How to Self-Host AFFiNE: Your Private Notion Alternative in 10 Minutes

Notion works well. Your notes live on their servers. If that bothers you, AFFiNE is an alternative.

Open source. Self-hostable. Combines documents, whiteboards, databases. This guide gets you running in 10 minutes.

What AFFiNE Is

AFFiNE (pronounced “a-fine”) is an open-source workspace. Documents like Notion. Whiteboards like Miro. Self-hostable.

40,000+ GitHub stars. Active development. v0.18.0 current as of April 2026.

Why Self-Host?

Data stays on your infrastructure
No subscription fees
Use your own AI keys (Claude, OpenAI, Gemini)
Compliance requirements
Modify code if needed

Requirements

Docker and Docker Compose
2GB RAM (4GB recommended)
10GB disk space
Basic command line knowledge

Step 1: Create Directory

mkdir affine-selfhosted
cd affine-selfhosted

Step 2: Download Docker Compose

curl -o docker-compose.yml https://raw.githubusercontent.com/toeverything/AFFiNE/stable/.docker/selfhost/compose.yml

Or create manually:

name: affine
services:
  affine:
    image: ghcr.io/toeverything/affine:stable
    container_name: affine_server
    ports:
      - '3010:3010'
    depends_on:
      redis:
        condition: service_healthy
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy
      affine_migration:
        condition: service_completed_successfully
    volumes:
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/root/.affine/storage
      - ${CONFIG_LOCATION}:/root/.affine/config
    env_file:
      - .env
    environment:
      - REDIS_SERVER_HOST=redis
      - DATABASE_URL=postgresql://${DB_USERNAME}:${DB_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/${DB_DATABASE:-affine}

  affine_migration:
    image: ghcr.io/toeverything/affine:stable
    container_name: affine_migration_job
    volumes:
      - ${UPLOAD_LOCATION}:/root/.affine/storage
      - ${CONFIG_LOCATION}:/root/.affine/config
    env_file:
      - .env
    environment:
      - REDIS_SERVER_HOST=redis
      - DATABASE_URL=postgresql://${DB_USERNAME}:${DB_PASSWORD}@postgres:5432/${DB_DATABASE:-affine}
    command: ["sh", "-c", "node ./scripts/self-host-predeploy.js"]
    depends_on:
      postgres:
        condition: service_healthy

  redis:
    image: redis:7-alpine
    container_name: affine_redis
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD", "redis-cli", "ping"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

  postgres:
    image: postgres:16-alpine
    container_name: affine_postgres
    volumes:
      - ${DB_DATA_LOCATION}:/var/lib/postgresql/data
    environment:
      POSTGRES_USER: ${DB_USERNAME}
      POSTGRES_PASSWORD: ${DB_PASSWORD}
      POSTGRES_DB: ${DB_DATABASE:-affine}
    healthcheck:
      test: ["CMD-SHELL", "pg_isready -U ${DB_USERNAME} -d ${DB_DATABASE:-affine}"]
      interval: 10s
      timeout: 5s
      retries: 5

Step 3: Configure Environment

Create .env:

# Database
DB_USERNAME=affine
DB_PASSWORD=your_secure_password_here
DB_DATABASE=affine
DB_DATA_LOCATION=./postgres_data

# Storage
UPLOAD_LOCATION=./storage
CONFIG_LOCATION=./config

# AFFiNE
AFFINE_REVISION=stable
PORT=3010

Generate password:

openssl rand -base64 32

Step 4: Launch

docker compose up -d

First startup takes 2-3 minutes. Check logs:

docker compose logs -f affine

Wait for “Server is running on http://localhost:3010”.

Step 5: Access

Open browser:

http://localhost:3010

Or server IP:

http://your-server-ip:3010

Step 6: Setup

Create admin account
Choose workspace name
Start creating

Optional: Enable AI

Add to .env:

# OpenAI
OPENAI_API_KEY=sk-your-key-here

# Or Claude
ANTHROPIC_API_KEY=sk-ant-your-key-here

# Or Gemini
GOOGLE_API_KEY=your-key-here

Restart:

docker compose restart

Production: Reverse Proxy

Nginx example:

server {
    listen 443 ssl;
    server_name affine.yourdomain.com;

    ssl_certificate /path/to/cert.pem;
    ssl_certificate_key /path/to/key.pem;

    location / {
        proxy_pass http://localhost:3010;
        proxy_set_header Host $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Real-IP $remote_addr;
    }
}

Backups

Data locations:

./postgres_data - Database
./storage - Files
./config - Configuration

Backup script:

#!/bin/bash
DATE=$(date +%Y%m%d_%H%M%S)
tar -czf "/backups/affine_${DATE}.tar.gz" ./postgres_data ./storage ./config

Updates

docker compose pull
docker compose up -d

Troubleshooting

Port 3010 in use: Change in .env: PORT=3011

Permission errors:

chmod -R 777 ./postgres_data ./storage

Database errors: Check postgres health: docker compose ps

Notion Import

Export Notion as Markdown + CSV
AFFiNE: Settings → Import
Upload files

Complex databases need manual adjustment.

Summary

10 minutes. Private Notion alternative. No subscription. No data mining.

AFFiNE isn’t perfect. Self-hosting requires maintenance. But you control your data.

AFFiNE v0.18.0 tested. Setup verified April 2026.