BookStack
Documentation & KnowledgeA self-hosted wiki and documentation platform that organises content as shelves, books, chapters and pages.
Open-source alternative to:
Notion
What the free edition leaves out
The free edition covers the features teams usually need; we found nothing important held back. “Not confirmed” means the official pages we read did not say, so we do not guess.
| Feature | Free edition | Details | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| SSO / SAML | Free | The homepage lists OIDC, SAML2 and LDAP login plus several social logins, with no edition split mentioned. | Source ↗ |
| Role-based access control | Free | A role and permission system is listed on the homepage and in the docs. | Source ↗ |
| Audit logs | Not confirmed | The security docs mention an audit log, but that page does not describe it or say which edition has it. No dedicated audit log docs page was found. | Source ↗ |
| Multi-user / teams | Free | Multiple users with roles are part of the single open-source edition. No user limit is mentioned. | Source ↗ |
| Backups and restore | Not confirmed | Docs say BookStack has no built-in way to back up and restore content; it can be done with command-line steps. | Source ↗ |
| API access | Free | A REST API with its own documentation page exists (seen on the official demo instance). No paid tier is mentioned. | Source ↗ |
| Support SLA | Paid | Community support is free with no assurance of response. Paid plans exist: Professional at GBP 450/year and Enterprise at GBP 4,500/year, provided by HTTP Functions Ltd. The page does not use the word SLA. | Source ↗ |
Best for
Teams that want a simple, structured internal wiki or documentation site they host themselves.
Why choose it over Confluence
MIT-licensed, with one edition and no feature tiers. WYSIWYG and Markdown editors, page revisions, diagrams.net drawing, full-text search, roles and permissions, OIDC, SAML2 and LDAP login, MFA and a REST API are all in the one free edition. Paid support is optional and sold separately.
Where it falls short
There is no official hosted version; the site only lists third-party hosts it says it has not vetted. Content structure is fixed (shelves, books, chapters, pages), and the project describes itself as not designed to be extended for other purposes. There is no built-in backup tool. Real-time collaborative editing and comparison with Confluence's feature set were not checked.
Open-source alternative to
- Confluence — BookStack is a self-hosted wiki for team documentation, so it can replace Confluence for internal knowledge bases without per-user licensing.
- Notion — BookStack covers the documentation and wiki use of Notion on your own server, with a fixed shelf/book/chapter/page structure instead of free-form pages.
Category
Documentation & KnowledgeTopics
Tech stack
PHP
TypeScript
DockerLanguages as reported by GitHub for the repository.
