner can help you summarize long text segments, generate comprehensive outlines for presentations, or instantly build mind maps directly onto your whiteboard.
• Self-Hosting Options: For organizations with strict compliance or privacy requirements, you can easily deploy your own private instance of AFFiNE on your own infrastructure.

How to Self-Host with Docker Compose

For users or teams that want to host their own instance, the official documentation strongly recommends using Docker Compose as the standard deployment method. This robust approach securely packages the primary AFFiNE application along with a Postgres database for reliable data storage and a Redis cache for improved performance.

To get started on your own server, you can download the latest official Docker Compose configuration file directly from the project's GitHub release page:

Once the file is downloaded to your machine, you can start the service using the standard docker compose up -d command. After the containers have initialized, you will be able to access your locally hosted workspace via your web browser, keeping your data entirely under your control.