head to head · open source
BookStack vs gollum
BookStack has 19,122 GitHub stars, 2,433 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gollum has 14,338 stars, 1,560 forks, 91 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. BookStack leads on adoption by 33% (19,122 vs 14,338 stars). BookStack is written in PHP under MIT; gollum is written in Ruby under MIT. BookStack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, gollum 11%. BookStack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (documentation, wiki), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| BookStack | gollum | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 14K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-11-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick BookStack if
- You weight community size — 19K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gollum if
- You want the gollum feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and gollum fits your workflow better
About BookStack
BookStack A platform for storing and organising information and documentation. Details for BookStack can be found on the official website at Installation Instructions Documentation Demo Instance Screenshots BookStack Blog Issue List Community Discussions Support Options 📚 Project Definition BookStack is an opinionated documentation platform that provides a pleasant and simple out of the box experience. New users to an instance should find the experience intuitive and only basic word processing skills should be required to get involved in creating content on BookStack. The platform should provide advanced power…
read the full BookStack overview →
About gollum
gollum A git based Wiki Gollum is a simple wiki system built on top of Git. A Gollum Wiki is simply a git repository of a specific nature: A Gollum repository's contents are human editable text or markup files. Pages may be organized into directories any way you choose. Other content can also be included, for example images, PDFs and headers/footers for your pages. Gollum pages: May be written in a variety of markups. Can be edited with your favourite editor (changes will be visible after committing) or with the built in web interface. Can be displayed in all versions, reverted, etc. Gollum strives to be…
read the full gollum overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Documentation & Knowledge Base projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Documentation & Knowledge Base field.
Frequently asked questions
Is BookStack or gollum more popular?
BookStack has 19,122 GitHub stars and gollum has 14,338. BookStack has the larger community by that measure.
Are BookStack and gollum free?
Both are open source. BookStack is licensed under MIT and gollum under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BookStack and gollum?
BookStack is written in PHP and gollum in Ruby. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, BookStack or gollum?
Choose BookStack if you want the larger community (19,122 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose gollum if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.