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

bookstackapp.com

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

#51

Post by tailspin2019 »

shdisi wrote: 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.

Out of interest, does your company support the author via sponsorship or other means?

I’m curious… I wondered what the red tape is like in organisations that use open source projects like this in order to setup a GitHub sponsorship or similar.

In a previous role at a cash-strapped startup I used open source software within my team and have to admit I never arranged any contributions to the OSS projects - though if I had my time again in that role I’d be more mindful about trying to do this. Especially I think when the project is a very small or “one person” team.

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

#52

Post by ssddanbrown »

polote wrote: post #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 rea…

> 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.

Sure, but there are a lot of people within that range up to tens of thousands. I have had some people mention using BookStack within environments towards to tens of thousands (Although it's likely a lesser portion enganged). Just because it may not achieve that one factor does not discount it as an alternative for significant audience.

> 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.

Yeah, we don't have the word usage of "Teams" but I'm not sure what that'd offer in addition to roles. Role specific permissions can be applied to any of the hierarchy elements (Including upon page content).

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

#53

Post by ssddanbrown »

throwaway9492 wrote: post #27

We actually moved from Confluence to Bookstack last year, mainly because the EOL for the Atlassian server-licenses. Sure, it has less features, but the main function, maintaining content by non-tech people works great! Thanks for creating this app.

Good to hear about another successful transition from Confluence!

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

#54

Post by NmAmDa »

throwaway984393 wrote: post #33

I can't say I would use BookStack. The demo doesn't show the same sort of ease of use that Confluence has, nor the features. I really like Outline https://www.getoutline.com/ as it is open source, self hosted and free if you don't use the Enterprise features. It really does seem to be a Confluence replacement. https://www.getoutline.com/compare/confluence-alternative

You need to use slack or google for the selfhost setup. Which is non starter for many people.

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

#55

Post by hoherd »

sirodoht wrote: post #30

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.

I just ran into this problem with Notion earlier this week. It was really disappointing how bad the experience was with even just two people trying to work on the same document. I quickly gave up.

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

#56

Post by ssddanbrown »

tailspin2019 wrote: post #51
shdisi wrote: 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.

Out of interest, does your company support the author via sponsorship or other means? I’m curious… I wondered what the red tape is like in organisations that use open source projects like this in order to setup a GitHub sponsorship or similar. In a previous role at a cash-strapped startup I used open source software within my team and have to admit I never arranged any contributions to the OSS projects - though if I…

I recently come across a similar question on Reddit. While I can't offer the company perspective I can offer a maintainer perspective:

https://www.reddit.com/r/opensource/comments/rwmiwn/recommen...?

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

#57

Post by polote »

ssddanbrown wrote: post #52
polote wrote: post #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 rea…

> 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. Sure, but there are a lot of people within that range up to tens of thousands. I have had some people mention using BookStack within environments towards to tens of thousands (Although it's likely a lesser portion enganged). Ju…

I'm certainly not criticizing BookStack. It actually looks super responsive and have a great set of features to manage knowledge especially for an open source platform.

As for roles. In organizations of a certain size, the concept of role is not organization wide, but team-wide. You will set for example the editor role, for some people of the team "Operations". Don't really see how this can be done on BookStack

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

#58

Post by siculars »

ssddanbrown wrote: post #40
robsalasco wrote: post #24

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.

^ This right here is a business ^

Helping small ISVs turn their software into SaaS offerings.

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

#59

Post by ssddanbrown »

maineldc wrote: post #49
ssddanbrown wrote: post #2

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 integr…

Thank you! I love to hear about the specific features people enjoy.

> WYSIWYG OR Markdown

I will state that switching between them is pretty flaky at the moment, is done at instance level and can cause HTML in markdown. Is designed to be choose-once-and-leave. That said, in rebuilding the editor I am aiming for easy and instant Markdown & WYSIWYG switching within editor.

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

#60

Post by ssddanbrown »

polote wrote: post #57
ssddanbrown wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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. Sure, but there are a lot of people within that range up to tens of thousands. I have had some people mention using BookStack within environments towards to tens of thousands (Although it's likely a lesser portion enganged). Ju…

I'm certainly not criticizing BookStack. It actually looks super responsive and have a great set of features to manage knowledge especially for an open source platform. As for roles. In organizations of a certain size, the concept of role is not organization wide, but team-wide. You will set for example the editor role, for some people of the team "Operations". Don't really see how this can be done on BookStack

Okay, Not sure I still yet fully understand but I'm not really familiar with Confluence so probably just something in my blind spot.

Good luck with dokkument! Hope you gain that large-scale enterprise segment!

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