Reviewed by Francesco D'Alessio
AFFiNE Pro Review (2024)
Best Features, Pricing, Alternatives & Verdict
AFFiNE is an interesting new productivity app for note-taking and one of the most interesting on the market right now, but is it worth it?
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What is AFFiNE Pro?
AFFiNE or AFFiNE Pro as many people like to call is an open-source note-taking app for managing pages, notes and collaborative whiteboards.
What does AFFiNE do?
AFFiNE wants to be a Notion killing application.
Taking pages, notes and a whiteboard into one experience that allows you to turn anything into a whiteboard, or vice versa. This experience doesn't have advanced databases like Notionand other apps like Craft, but it has a combination of features that will appeal to many - like open-source, offline, page management, live real-time collaboration and whiteboard.
The impressive thing is that AFFiNE works very smoothly on macOS in our tests.
Used by over 100,000 teams worldwide — Try it now for free / No credit card needed
Run all your work on one platform with customizable products that scale with your needs.
AFFiNE's Best Features
1. Pages
Inside pages, you can create the regular things you'd expect.
Like multimedia, lists, add tags but you can also add two types of databases. Databases include table and Kanban views, which orginally we weren't sure would work amazingly, but they were fast and easy to use when testing them for adding records. They won't give you too much power, compared to Notion, but not bad speed and function for early days.
2. Whiteboards
Whiteboards are very interactive and they come with more powers.
Creating a whiteboard can be done by converting a page into a whiteboard. This instantly sounded messy when we first looked at this, but they almost live separately, so what you do in the whiteboard doesn't mess up with the page, and vice versa.
Although, you can use whiteboard abilities to turn segments into beautiful card elements, this is a brilliant feature that really brings presentation to life, which AFFiNE allows you to do as well.
In AFFiNE Pro, while you may not find the exact experiences you're accustomed to with tools like Miro, particularly in whiteboard functionalities, it offers a unique feature that allows any document to be effortlessly transformed into a whiteboard. This capability significantly enhances visual collaboration, a benefit many users have already leveraged to visualize their work more effectively.
A standout aspect of AFFiNE Pro is its clarity and efficiency in organizing and coordinating activities, ensuring that the user experience remains streamlined and focused.
Used by over 100,000 teams worldwide — Try it now for free / No credit card needed
Run all your work on one platform with customizable products that scale with your needs.
3. Live Collaboration
Real-time collaboration is a very nice team aspect of using AFFiNE.
Impressive that you can do this and the offline mode combined with this actually syncs very well which was one of the things we weren't sure on when looking at this application. Within the workspaces you create, you can add up to 3 people for the free pricing plans.
How much does AFFiNE cost?
AFFiNE is free, with $7.99 per month pricing for more storage and members.
Verdict: Is AFFiNE any good?
AFFiNE is an interesting app right now.
It slots between Craft, Miro and Notion as a new type of tool. Notes, pages and whiteboards housed in one application doesn't feel like a category right now, but apps like Heptabase and Scrintal are also going down this route.
One of the appealing features of AFFiNE Pro is its open-source nature, which enhances its security and opens up possibilities for future development. This aspect is particularly valued by those who prioritize transparency and flexibility in their software choices. Surprisingly, despite being a relatively new application, AFFiNE Pro performs impressively in terms of speed and whiteboarding capabilities, which exceeds expectations for many users. The ongoing development efforts by the application's dedicated team suggest a promising future for AFFiNE.
Getting started with AFFiNE Pro is also straightforward, a notably easy given that applications of this nature can sometimes present challenges in integrating and utilizing their features effectively. This ease of adoption makes it an accessible tool for users looking to leverage advanced whiteboarding and collaboration functionalities.
We were impressed at how AFFiNE delivered everything - including pricing, offline abilities and whiteboard framing. This is an interesting tool for many people to explore.
Used by over 100,000 teams worldwide — Try it now for free / No credit card needed
Run all your work on one platform with customizable products that scale with your needs.
