this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
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I like notion a lot, especially for its databases function, it's much more powerful than stuff like excel, but being proprietary I'm scared of the buyers lock in / notion disallowing exports in the future and all the cons that come from using a proprietary software. Also managing integrations is probably harder than with an app that you own I think..

Is database in notion just a normal database like mysql? How easy/intuitive would be making the switch? Is it worth it?

We would use it for a very small organization, mostly for registering invoices, documents, lists of contacts with several informations.

I need to query results and to sort / filter database as I want, there's also the idea of trying integrating it with a website in the future maybe..

I like how practical notion is, but I don't like that it's proprietary and notion could potentially modify its terms of use whenever it wants.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago

There isn't a 1:1 FOSS replacement for Notion. I've been also looking for one and haven't found any.

As others have said, Appflowy and Affine are the best options that don't require self hosting. Appflowy now has a web version too. There's also SiYuan.

If you're fine with self hosting there might be a few options mainly for database like functions, some provide a free trial/tier :

  1. Undb

  2. Teable

  3. Docmost

[–] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

If it's only the database part that you're looking for maybe you could look at https://nocodb.com/ Which is self-hostable.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 2 days ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Obsidian has been working well for me though it may not have all the functionality you’re looking for

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Obsidian is proprietary though

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Ah sorry didn’t know that. I’m still new to self hosting stuff

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Yeah but it saves everything in your folder so even if it is closed your data remains

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 days ago (1 children)

OrgNote is a nice GPL-licensed alternative. It's still quire raw, but it is evolving very rapidly.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

This looks neat. Thanks for sharing.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

I think Affine is the closest in terms of functionality to Notion. It's essentially a Notion/Miro hybrid. Open-source.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (1 children)

If you are from EU, I think it's forbidden to disallow exporting your data. I may be wrong.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Correct. It’s part of GDPR.