Self-host Confluence

Team wiki / documentation · Category: wiki, docs & notes

Confluence is the default team wiki at companies that already pay for Jira. The self-host gap is mostly Confluence's space + permission model and its Jira integration — the editor itself is replaceable.

Confluence pricing anchor: $5.75/user/mo on Standard tier.

BookStack BookStackApp/BookStack alive

GitHub: ★ 18.8k · last commit 1d ago · 0 open issues
License: MIT
Setup time: 10min docker-compose
Monthly cost: $5 VPS — PHP + MySQL, very light footprint.

Migration sketch. Confluence → Space tools → Content tools → Export → HTML. In BookStack, use the bookstack-confluence-importer community tool, or paste pages manually into Books / Chapters. Attachments need to be re-uploaded; Confluence macros do not survive.

Good fit forCompanies who want a stable, low-ops wiki for handbooks and runbooks.

Weak atNo real-time collaborative editing; macro/plugin ecosystem is small.

Outline outline/outline alive

GitHub: ★ 38.4k · last commit today · 62 open issues
License: BSL-1.1
BSL converts to Apache 2.0 after 4 years; free to self-host today.
Setup time: 15min docker-compose
Monthly cost: $5 VPS — Postgres + Redis + S3-compatible store.

Migration sketch. Confluence → Space export to HTML → use the upstream `outline-import` script (community fork) to convert HTML/Markdown bundles into Outline collections. Re-link cross-page references after import.

Good fit forTeams replacing Confluence with a Notion-shaped writing surface.

Weak atNo native Confluence importer; expect manual cleanup.

Wiki.js Requarks/wiki alive

GitHub: ★ 28.3k · last commit 9d ago · 181 open issues
License: AGPL-3.0
Setup time: 20min docker-compose
Monthly cost: $5 VPS for small/medium teams.

Migration sketch. Confluence → space export to HTML, then in Wiki.js use Storage → Git or LocalFS to import the rendered Markdown. Pages render but Confluence macro placeholders need to be deleted.

Good fit forEngineering teams who want a wiki that syncs with Git.

Weak atv3 has been in development a long time; v2 is the production line.

In a terminal? npx os-alt confluence prints this table — how the CLI works →