What Notion changed in 2026
Notion integrated its AI module directly into the Business plan in 2026, with no option to disable it or pay for it separately. The Business plan is now listed at $20/user/month on annual billing, or approximately $24/user/month on monthly billing — source: notion.com/pricing.
For teams that did not use AI, this bundling amounts to paying for an imposed module. A five-person team goes from $50 to $100 per month. A twenty-person team exceeds $400 per month for a tool that was $200. The migration trigger is not technical — it is an editor's decision to bundle two products to defend its ARPU.
Why migrate to a self-hosted solution
- Predictable cost — a VPS with Docmost costs the same the month your team grows from five to fifteen people: no per-seat pricing revised unilaterally.
- Data under your control — your knowledge base never leaves your infrastructure; no model training on your documents without your consent.
- No imposed bundling — you choose which modules to deploy; AI can remain optional.
- Real-time collaborative editing — Docmost offers live co-editing with visible cursors and instant synchronisation, without third-party plugins.
- Standard export — data stays in Markdown or HTML; a future migration to another tool does not depend on any proprietary format.
- AGPL-3.0 licence — for Docmost, the source code is fully open and auditable; no fair-code clauses or commercial licences needed for core features.
- Integration with your existing infrastructure — Docmost plugs directly into a private Docker network, alongside your other self-hosted services.
- Reversibility — Notion's Markdown export is documented and functional; moving back to Notion or to a third tool requires no scraping.
Notion / Docmost / AppFlowy — comparison
| Criterion | Notion Business | Docmost | AppFlowy |
|---|---|---|---|
| Licence | Proprietary (SaaS) | AGPL-3.0 full | Frontend AGPL-3.0 — Cloud backend proprietary |
| Cost (10-person team) | $200/month (annual) | VPS cost only — no seat fee | VPS cost (limited self-hosted) or paid Cloud |
| Real-time collaboration | Yes, native | Yes, native (WebSocket) | Yes in Cloud — partial in self-hosted |
| Databases / views | Yes — tables, kanban, calendar, gallery | No — wiki only | Yes — grids, tables, kanban |
| Per-space permissions | Yes — granular per page | Yes — spaces, groups, roles | Yes in Cloud — limited in self-hosted |
| Export | Markdown, HTML, PDF | Markdown, HTML | Markdown, JSON |
| API | Public REST API | REST API (v1) | API available |
| Hosting | SaaS only | Self-hosted only | Self-hosted or AppFlowy Cloud |
Docmost — the clean migration
Docmost is an open source collaborative wiki released under the AGPL-3.0 licence in its entirety — no distinction between a community edition and an enterprise edition for core features. The project has passed ~20,000 GitHub stars. It relies on three components: a Node.js application container, a PostgreSQL database, and Redis for real-time synchronisation. No Electron, no heavy client — the interface loads in the browser.
Its strengths for a migration from Notion: a hierarchical workspace (spaces → pages → sub-pages), live co-editing with visible cursors, inline comments, mentions, tags, attachments, and full-text search. It does not claim to replace Notion databases (tables, kanban, calendar) — it is a wiki, not a no-code tool. If your Notion usage is primarily documentation pages, runbooks, and a knowledge base, Docmost covers the essentials.
Content import from Notion is done via the Markdown or HTML format produced by Notion's native export. The folder structure of the export can be converted into a hierarchy of spaces and pages in Docmost using a script or manually for smaller corpora.
AppFlowy — the limits to know before migrating
AppFlowy presents itself as an open source alternative to Notion with an interface closer to the original: database views (grids, tables, kanban, calendar), rich content blocks, integrable AI. The frontend is released under the AGPL-3.0 licence.
The important distinction: AppFlowy's Cloud backend is proprietary. When you use AppFlowy in self-hosted mode, some advanced collaboration features — real-time multi-user synchronisation, team management, granular permissions — are complete in AppFlowy's paid Cloud offering and partial or limited in the self-hosted version. Do not describe AppFlowy as 'fully open source': this is not accurate for the backend.
For teams with heavy Notion database usage (relational tables, multiple views, formulas), AppFlowy self-hosted is the closest candidate in terms of features. But the trade-off to evaluate is clear: if you want full real-time collaboration without depending on AppFlowy Cloud, Docmost is simpler and more predictable.
In summary: AppFlowy if you need database views and accept the self-hosted limitations; Docmost if you want a simple collaborative wiki, fully AGPL-3.0, with no licensing surprises.
VPS requirements for Docmost
Docmost runs in three Docker containers: the Node.js application, PostgreSQL, and Redis. Recommended requirements for a 5-to-20-person team:
- CPU: 2 vCPU minimum (4 recommended for active co-editing)
- RAM: 2 GB minimum (4 GB recommended if you also run PostgreSQL on the same machine)
- Disk: 20 GB SSD for binaries and database, plan for more depending on the volume of stored attachments
- OS: Ubuntu 22.04 LTS or Debian 12 with Docker Compose v2
- Network: a dedicated subdomain (wiki.your-domain.com), a TLS certificate, and a reverse proxy (nginx or Caddy)
- Ports: 3000 (Docmost) not exposed publicly — only the reverse proxy on 443
An entry-level VPS plan is sufficient for fewer than ten simultaneous active users. For twenty users with attachment-heavy documents, plan for 4 vCPU and 4 GB RAM.
Migrating from Notion to Docmost: complete procedure
Export your Notion workspace
In Notion, open Settings → Export (or via the workspace menu). Choose the Markdown & CSV format (which produces a ZIP containing .md files and attachments). Check the Include subpages option to preserve the hierarchy. The export produces a ZIP file structured by workspace and page — this is your starting point for the import.
Provision the VPS and install Docker
On your Ubuntu 22.04 or Debian 12 VPS, install Docker Engine and Docker Compose v2:
curl -fsSL https://get.docker.com | sh
systemctl enable --now dockerCreate a working directory:
mkdir -p /opt/docmost && cd /opt/docmostDeploy Docmost with Docker Compose
Create a docker-compose.yml file from Docmost's official documentation (docmost.com/docs/self-hosting/docker). The official file defines three services: docmost, db (PostgreSQL 16) and redis. Configure the environment variables:
APP_URL=https://wiki.your-domain.com
APP_SECRET=<random-32-char-key>
DATABASE_URL=postgresql://docmost:password@db:5432/docmost
REDIS_URL=redis://redis:6379Start the containers:
docker compose up -dConfigure the reverse proxy (nginx or Caddy)
For nginx, create a vhost that proxies Docmost's port 3000 to your subdomain over HTTPS. Minimal example:
server {
listen 443 ssl;
server_name wiki.your-domain.com;
location / {
proxy_pass http://127.0.0.1:3000;
proxy_set_header Upgrade $http_upgrade;
proxy_set_header Connection "upgrade";
proxy_set_header Host $host;
}
}The Upgrade header is essential for real-time WebSocket co-editing.
Create spaces and import content
Open https://wiki.your-domain.com and create your first administrator account. Create one space per logical section of your Notion workspace (one space per project, team, or domain). Import content: in each space, use the Import button and load the Markdown files extracted from the Notion ZIP. Attachments referenced in the Markdown (images, PDFs) must be uploaded separately via the editor or using the API for large volumes.
Check internal links and adjust
Notion's internal links use UUID identifiers (e.g. https://notion.so/Page-title-abc123). After import, these links point to URLs that no longer exist. Review the most-linked pages first and replace Notion links with the corresponding Docmost URLs. For a small corpus (fewer than 100 pages), a grep -r 'notion.so' . on the exported Markdown files gives you the complete list of links to fix.
Configure permissions and invite the team
In Docmost, each space has independent access control. Configure roles (administrator, editor, commenter) per space, then invite collaborators by email from Settings → Members. Docmost supports SAML/OIDC authentication for teams with an existing SSO — configurable from the administration interface without restarting containers.
Run in parallel before cutting Notion
Do not cancel your Notion subscription immediately. Keep both systems running in parallel for two to four weeks: your team validates the migration page by page, identifies missing or poorly converted content, and gets used to the interface. Only once the entire team is working in Docmost on a daily basis should you export a final version from Notion and cancel.
Test Docmost in parallel with no risk
Notion allows as many exports as needed. Export a test copy from the start, spin up Docmost locally with docker compose up -d on your workstation, and let two or three team members work in both tools for a week. This parallel test takes a few hours to set up and avoids unpleasant surprises on the actual cutover day.
Troubleshooting — common errors
Co-editing does not synchronise in real time. Check that your reverse proxy forwards WebSocket headers (Upgrade, Connection: upgrade). Without these two headers, Docmost falls back to HTTP polling and co-editing loses its real-time behaviour.
Attachments (images) do not appear after import. Docmost's Markdown import handles text, not locally referenced resources. Images must be uploaded separately via the editor or API. For large volumes, use the Docmost API (POST /api/v1/attachments) to batch-upload from the Notion export's attachment directory.
Notion formulas and databases are empty. Docmost does not support Notion database blocks (tables, kanban, calendar). Notion's Markdown export produces the data as CSV files — you must recreate them as structured pages or export them to a dedicated tool (Baserow, NocoDB) hosted alongside Docmost.
OIDC authentication fails. Make sure APP_URL in your docker-compose.yml matches exactly the callback URL registered in your identity provider. A trailing slash difference is enough to cause the OAuth handshake to fail.
The PostgreSQL database refuses connections. Check that the db service is fully started before Docmost (docker compose logs db). Add a depends_on with condition: service_healthy in your Compose file if you encounter connection errors at startup.
Conclusion
Notion's bundling of AI into the Business plan turns a collaboration tool into a non-optional AI subscription. For teams of 5 to 20 people whose usage is centred on documentation and knowledge bases, the migration to Docmost is straightforward: export Notion as Markdown, import into Docmost, configure the reverse proxy. The cost is that of your VPS, not a per-seat subscription.
If your usage heavily exploits Notion databases (relational tables, multiple views, formulas), AppFlowy is the closest candidate in terms of interface — but the distinction between AGPL-3.0 frontend and proprietary Cloud backend must be clear in your evaluation.
The real cost of migration is not technical: Notion's Markdown export is reliable and documented. It lies in the decision to change tools and in the two to four weeks of parallel operation. On a pure documentation corpus, this timeline is manageable.
