Open-source and self-hosted Confluence alternatives

This list is for teams who want to leave Atlassian Cloud, or who run Confluence Data Center, which Atlassian is retiring on March 28, 2029, and want a wiki they host themselves. Eight options follow, from a full enterprise wiki platform to a Markdown-in-Git wiki.

The honest short version: no free tool matches Confluence's Jira links, Marketplace apps and enterprise administration. What you can get is a wiki you control, at a lower cost, with real-time editing. The two things that decide the shortlist are how your pages get out of Confluence (not every tool has an importer, and some importers are paid) and whether you need SSO on day one (several tools put it behind a paid edition).

Facts about other products checked against their own sites on October 11, 2026. Folio is our project; the order below is not a ranking.

Which one to pick

A Confluence importer and SSO, with a paid edition acceptableDocmost Business or Outline's licensed editions
A mature platform with a documented Confluence migrationXWiki
The simplest wiki to run, with LDAP, SAML and OIDC built inBookStack
Documentation kept as Markdown files in your own Git repositoryFolio
Docs and whiteboards in one workspaceAFFiNE

How we chose

We looked for tools you can run yourself or own locally, and compared each one on the same points. Every fact below comes from the project's own website or repository; the links are at the end.

Self-hosting: you can run it on your own server, and what that takes.
License: open source (OSI-approved), source-available, or open core with paid editions.
Where the data lives: a database, plain files, or a Git repository.
Real-time editing, where the vendor documents it.
AI and agents: a built-in assistant or an MCP server, where the vendor documents it.
Import from Confluence: whether there is an importer, what it carries over, and which edition has it.
Price: what the free edition lacks and what the paid edition costs.

Where Confluence itself stands

Confluence Cloud has a Free plan for up to 10 users with 2 GB of file storage. Standard is listed at $5.42 per user per month and Premium at $10.44; Enterprise is quoted by sales. SSO and SCIM need a separate Atlassian Guard subscription on Free, Standard and Premium, and are included in Enterprise (Atlassian pricing page, checked October 11, 2026).

Data Center, the self-managed edition, has an end date. Atlassian stopped selling new Data Center subscriptions to new customers on March 30, 2026. Existing customers can renew and expand until March 30, 2028. On March 28, 2029 Data Center subscriptions expire and the products become read-only. If you self-host Confluence today, that is the clock behind this list.

Staying on Confluence Cloud is a reasonable answer if you depend on Jira-connected workflows, Marketplace apps, macros or enterprise identity controls. The tools below replace the wiki, not that ecosystem.

8 options, one by one

1. Docmost

Official site

A collaborative wiki that positions itself as an open-source alternative to Confluence and Notion. The free Community edition has real-time collaboration, spaces and full-text search.

License: AGPL-3.0 for the core; the enterprise features are under a separate Docmost Enterprise license
Hosting: Self-managed (Docker; its install guide uses PostgreSQL and Redis).
Price: Community: free. Business: $6 per seat per month billed annually, minimum 10 seats. Enterprise: custom.

Strengths

A Confluence importer exists (Business edition).
Business adds SSO (SAML 2.0, OIDC, LDAP), page-level permissions, AI and MCP, at a per-seat price.
Enterprise adds SCIM, audit logs and a page verification workflow.
Runs air-gapped.

Drawbacks

The Confluence importer, SSO, page-level permissions and AI are not in the free edition.
Business has a 10-seat minimum.
Not Git-backed: its Docker install runs on PostgreSQL and Redis.

Best for: Teams that want a Confluence-shaped wiki with importer and SSO at a per-seat price, self-managed.

2. Outline

Official site

A polished team wiki with real-time editing, an API and an MCP server. Documents are stored in PostgreSQL, attachments in S3-compatible storage or on local disk.

License: Business Source License 1.1: source-available, not an open-source license; becomes Apache 2.0 on 2030-09-09
Hosting: Hosted cloud, or self-hosted with Docker, PostgreSQL 14+ and Redis 4+.
Price: Cloud: $10, $79 or $249 a month for 1-10, 11-100 or 101-200 members, 30-day trial. The community edition is free to self-host; Business and Enterprise editions are licensed by Outline.

Strengths

Real-time collaborative editing with cursors; a rich-text editor that accepts Markdown.
An importer for Confluence HTML space exports, plus Notion and Word imports.
Business and Enterprise add SAML, an audit log and structured data attributes.
MCP server with OAuth or API-key access.

Drawbacks

The Confluence importer is only in Cloud, Business and Enterprise, not in the free self-hosted edition. Macros, comments and authorship are not imported.
The license forbids offering Outline as a service to third parties.
Setup needs a compatible authentication provider, per its requirements page.

Best for: Teams that want a fast, polished wiki and will pay for a license or the cloud to get the importer and SSO.

3. XWiki

Official site

A wiki platform developed for more than 20 years, used as a knowledge base, intranet or application platform. It has a WYSIWYG editor, wiki syntax, rights management and a large extension catalog.

License: LGPL 2.1
Hosting: Self-hosted (Java).
Price: Free software. XWiki SAS sells a paid Confluence Migrator extension, priced by support level and number of users.

Strengths

A documented Confluence migration that maps users, groups, labels, comments and permissions.
Real-time WYSIWYG editing is bundled and enabled by default from XWiki 16.9.0.
Strong rights management and a large extension ecosystem.

Drawbacks

A broad platform: more to run, configure and learn than a single-purpose wiki.
The migration drops space descriptions and does not support favorites, per XWiki's own mapping table.
The smoother Confluence Migrator is a paid extension.

Best for: Organizations that want a mature, extensible platform and a documented path out of Confluence.

4. Folio

Our projectOfficial site

A wiki whose pages are Markdown files in your own Git repository. A browser edit becomes a commit, a change pushed from your IDE returns to the wiki, and agents read and write the same pages over MCP. Tables, forms and Excalidraw boards live in the same tree.

License: MIT
Hosting: Self-hosted only (Docker, PostgreSQL and Redis). No hosted version.
Price: Free software. You pay for your server, and for a Cursor subscription if you want the built-in assistant.

Strengths

Real-time editing, a page tree, search, page rights and history, with Git as the content history.
A Confluence importer for a page or a tree: panels become callouts, plus code, checkboxes, status macros and images; Confluence whiteboards become Excalidraw boards.
An MCP server with personal access tokens, and a built-in assistant.
MIT license, and no export step: the files are already yours.

Drawbacks

No SSO, SCIM or user groups: sign-in is email and password, optionally Google.
No native mobile apps; the interface is responsive.
The built-in assistant needs a Cursor subscription; other providers are not supported yet.
A young project with a small community.

Best for: Engineering-led teams that want documentation as reviewable Markdown beside their code, and can live without SSO for now.

5. BookStack

Official site

A simple documentation platform that organizes content as books, chapters and pages. The editor is WYSIWYG, with an optional Markdown editor.

License: MIT
Hosting: Self-hosted (PHP with Laravel and MySQL; a Docker option exists). Source on Codeberg.
Price: Free. Paid support plans are available.

Strengths

LDAP, SAML 2.0 and OIDC sign-in, and multi-factor authentication, in the free edition.
Runs on modest hardware; a built-in diagrams.net editor; a REST API.
A single free edition: no feature tiers.

Drawbacks

No automated Confluence migration; BookStack says so itself and points to its REST API.
Content is stored mainly as HTML, not Markdown.
The book, chapter, page hierarchy is fixed, which suits some teams and not others.

Best for: Teams that want the simplest wiki to operate, with enterprise sign-in included, and can migrate content by hand or script.

6. Wiki.js

Official site

An open-source wiki with Markdown, visual and HTML editors, version history with comparison, and a long list of sign-in modules. The stable release is 2.5.314; version 3.0 is in beta.

License: AGPL-3.0
Hosting: Self-hosted (Node.js; PostgreSQL, MySQL, MariaDB, SQL Server or SQLite; Docker image).
Price: Free.

Strengths

Sign-in with LDAP, SAML 2.0, OpenID Connect, Okta, Azure AD and more, plus two-factor authentication.
A Git storage module that syncs pages with a remote repository.
Works with several databases, from SQLite to PostgreSQL.

Drawbacks

We found no Confluence importer in its documentation.
The Git module needs a repository dedicated to Wiki.js; a subfolder or submodules are not supported.
The 3.0 line is still in beta.

Best for: Teams that want a self-hosted Markdown wiki with broad sign-in options and no per-seat pricing.

7. AFFiNE

Official site

A workspace that puts documents and an "Edgeless" whiteboard in one place, local-first on the desktop, with real-time collaboration on team workspaces.

License: MIT for the editor and most of the code; the self-hosted server backend is source-available under the AFFiNE Enterprise Edition license
Hosting: Cloud, or self-hosted with Docker Compose.
Price: Self-hosted: free up to 10 seats per workspace; Team is $10 per seat per month billed annually ($12 monthly).

Strengths

Docs and whiteboards together.
Desktop workspaces work offline; team workspaces sync through its cloud or your own server.
AI is optional and uses your own provider keys on self-hosted workspaces.

Drawbacks

No dedicated Confluence importer; AFFiNE's own comparison page says to export and convert first.
No native SAML or SCIM (OIDC single sign-on is supported), per AFFiNE.
The backend is not OSI open source: without a commercial agreement you may only review its code.

Best for: Small teams that want docs and whiteboards in one local-first workspace and do not need enterprise administration.

8. MediaWiki

Official site

The software behind Wikipedia: free and open source, extensible, multilingual and built to scale. Pages are written in wiki markup; a VisualEditor extension is available.

License: GPL 2.0 or later
Hosting: Self-hosted (PHP, a web server and a database such as MariaDB).
Price: Free.

Strengths

Proven at the largest scale, with hundreds of extensions and a large community.
Free, with no paid tier to hit.
Localised in over 350 languages.

Drawbacks

It is an encyclopedia engine, so teams usually assemble the team-wiki features they want from extensions.
Wiki markup is a different mental model from Confluence's editor.
We did not review a Confluence import path or AI features.

Best for: Organizations that want a free, proven wiki engine they are willing to configure.

Confluence alternatives compared

As of October 2026.

Confluence alternatives compared, as of October 2026
Product	License	Hosting	Editing	AI and agents	Confluence import	Price
Docmost	AGPL-3.0 core, enterprise features separate	Self-managed	Real-time collaborative editor	AI chat, AI search and MCP in paid editions	Yes, Business edition	Community free; Business $6 per seat per month, annual, 10-seat minimum
Outline	BSL 1.1 (source-available)	Cloud or self-hosted	Real-time, rich text with Markdown	MCP server; AI answers in paid editions	Yes, in Cloud, Business and Enterprise; not in the free self-hosted edition	Cloud from $10 a month; community self-host free
XWiki	LGPL 2.1	Self-hosted	WYSIWYG and wiki syntax; real-time WYSIWYG	Not reviewed	Documented migration; paid Confluence Migrator	Free; paid Migrator extension
Folio (our project)	MIT	Self-hosted (Docker)	Real-time, live Markdown, source view	Built-in assistant (needs Cursor) and MCP server	Yes: a page or a tree; macros partly converted	Free software
BookStack	MIT	Self-hosted	WYSIWYG, optional Markdown	Not reviewed	No automated migration, per BookStack	Free; paid support plans
Wiki.js	AGPL-3.0	Self-hosted	Markdown, visual editor, HTML	Not reviewed	None found in its docs	Free
AFFiNE	MIT editor, source-available backend	Cloud or self-hosted	Real-time docs and whiteboard	Optional AI with your own keys	No dedicated importer, per AFFiNE	Self-host free up to 10 seats; Team $10 per seat per month, annual
MediaWiki	GPL 2.0 or later	Self-hosted	Wiki markup; VisualEditor extension	Not reviewed	Not reviewed	Free

As of October 2026. "Not reviewed" means we did not check that point, not that the feature is missing. Prices are those listed on each vendor's site on October 11, 2026.

Questions people ask

What is the best open-source alternative to Confluence?

It depends on what you cannot give up. If you need a Confluence importer and SSO, look at Docmost Business, Outline's licensed editions or XWiki. If you want the simplest wiki to run with LDAP, SAML and OIDC included, BookStack. If you want your docs as Markdown files in Git, Folio. None of them replaces Confluence's Jira integration or Marketplace apps.

Is there a free Confluence alternative?

Confluence Cloud itself has a Free plan for up to 10 users and 2 GB of storage. For self-hosting, BookStack, Wiki.js, XWiki, MediaWiki and Folio are free software, and Docmost's and Outline's community editions are free. Several of those editions leave out the Confluence importer or SSO, so check the table before you commit.

Can I import my Confluence spaces?

Some tools can. Outline imports Confluence HTML space exports in Cloud, Business and Enterprise (macros, comments and authorship are not carried over). Docmost's Business edition has a Confluence importer. XWiki documents a migration that maps users, groups, comments and permissions, and sells a Confluence Migrator. Folio imports a page or a tree. BookStack says it has no automated migration, and AFFiNE has no dedicated importer. Test with one real space first: every importer loses something, usually macros.

What happens to self-managed Confluence (Data Center)?

Atlassian is retiring Data Center. New customers could no longer buy it from March 30, 2026, existing customers can renew and expand until March 30, 2028, and on March 28, 2029 Data Center subscriptions expire and the products become read-only. Confluence Cloud continues.

Which of these have SSO without paying?

BookStack (LDAP, SAML 2.0, OIDC) and Wiki.js (LDAP, SAML 2.0, OpenID Connect and others) include enterprise sign-in in the free edition. Docmost puts SSO in Business, Outline puts SAML in its licensed editions, and AFFiNE supports OIDC but not native SAML or SCIM. Folio has no SSO, SCIM or user groups.

Is Folio a Confluence replacement?

For teams that treat documentation as Markdown beside their code, yes: we replaced Confluence with it ourselves. It is not a replacement if you need SSO, SCIM or user groups, Jira-connected workflows, Marketplace apps or native mobile apps. See the detailed Folio versus Confluence comparison for the trade-offs.

Compare Folio in detail

Folio vs. Confluence Folio vs. Outline Folio vs. a conventional wiki Self-hosted and open-source Notion alternatives Self-hosted wiki software for a team or company wiki

See whether Folio fits your team.

Open the public demo with no sign-up, or run it yourself with Docker. Folio is MIT licensed.

Try the demo Install Folio

Moving pages out of Confluence? Convert a Confluence page to Markdown in your browser, free.

Sources (32 links, checked 2026-10-11)

Prices, licenses and features on this page come from these pages. Vendors change them; if you see something out of date, tell us on GitHub and we will fix it.