BookStack vs Wiki.js
Price, platforms and features side by side. The table says where each price was read and when.
BookStack
Free self-hosted wiki organized into books, chapters and pages
Free plan · from £450/yr
Where they differ
- BookStack starts at £450 per year for an optional support plan; the software itself is free. Wiki.js is free.
- BookStack also covers templates.
In commonFree planWebOpen sourceSelf-hostablePublic APIMarkdownWikiDiagrams
At a glance
| BookStack | Wiki.js | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Free plan | Free |
| Starts at | £450 per year for an optional support plan; the software itself is free | Free |
| Free plan | The whole application is free and MIT licensed, with no cost to download and install your own instance. Community support carries no assurance of a response. | The whole application is free and open source under the AGPL-v3 license. The project is supported by sponsors, backers and donations. |
| Free trial | None listed | None listed |
| Web | ||
| Made by | Dan Brown | Requarks.io |
| Price read from | bookstackapp.com | js.wiki |
| Checked | Oct 5, 2026 | Oct 5, 2026 |
Who each one suits
BookStack
- Teams that want a free wiki running on their own server
- Mixed technical and non-technical staff writing documentation
- Organizations that need LDAP, SAML2 or OIDC sign-in at no cost
Wiki.js
- Developer teams that prefer writing documentation in Markdown
- Organizations that want a free wiki on their own infrastructure
- Wikis whose content should be mirrored to a Git repository
Worth knowing
BookStack
- There is no official hosted version: you install and maintain it yourself, which takes some knowledge of hosting a PHP application and database.
- It needs PHP 8.2 or later with MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6 or later, and shared PHP hosting is not supported.
- Paid support is priced in pounds, at £450 or £4,500 a year before VAT; free community support has no assured response.
Wiki.js
- The site offers two ways to run it, self-hosting or a DigitalOcean Marketplace image, and lists no managed hosting plan or paid support.
- It requires a dedicated domain or sub-domain and cannot be mapped to a subfolder of another site.
- MySQL, MariaDB, MS SQL Server and SQLite will not be supported in the next major version, which keeps only PostgreSQL.
- Version 3.0 is still in beta, and several listed modules, such as the WikiText and tabular editors, are marked as coming soon.
Key features
BookStack
- Books, chapters and pages
- All content sits in a three-level structure of books, chapters and pages, and pages can be re-sorted across books.
- WYSIWYG and Markdown editors
- Pages are written in a simple WYSIWYG editor by default. An optional Markdown editor shows a live preview as you write.
- Search and paragraph links
- Search works within a single book or across every book, chapter and page, and any paragraph can be linked to directly.
- Built-in diagrams
- The page editor has diagrams.net drawing built in, so diagrams can be created without leaving the documentation.
- Roles, permissions and sign-in
- A role and permission system locks down content and actions. Sign-in supports OIDC, SAML2 and LDAP besides email and password, and multi-factor authentication can be enforced per role.
- Revisions and API
- Page revisions and image management are built in, and each instance documents an API covering pages, chapters, books, shelves and attachments.
Wiki.js
- Three editors
- Pages can be written in Markdown with a live preview, in a visual WYSIWYG editor meant for non-technical people, or directly in HTML.
- Version tracking
- All content changes are tracked. Two versions of a page can be compared visually, and a page can be reverted to an earlier state or recovered after deletion.
- Authentication modules
- Sign-in can use local accounts, services such as Google, GitHub and Slack, or LDAP, SAML, Okta and Azure AD, with two-factor authentication on supported modules.
- Git and cloud storage sync
- Content can be synchronized or backed up to Git services such as GitHub and GitLab, or to storage such as AWS S3, Azure Blob Storage and Google Cloud Storage.
- Groups, permissions and page rules
- Users are placed in groups with granular permissions, and page rules limit a group's access by exact path, by how a path starts or ends, or by regular expression.
- GraphQL API
- A GraphQL endpoint on each wiki reads and modifies all of its resources, using API tokens with permission scopes that are generated in the administration area.
Plans
BookStack
BookStack (self-hosted)Free
The full application on your own server, with community support through the project's discussions, Codeberg and Reddit.
Professional Support Plan£450
per year, VAT not included
Email and help-desk support covering installation and updating issues, with high-priority handling of bug and issue reports.
Enterprise Support Plan£4,500
per year, VAT not included
Everything in Professional, plus highest-priority handling, help with API integrations and up to 10 hours of video support a year.
Wiki.js
Wiki.js$0
The full application, hosted on your own servers or launched from the DigitalOcean Marketplace image, with community help through the project's support channels.
