AppFlowy vs Lex

AppFlowy is an open-source collaborative workspace that covers notes, wikis, databases and project boards, positioned as a privacy-focused alternative to Notion. It is built with Flutter for the interface and Rust for the core, so it ships as native apps for macOS, Windows, Linux, iOS and Android rather than a web wrapper, and its source code is published on GitHub under the AGPL license.

The core product combines rich documents with databases that can be viewed as a grid, kanban board or calendar, plus templates, offline mode and an AI assistant for writing, summarising and asking questions about your content. You can use AppFlowy Cloud as a hosted service with a free tier and paid per-user plans, or self-host the backend with Docker so that every page and database stays on your own servers.

AppFlowy fits developers, privacy-conscious teams and organisations with data residency rules who want a Notion-style experience without handing their content to a third party. It is less mature than Notion in integrations, templates, permissions and the polish of real-time collaboration, and its plugin ecosystem is small. Anytype is the other well-known open-source, local-first option; AFFiNE combines docs with whiteboards; Notion remains the safer choice when a broad integration ecosystem matters more than data ownership.

Lex is a minimalist word processor with AI built into the writing experience. It was created by Nathan Baschez at Every, the media and software company, and later spun out as an independent company. Instead of a chatbot in a sidebar, Lex puts AI inside a calm, distraction-free editor where writers ask for feedback, rewrites, research or continuation directly on their draft.

Writers can highlight a passage and request alternatives, ask the AI to check an argument or suggest titles, and save custom prompts for repeated tasks. Drafts can be shared for comments, and version history tracks changes over time. Lex works with large language models from several providers, and users can choose which model handles their requests. Lex is no longer accepting new customers, and its pricing page shows plan details only to existing users.

Lex suits essayists, newsletter writers, founders writing memos and anyone who wants an editor that helps them think rather than write for them. Formatting options are limited, integrations are few and it is not built for long structured documents or team workflows. Google Docs with Gemini and Notion AI are better for collaborative documents, while iA Writer is a focused editor for writers who do not want AI in the loop.