BenchRank
#11 in Collaboration & CommunicationUpdated 2026-08

Affine

by Affine · Open-source docs, whiteboards and databases in one local-first workspace

BenchRank score

60.8 — BenchRank score out of 100

Screenshots of Affine

Homepage · Affine

Homepage of Affine

Overview

AFFiNE combines documents, whiteboards, databases and AI in one local-first workspace, with content built from blocks and editable in doc or edgeless mode. It runs natively on macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android, in the browser, or self-hosted via Docker. Templates, mind maps and Kanban boards cover planning and project tracking.

Best for
Individuals and small teams wanting docs, whiteboards and databases in one self-hostable workspace.
Pricing
Free forever tier, then Pro at $6.75/month and Team at $10 per seat/month, plus a $499.99 lifetime Believer plan and custom pricing for Enterprise and OEM licensing.
Runs on
WebiOSAndroidmacOSWindowsLinuxBrowser extensionSelf-hosted

Strengths and trade-offs

Strengths

  • Docs, whiteboards and databases in one workspace
  • Local-first, with self-hosted Docker deployment
  • Native apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android
  • MIT-licensed editor with free unlimited local workspaces

Trade-offs

  • Free plan caps at 3 members, 10 GB storage and 10 MB file uploads
  • Team plan requires a minimum of 10 seats
  • Backend is under the AFFiNE EE licence, not MIT
  • Open issues report high RAM use when typing and broken self-host links

Pricing

Published plans and prices from Affine’s own pricing page.

How this score is made up

Each dimension is scored out of 100 and combined into the headline score using fixed weights.

  • MCP support

    Whether an agent can drive the product through the Model Context Protocol, and how much setup that takes.

  • API quality

    Public API surface: machine-readable spec, official SDKs, documented auth, errors, rate limits and versioning.

  • Documentation

    Publicly reachable docs — coverage, freshness, code samples and machine readability.

  • Agent friendliness

    How readable the site is to an automated client: llms.txt, structured data, server-rendered content, crawler access.

  • Pricing transparency

    Whether real prices are published, self-serve signup exists, and usage costs are knowable without a sales call.

  • Changelog

    A public, dated record of what shipped and when — the clearest signal that a product is still alive.

  • Marketing site structure

    Whether the site answers a buyer's questions: clear positioning, the pages that matter, and accessibility.

  • Page speed

    How fast the site loads for real visitors: Chrome UX Report 75th-percentile LCP, INP and CLS, with a Lighthouse mobile run standing in where a site has too little traffic for field data.

  • Operational trust

    Status page and incident history, security disclosure, compliance and data-processing documentation.

Measured, but not part of the score

Useful to know, but not a mark for or against the product — so these do not affect the ranking.

  • Openness

    Source availability, self-hosting, data export and open standards. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — paid SaaS is not worse for being paid SaaS.

  • Maintenance

    Release cadence and repository activity. Scored and shown, but not part of the composite — it is only measurable for open repositories.

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Where this comes from

The Affine pages BenchRank reads when it scores the product — its documentation, release notes, status and security pages, and its repository where there is one.

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