is it really FOSS?

AFFiNE

A workspace app with docs, whiteboards and dbs

Nope!
Not FOSS but there are FOSS related licensing, marketing, or transparency issues.

Details

The project is provided under a license which is mainly MIT, but with the server portion under a non-FOSS enterprise license.

According to them the server part is “not required and it’s an addon. You can still use AFFiNE offline without any issue. But in this case, sync, collaboration features will not be available.”

The project advertises as open source on its homepage, GitHub description, project readme and in marketing.

This was raised via a frustrating Reddit thread, and later a more productive discussion on GitHub from which a maintainer helped clarify their licensing, but ultimately this did not change marketing.

The project appears to have raised at least $18m in funding from investors which include Redpoint China Ventures, Sinovation Ventures and Continental Grain Company.

Details last reviewed 2025-06-10. Mistakes or outdated information? Let us know by opening an issue on Codeberg.