Open Source Superhuman Docs Alternatives
A curated collection of the 3 best open source alternatives to Superhuman Docs.
The best open source alternative to Superhuman Docs is AppFlowy. If that doesn't suit you, we've compiled a ranked list of other open source Superhuman Docs alternatives to help you find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to Superhuman Docs are: Affine and dDocs.
Superhuman Docs alternatives are mainly Note Taking & Knowledge Management but may also be Collaboration & Communication or Project & Work Management. Browse these if you want a narrower list of alternatives or looking for a specific functionality of Superhuman Docs.
AI workspace for notes, wikis and projects that keeps your data on your own machine or server, an alternative to Notion.
The team behind AppFlowy used Notion daily and paid for it, then ran into its limits on data security and mobile. AppFlowy is their answer: an open source AI workspace for documents, wikis and project management, and an alternative to the tool it grew out of.
It is written in Flutter and Rust, a single codebase covering desktop and mobile with a native feel and long-term maintainability. Self-hosting is documented, so an individual or a company can keep the data on infrastructure they control.
The project is shaped around who is running it.
- Desktop: macOS, Windows and Linux builds, plus FlatHub, Snapcraft and SourceForge channels.
- Mobile: iPhone through the App Store and Android 10 or above through the Play Store, with ARMv7 unsupported.
- Self-hosting: run the backend yourself and keep full control over where the data lives.
- Building blocks: collaboration infrastructure for enterprises and hackers who want to build their own apps on top.
- Translations: edit the JSON files by hand, use the inlang online editor, or run a machine translation command.
Development instructions are documented per operating system, the roadmap is public, and feature requests and bug reports go through their own templates. The stated values put data privacy first, and the codebase is open to anyone who wants to modify AppFlowy for their own needs.
An all-in-one workspace merging documents, whiteboards and databases, built local-first for teams that want to own their knowledge base.
AFFiNE is an open source workspace that treats docs, canvas and tables as one surface, removing the split between the app where you write and the app where you draw. The project positions itself as an alternative to Notion and Miro.
It is built on BlockSuite, its own collaborative editor, with y-octo and yjs providing CRDT sync and OctoBase acting as the local-first data engine. Every building block, rich text, sticky notes, embedded web pages, multi-view databases, linked pages, shapes and even slides, can sit on an edgeless canvas.
The feature set covers ground that a knowledge base and a whiteboard usually split between them.
- Edgeless canvas: any block form lives on the same infinite surface, from shapes to slides.
- AFFiNE AI: turns outlines into slides, articles into mindmaps and prompts into prototype pages.
- Local-first storage: your data stays on your disk rather than only in a vendor cloud.
- Real-time collaboration: web and cross-platform clients sync while people edit together.
- Self-hosting: you can manage, fork and run your own instance, with documented setup.
Templates published by the team cover planners, one pagers, lesson plans and note taking layouts. Contributors sign a license agreement before pull requests merge. It suits people who want Notion-style structure and Miro-style freedom without keeping two subscriptions running side by side.
End-to-end encrypted document editor for teams that want Google Docs style collaboration without handing the contents to a hosted service.
Collaborative editing normally means handing the text to a server that can read it. dDocs is an end-to-end encrypted document editor where the contents stay readable only to the people holding the keys, built as a privacy focused alternative to Google Docs.
The project ships as a React package called DdocEditor that drops into an application already using Tailwind CSS. Peer dependencies for drag and drop, the Fileverse UI and crypto libraries, viem and animation stay outside the bundle, so an app that already has them does not ship two copies. Props control preview mode, initial content, change callbacks and collaboration.
The editor covers what a shared document is expected to do.
- Collaboration modes: real-time and asynchronous editing, with suggestion mode for tracked changes and commenting.
- Authoring formats: Markdown and LaTeX input plus MermaidJS diagrams inside the document.
- Import and export: documents move in and out as docx, md, pdf and html among other formats.
- Offline work: older documents stay open and editable with no connection, then sync across desktop and mobile.
- Zero-knowledge access: proofs gate private access permissions and drive social recovery of an account or its files.
- Agent API: an opt-in encrypted programmable interface aimed at automated clients.
Version history, dark mode and color themes round out the editor, and the web app is optimized for mobile and installable as a progressive web app. It suits a team that wants document collaboration inside its own product rather than a hosted office suite.
