BookStack

Description

BookStack is an open-source platform for organizing and storing information, and a self-hosted alternative to Confluence. Its opinionated structure — shelves, books, chapters, and pages — is the main idea: rather than a flat pile of documents, teams get a predictable tree that stays usable as it grows. Pages are written in a WYSIWYG or Markdown editor, every edit is versioned, and access is controlled by a role and permission system that can go down to the individual page.

Features

• Structured content: Shelves → books → chapters → pages, with cross-linking and a table of contents.
• Dual editors: WYSIWYG (with drawn diagrams via diagrams.net) and a Markdown editor with live preview.
• Search: Full-text search across all content, scoped searches, and page-level linking.
• Revisions: Full page history with diffs and rollback.
• Permissions: Role-based access control with per-shelf, per-book, and per-page overrides.
• SSO & API: SAML2, OIDC, and LDAP authentication, a REST API, and outgoing webhooks.

Technology Stack

• PHP / Laravel application
• MySQL or MariaDB
• Docker images (community LinuxServer.io image is common) or a manual LAMP install
• Optional Redis for cache/sessions and S3-compatible object storage

Requirements

• Docker, or a PHP 8.2+ web server with MySQL/MariaDB
• ~1 GB RAM for a small instance
• SMTP for invitations and notifications