Team knowledge base built around nested documents
Outline is a team knowledge base written in TypeScript, with React in the browser and Node.js on the server. General Outline, Inc. sells it as a hosted service, and the same code runs on your own server. The project's website pitches it against Confluence and Google Docs, with a comparison page for each.
BookStack makes you file pages into shelves, books and chapters, while Wiki.js builds its tree from each page's path. Outline puts every document in a collection and lets documents hold other documents.
The self-hosted wiki comparison sets Outline's structure and sign-in requirements against the other projects.
Keyboard-first editor with live co-editing
- Live co-editing: a dedicated
collaborationservice merges simultaneous edits, and comments sit inline in the text. Since 1.10.0, readers without edit rights can comment too. - Keyboard-first editor: Markdown shortcuts,
/commands, embeds, and[[to mention an existing document or create a new one on the spot. - Imports from other tools: Notion exports, Word, Markdown, HTML and plain text files, plus web pages,
.emlemails and PDFs since 1.10.0, though the docs do not guarantee import fidelity. Exports come out as Markdown, HTML or JSON. - Search inside PostgreSQL: full-text search uses the database's
tsvectortype, so there is no separate search engine to run. - MCP server in the public code: an MCP-compatible assistant connects to the
/mcproute over OAuth, then searches, reads and edits documents within the scopes granted to its token.
Sign-in only through an identity provider, under BSL 1.1
BSL 1.1 is not an open source license. The LICENSE file says so in plain words. Any use is allowed except running a "Document Service": a commercial offering where third parties, other than your employees and contractors, create teams and documents they control. Each version switches to Apache 2.0 no later than four years after release, which for 1.10.1 means September 9, 2030. BookStack is MIT-licensed and Wiki.js is under AGPL-3.0.
No local accounts, so you need an identity provider. Outline has no sign-up form and no passwords. People sign in through Google, Slack, Microsoft Entra, Discord or a generic OpenID Connect provider, and .env.sample warns that at least one is required or the login page will offer nothing. According to the code, the emailed sign-in link (it needs an SMTP server) and passkeys only work for people who are already members. A team that uses none of those four services has to run its own OIDC provider, and the self-hosted SSO comparison covers several. BookStack and Wiki.js both ship with local accounts.
SAML and audit logs need a paid license. For self-hosting, the Business + Enterprise license, with no public price, adds SAML, the security audit log, structured data attributes and the Confluence importer. In the cloud, Starter is $10 a month for up to 10 members; AI question answering, SSO and groups start at Team, $79 a month for 11 to 100 members. None of the self-hosting configuration variables refers to an AI model.
PostgreSQL, Redis and a domain of its own. The docs list PostgreSQL 14 or later, Redis 4 or later, a dedicated domain or subdomain, and at least 512 MB of memory, with 1 GB or more recommended as the user count grows. Attachments go to local disk or S3-compatible storage.
About one minor release a month, one lead developer. Version 1.0.0 shipped on October 26, 2025, and 1.10.1, the latest, on September 9, 2026, with nine minor releases in 2026 alone. GitHub credits tommoor with 7,265 commits to the repository, against 936 for the next human contributor.