How to Use AppFlowy: The Beginner's Guide (First Workspace, the Blocks Lesson, First Database, and the Self-Host Arc)

CodexFuse Team · 2026-11-02T05:21:41.911Z · 14 min read min read

Learning how to use AppFlowy is the fastest way to take your notes back from the cloud. AppFlowy calls itself "the AI workspace where you achieve more without losing control of your data," and its GitHub headline is even blunter: "The Open Source Alternative To Notion." This appflowy tutorial walks you, as a complete beginner, through installing the desktop app, building your first workspace, mastering blocks and databases, and the part that makes AppFlowy genuinely different: self-hosting the whole thing with Docker.

Here is the mental model to hold for the rest of this appflowy for beginners guide: AppFlowy = Notion-style blocks, but 100% offline-first and self-hostable. Your notes live on your disk first; the cloud is optional, never the owner. If you already know Notion's blocks, our Notion beginner guide is the perfect warm-up — this guide assumes you have never opened AppFlowy.

What Is AppFlowy, Exactly?

AppFlowy is an open-source, AI-powered workspace for notes, docs, and databases that works fully offline and can be self-hosted on your own server. It is built with Flutter on the frontend and Rust on the backend, licensed under AGPL-3.0, and its public repository (AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy) had roughly 78,000 GitHub stars when this article was written. The project's stated mission is to give individuals "Notion's functionality, data security, and cross-platform native experience" with "100% control of your data" — and the makers are honest about the gap: "We do not claim to outperform Notion in terms of functionality and design, at least for now." The project started in June 2021, and the latest changelog entry at the time of writing is version 0.11.4.

How Do You Install AppFlowy?

Download the desktop app from the official GitHub Releases page for macOS, Windows, or Linux, and install it like any other app — then open it and start working. The official release channels are the GitHub Releases page, FlatHub, Snapcraft, and Sourceforge, so you are not locked to one store.

Mobile apps exist too: iOS on the App Store and Android on the Play Store (Android 10 or above; ARMv7 devices are not supported). One important beginner lesson: in local-only mode there is no account in the loop and nothing leaves your machine — the data lives on your own disk, and a workspace on one machine simply does not sync anywhere until you connect a server.

How Do You Create Your First Workspace?

Open the app and create a local workspace — a folder-like home that holds every page you will ever make in AppFlowy. A workspace starts empty, and that emptiness is the point: you add one page at a time, and each page can be a document, a database, or something in between.

Because AppFlowy is local-first, your first workspace is fully private by default. There is no onboarding that forces you into a cloud account, and no sample data phoning home. Treat the first workspace as a sandbox: try blocks, break things, delete pages. It is the cheapest possible place to learn.

What Are Blocks, and How Do Slash Commands Work?

Everything in AppFlowy is a block — a paragraph, a heading, a to-do item, an image — and you summon any block by typing /. This is the single interaction to learn: the slash menu is the entire editor, and once it feels natural, the app stops fighting you.

AppFlowy also understands Markdown shortcuts, so typing # plus a space makes a heading and - plus a space makes a bullet list, exactly like Notion. The slash menu groups blocks into categories:

Three block types deserve special attention. The toggle list hides detail under an expandable arrow, which keeps long documents readable. The callout highlights warnings and decisions so they survive skimming. And the code block is where developers will spend half their lives — paste commands there instead of into paragraphs, or formatting will eat them.

Which Page Types Can You Create?

AppFlowy pages come in many flavors: Document, Grid, Board, Calendar, Feed, List, Gallery, Timeline, and Form, plus charts and ready-made database templates. A page type is really a view of your work — a Grid page holds rows and columns, a Board page shows the same records as kanban cards, a Calendar page spreads them across dates.

The Feed view is new — it landed in version 0.11.2, and a Google Drive block arrived in the same release. If you are coming from Notion, expect the familiar shape: every page can hold sub-pages, so you build nested hierarchies instead of flat folders. Relations, rollups, and calculations are built into the databases, not bolted on as a plugin.

How Do You Build Your First AppFlowy Database?

Add a Grid page, define properties as columns, and every row becomes a record you can also view as a board, calendar, or timeline. Appflowy databases are the feature that turns the app from a notes tool into a workspace: a project tracker, a reading list, a content calendar, or a CRM all start the same way.

Start with a real example: a task tracker. Create a Grid, add a text property for the task name, a date property for the deadline, and a single-select property for status (To do, Doing, Done). Now switch the page to a Board view — AppFlowy groups the cards by the status field automatically, and you have a kanban board with zero extra work.

Two database mechanics make AppFlowy sing. First, board grouping: boards group by a chosen field — single-select, multi-select, checkbox, URL, or even date recency — so one database can serve as your task board, your content pipeline, and your bug triage. Second, filters (board filters arrived in version 0.5.3): hide the done tasks, show only this week's deadlines, and save the filtered view. Relations, rollups, and formula calculations tie databases together, which is how you build things like a project database that rolls up total task counts automatically.

How Does AppFlowy's AI Work?

AI lives inside the slash menu: Ask AI Anything chats with a model about your selection, and Continue Writing extends whatever you just typed. There is also Workspace AI Search, which finds pages by asking natural-language questions, plus AI meeting notes, transcripts, and database column auto-fill on the pricing page.

The remarkable part for privacy-minded users is local AI: since version 0.8.7, AppFlowy integrates with Ollama so models you run yourself answer your questions on your own hardware — no data is transferred to external servers. AI indexes list local options like Mistral 7B and Llama 3 alongside cloud models such as GPT-4-o, Claude 3 Sonnet, GPT-5, Gemini 2.5 Pro, and Claude 3.7 Sonnet.

On pricing, keep expectations modest: the official pricing page lists AI responses, meeting notes, and transcripts as a "Limited trial" on the free Personal plan. Third-party profiles report paid add-ons — AI MAX at $8/user/month and a private Vault Workspace at $6/user/month — but those add-ons do not appear on the current official pricing page, so treat those figures as unconfirmed until the vendor publishes them.

How Do You Import Your Notes from Notion?

Export your Notion workspace as Markdown and CSV, then go to Settings → Import → Notion in AppFlowy and upload the .zip file. The importer is built to preserve the original structure closely, so pages, sub-pages, and databases land where you expect them.

AppFlowy also imports plain Markdown and CSV files, which makes it a friendly home for notes from almost anywhere. If your Notion export is huge, import one section at a time and check the structure before bringing in the rest — a five-minute spot check beats an hour of cleanup.

Does AppFlowy Work Offline?

Yes — AppFlowy is appflowy offline by design: third-party listings describe a "100% offline mode, allowing users to work locally and sync data as needed." Everything you do on your own machine works with no connection at all; syncing only happens when you connect AppFlowy Cloud or your own self-hosted server.

Offline-first also changes your backup strategy for the better. Export your pages as Markdown regularly, and keep those exports in a Git repository — our Git beginner guide covers the workflow — so every version of every note is recoverable even if your laptop is not.

How Do You Self-Host AppFlowy?

Clone the AppFlowy Cloud repository, copy deploy.env to .env, and run docker compose up -d — about ten containers spin up in a couple of minutes and the web layer listens on localhost:80. This is appflowy docker in its simplest form, and the vendor publishes a step-by-step self-hosting guide that takes you from zero to production.

git clone <AppFlowy-Cloud repository>
cd AppFlowy-Cloud
cp deploy.env .env
docker compose up -d

The stack is a real multi-service application, not a toy demo:

What a beginner needs: a VPS running Ubuntu 20.04 or later, Docker and Docker Compose installed, and — if you want team access from outside — a domain name with nginx and Let's Encrypt in front. New to containers? Our Docker beginner guide covers the fundamentals, and our VPS hosting guide explains what to rent. One honest note: self-hosting is the full-responsibility option — updates, backups, and monitoring are yours. Third-party reviews report the self-hosted tier covering one user seat plus up to three guest editors, but treat that as unconfirmed until the vendor publishes it.

AppFlowy vs Notion: What Is the Real Difference?

The appflowy vs notion question has a one-line answer: Notion is a proprietary cloud SaaS you rent; AppFlowy is an open-source workspace you own. The vendor's own comparison puts it sharply — AppFlowy offers "complete data sovereignty through a modular, self-hosted workspace… on their own infrastructure, in their preferred cloud region, or even in fully air-gapped environments," while Notion "requires organizations to cede control over their data, infrastructure, and feature roadmap" and "cannot be self-hosted."

Two comparisons worth drawing once and never merging. Anytype is the local-first, end-to-end encrypted sibling with peer-to-peer sync — your vault lives on your device and you hold your own encryption keys — but its clients are source-available, not OSI open-source. Plane looks similar on a shelf but is a different animal: it is project management for software teams (work items, cycles), not a notes-and-databases workspace — our Plane beginner guide covers that lane. And if you want a notes-first offline tool without databases, our Obsidian beginner guide covers the other offline-first favorite.

How Much Does AppFlowy Cost?

AppFlowy self-hosted and the desktop app are free; the managed cloud has two plans. Personal is $0/month — one workspace owner, one form, one chart, AI features as a limited trial, up to 100 MB of storage, 7 MB file uploads, and 7 days of version history. Pro is $12/member/month billed annually — unlimited members (charged per member), unlimited guest editors, unlimited forms and charts, unlimited storage, and 90 days of version history, with "Save 25%" shown against monthly billing.

Third parties currently quote $16/member/month billed monthly and the AI MAX and Vault add-ons mentioned above — none of which appear on the official pricing page at the time of writing. Prices move, so re-check the pricing page before you budget around them.

How to Use AppFlowy in Your First Week: A 7-Step Arc

1. Install the desktop app from GitHub Releases for your OS and open it — no account needed for local mode.
2. Create your first workspace and treat it as a sandbox you are allowed to break.
3. Write your first document using only the slash menu — headings, a toggle list, a callout, a code block.
4. Build one database: a task tracker with text, date, and single-select status, then view it as a Board.
5. Import a slice of your old notes from Notion or Markdown and check the structure survived.
6. Try Ask AI Anything on a long document, then try a local model via Ollama to feel the privacy difference.
7. Decide your sync story: stay local, join AppFlowy Cloud, or self-host with Docker Compose.

7 Mistakes Beginners Make with AppFlowy

Sources

1. AppFlowy GitHub README (definition, AGPL-3.0 license, 78,081 stars, created 2021-06-16, Flutter + Rust, mission quote) — https://github.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy
2. AppFlowy CHANGELOG (version 0.11.4 latest, Feed view and Google Drive block in 0.11.2, Workspace AI Search in 0.9.3, local AI in 0.8.7, relations in 0.5.3) — https://raw.githubusercontent.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy/main/CHANGELOG.md
3. AppFlowy vs AFFiNE comparison (page types: Document, Grid, Board, Calendar, Feed, List, Gallery, Timeline, Form; relations, rollups, calculations; Notion import) — https://appflowy.com/compare/appflowy-vs-affine
4. AppFlowy vs Outline (block-based editing, Markdown shortcuts, slash commands, nested hierarchies, templates) — https://appflowy.com/blog/appflowy-vs-outline
5. AppFlowy-Web editor commands on DeepWiki (slash-menu block categories: AI, Text, Headings, Lists, Media, Special, Document) — https://deepwiki.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy-Web/3.4-toolbar-and-commands
6. AppFlowy kanban docs (board grouping fields: single-select, multi-select, checkbox, URL, date recency) — https://docs.appflowy.io/docs/documentation/software-contributions/architecture/frontend/database-view/kanban-board
7. Notion vs AppFlowy comparison (data sovereignty quote, Notion cedes-control quote) — https://appflowy.com/compare/notion-vs-appflowy
8. AppFlowy pricing page (Personal $0, Pro $12/member/month billed annually, 100 MB storage, 7 MB uploads, version history, AI limited trial) — https://appflowy.com/pricing
9. XDA Developers review (clone AppFlowy Cloud repo, deploy.env to .env, docker compose up -d, ~10 containers) — https://www.XDA-Developers.com/appflowy-feels-like-real-notion-and-self-hosting-fixed-my-biggest-complaint/
10. BotMonster self-hosting review (local-only mode, no account in the loop; local AI free via Ollama since 0.8.7) — https://botmonster.com/self-hosting/appflowy-open-source-notion-alternative/
11. Toolify AppFlowy listing (100% offline mode; platforms; local AI models) — https://www.toolify.ai/tool/appflowy-open-source-notion-alternative/
12. The Rundown AppFlowy profile (AI MAX $8 and Vault $6 third-party figures; deployment choice) — https://www.therundown.ai/tools/appflowyio
13. engineerhow self-host tutorial (VPS Ubuntu 20.04+, Docker + Compose, domain + nginx + Let's Encrypt) — https://engineerhow.com/appflowy-the-best-open-source-alternative-to-notion/
14. radwebhosting self-host deploy guide (Ubuntu VPS, sudo prerequisites) — https://blog.radwebhosting.com/deploy-self-hosted-appflowy-on-ubuntu-vps/
15. AFFiNE vs AppFlowy vs Anytype comparison (product page platform list) — https://AFFiNE.pro/blog/affine-vs-appflowy-vs-anytype
16. ossalt migration guide (Settings → Import → Notion, Markdown & CSV .zip) — https://ossalt.com/guides/notion-appflowy-affine-obsidian-2026
17. builder.io Notion alternatives (native app stores data locally, works offline) — https://www.builder.io/blog/notion-alternatives
18. selfhosting.sh AFFiNE vs AppFlowy (local-first architecture) — https://selfhosting.sh/compare/affine-vs-appflowy/
19. dev.to selfhostingsh comparison (GoTrue, PostgreSQL, Redis, MinIO components) — https://dev.to/selfhostingsh/affine-vs-appflowy-open-source-notion-clones-2mg4
20. PrivacyTools Anytype entry (local-first E2EE, vault on device, own encryption keys) — https://privacytools.io/app/anytype
21. plane.so open source page ("The #1 open source project management platform", AGPL-3.0, ~60,900 stars) — https://plane.so/open-source

Frequently Asked Questions

Is AppFlowy really free and open source?

Yes. The code is licensed under AGPL-3.0, the desktop and mobile apps are free, and self-hosting the cloud stack costs you only your server. The managed AppFlowy Cloud has a free Personal plan ($0/month) and a paid Pro plan at $12/member/month billed annually — the app itself is never the product being sold.

Does AppFlowy work offline?

Fully. AppFlowy is offline-first: every page, block, and database works with no connection, and syncing only happens when you connect AppFlowy Cloud or your own self-hosted server. In local-only mode there is no account in the loop and nothing leaves your machine.

Can I move my notes from Notion to AppFlowy?

Yes. Export your Notion workspace as Markdown and CSV, then use Settings → Import → Notion in AppFlowy and upload the .zip — the importer preserves the original structure closely. Plain Markdown and CSV imports work too, so notes from almost anywhere can move over.

Can I self-host AppFlowy for my team?

Yes. Clone the AppFlowy Cloud repository, copy deploy.env to .env, and run docker compose up -d — about ten containers (GoTrue auth, PostgreSQL, Redis, MinIO) start in a couple of minutes. You need a VPS with Ubuntu 20.04 or later and Docker Compose; add a domain with nginx and Let's Encrypt for outside access.

Is AppFlowy better than Notion for privacy?

If owning your data matters, yes: your notes live on your disk first, everything works offline, you can run AI models locally via Ollama, and you can self-host the entire stack — even air-gapped. The trade-off is the vendor's own admission: they do not claim to outperform Notion in functionality and design yet.