Productivitydocker-ready1-click-deploypermissive-license
Etherpad: the best Open Source alternative to Google Docs in 2026
Etherpad is a real-time collaborative text editor, lightweight and very quick to deploy, ideal for quick shared notes in the style of Google Docs without an account or sign-up.
Technical profile
- License
- Apache-2.0
- Category
- Productivity
- Replaces
- Google Docs
- Tech stack
- Node.jsPostgreSQL
Key features
- Real-time collaborative editing
- Revision history
- Community plugins
Etherpad vs. Google Docs
Pros
- Extremely lightweight and quick to deploy
Things to consider
- No spreadsheets or presentations, text only
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:
etherpad:
image: etherpad/etherpad:latest
restart: unless-stopped
ports:
- "9001:9001"
environment:
- DB_TYPE=postgres
- DB_HOST=etherpad-db
- DB_USER=etherpad
- DB_PASS=etherpad
- DB_NAME=etherpad
depends_on:
- etherpad-db
etherpad-db:
image: postgres:15-alpine
restart: unless-stopped
environment:
- POSTGRES_USER=etherpad
- POSTGRES_PASSWORD=etherpad
- POSTGRES_DB=etherpad
volumes:
- etherpad_pg_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
volumes:
etherpad_pg_data: