TL;DR — Quick Summary
Deploy BookStack for self-hosted wiki and documentation. Organized as Shelves → Books → Chapters → Pages. Features WYSIWYG/Markdown editing, LDAP auth, diagrams, and full API.
What Is BookStack?
BookStack organizes documentation like a real bookshelf: Shelves → Books → Chapters → Pages. Simple, searchable, beautiful.
services:
bookstack:
image: lscr.io/linuxserver/bookstack:latest
container_name: bookstack
restart: always
ports:
- "6875:80"
environment:
- APP_URL=https://docs.yourdomain.com
- DB_HOST=bookstack-db
- DB_DATABASE=bookstack
- DB_USERNAME=bookstack
- DB_PASSWORD=bookstack
volumes:
- bookstack-config:/config
depends_on:
- bookstack-db
bookstack-db:
image: mariadb:10
container_name: bookstack-db
restart: always
environment:
MYSQL_ROOT_PASSWORD: rootpass
MYSQL_DATABASE: bookstack
MYSQL_USER: bookstack
MYSQL_PASSWORD: bookstack
volumes:
- bookstack-data:/var/lib/mysql
volumes:
bookstack-config:
bookstack-data:Features
| Feature | Description |
|---|---|
| Organization | Shelves → Books → Chapters → Pages |
| Editor | WYSIWYG + Markdown |
| Search | Full-text search across all content |
| Diagrams | diagrams.net integration |
| Auth | LDAP, SAML, OIDC, social login |
| API | Full REST API |
| Roles | Granular role-based permissions |
| Export | PDF, HTML, Markdown, plain text |
BookStack vs Alternatives
| Feature | BookStack | Confluence | Wiki.js | Notion |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Self-hosted | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ❌ |
| Cost | Free | $5.75+/user | Free | $8+/user |
| Organization | Hierarchical | Spaces/pages | Flat/tree | Flat |
| Editor | WYSIWYG+MD | WYSIWYG | Markdown | Blocks |
| LDAP/SSO | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ (Enterprise) |
| API | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ | ✅ |