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Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

bookstackapp.com

41–50 of 203 posts

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#41

The only issue I have with many Confluence alternatives is that they don't support multiple people editing the same document, at the same time, à la google docs. Does this? I can't tell from the landing page.

Does not support this at the moment. Currently rebuilding the editor with a vision to potentially support that in the future although there'd be some hurdles to jump over to get to that point.

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#42

Sorry this is nothing like Confluence. On Bookstack you click a link and get a new page instantly. This is nothing like Confluence where you need to wait 5-8 seconds for each page. And no, I will never not shit in Atlassian products until they fix performance. Trello is the standout. Thanks for not trashing it.

[deleted]

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#43
Can anyone with experience with multiple wiki platforms compare this with XWiki and/or MediaWiki.

I may be asked to update $WORK's wiki, which is currently MoinMoin (IIRC), and am looking for anyone with more experience so I don't have to start testing from scratch. I've run MediaWiki before, but am not beholden to using it just because of past/current familiarity.

Importing from MoinMoin would be nice, but not absolutely required. LDAP integration (at least for authentication/LDAP binds) is mandatory, but LDAP group integration (authorization/permissions/roles) isn't mandatory: that can be internal to the app. Wouldn't mind it though: either Unix-style or AD-style (memberOf).

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#44
post #39

Thanks for creating and maintaining BookStack. My company has used it for around three years, and recently integrated it with Okta for SSO. It’s fast, simple to use, and the recent search improvements have really made it an excellent product.

Awesome to hear. Especially happy to hear good feedback regarding the search improvements, I spent a good amount of time on those and this is the first feedback I've had since.

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#45

The only issue I have with many Confluence alternatives is that they don't support multiple people editing the same document, at the same time, à la google docs. Does this? I can't tell from the landing page.

All real Confluence alternative (Confluence is a b2b software not a wiki tool) Notion, Guru, Slab, Slite ... are supporting that since their creation.

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#46
post #37

Another option I've been considering for a change away from Confluence is Gitbook. Curious to hear if anyone has done an in-depth comparison of these two.

This can really depend on your use-case and audience.

Things like gitbook (& docusaurus) can often be better for focused topics or when serving product documentation to users.

BookStack tends to work better as a mixed-topic, mixed-user platform. Along the lines of an internal wiki shared by different teams. I've seen people attempt to use BookStack as a replacement for GitBook but struggle due to the structure being different.

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#47
Maybe BookStack can do fine for a company with a few dozens of employees. But Confluence can handle tens of thousands of employees. So I wouldn't label Bookstack as a Confluence alternative.

Maybe I'm missing something, but BookStack doesn't even have a notion of "teams" only roles. You can't give permission of a file to a user, only to all users who have a certain role.

But I'm certainly biased as I'm building a real Confluence alternative

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#48

I've been working on BookStack for over 6 years now, learning a lot about open source project maintainership during that time. Originally developed it while looking for a documentation system for my mixed-technical-skill workplace. Wanted something easy to use without having to get finance involved when increasing our user count. With Confluence backing away from their self-hosted offerings, hopefully many will find…

This is superb. Thanks for making this.

Looks like a good Notion alternative too.

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#49

I've been working on BookStack for over 6 years now, learning a lot about open source project maintainership during that time. Originally developed it while looking for a documentation system for my mixed-technical-skill workplace. Wanted something easy to use without having to get finance involved when increasing our user count. With Confluence backing away from their self-hosted offerings, hopefully many will find…

Thank you, thank you, thank you. I use started using bookstack when I realized that I wanted a place for long form / long term storage of documents separates from my Notes / To dos. I love it and I deeply appreciate your hard work.

For others that haven't tried it, here's what clicked for me:

  - An opinionated hierarchy of Book -> Chapter (Optional) -> Page
  - Great search
  - WYSIWYG OR Markdown supported
  - Great integration into Diagrams.net
I love it. Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Re: Show HN: BookStack – An open source wiki platform and alternative to Confluence

#50

Would be nice if they can offer a managed version in the near future

Yeah, this has been requested a few times. I don't come from a hosting background (Outside of managing my own VPSs) so I don't feel it's something I can personally do (at a level of service I'd be happy with) but the idea of partnering with someone that has experience is something I've though about; The tricky part is finding someone I can trust enough to send users to.

I'd love to chat more about this!

We're a managed cloud infrastructure business (since 2006), and also run our own public cloud.. Reach out to me via nick at mnx io.

At a minimum, I'd be happy to give you some pointers in this space.

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