Productivitydocker-ready1-click-deploypermissive-license
BookStack: the best Open Source alternative to Confluence in 2026
BookStack organizes documentation into books, chapters and pages, with a WYSIWYG or Markdown editor and granular permission control, as a simple, lightweight alternative to Confluence.
Technical profile
- License
- MIT
- Category
- Productivity
- Replaces
- Confluence
- Tech stack
- PHPLaravelMySQL
Key features
- Books, chapters and pages structure
- WYSIWYG or Markdown editor
- Granular role-based permissions
BookStack vs. Confluence
Pros
- MIT license
- Very lightweight compared to Confluence
Things to consider
- Fewer third-party plugins than Confluence
Quick Docker installation guide
Copy this docker-compose.yml, adjust the example passwords and run docker compose up -d on your server. See the full step-by-step guide →
docker-compose.yml
version: "3.9"
services:
bookstack:
image: lscr.io/linuxserver/bookstack:latest
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "6875:80"
environment:
- DB_HOST=bookstack-db
- DB_USER=bookstack
- DB_PASS=bookstack
- DB_DATABASE=bookstack
depends_on:
- bookstack-db
bookstack-db:
image: mariadb:11
restart: unless-stopped
environment:
- MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD=root
- MYSQL_DATABASE=bookstack
- MYSQL_USER=bookstack
- MYSQL_PASSWORD=bookstack
volumes:
- bookstack_db_data:/var/lib/mysql
volumes:
bookstack_db_data: