head to head · open source
BookStack vs nebula
BookStack has 19,048 GitHub stars, 2,422 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nebula has 12,395 stars, 1,330 forks, 678 open issues and last shipped 10 days ago. BookStack leads on adoption by 54% (19,048 vs 12,395 stars). BookStack is written in PHP under MIT; nebula is written in C++ under Apache-2.0. BookStack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, nebula 11%. BookStack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| BookStack | nebula | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-08 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 1.3K |
| 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 nebula if
- You want the nebula feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and nebula fits your workflow better
About BookStack
BookStack is a self hosted documentation platform written in PHP on top of the Laravel framework, released under the MIT license. It is described by its maintainers as an opinionated platform for storing and organising information and documentation, and it is distributed as an open source project whose development is now managed on Codeberg. The project has existed for roughly eleven years and carries a substantial community footprint, with more than nineteen thousand stars and over two thousand forks recorded against its repository history.
read the full BookStack overview →
About nebula
NebulaGraph is an open source, distributed graph database written in C++ and released under the Apache 2.0 license. It lives in the graph database ecosystem and appears in the CNCF Database Landscape. The project describes itself as symmetrically distributed, with storage and computing separated into distinct layers, horizontal scalability across nodes, strong data consistency enforced through the RAFT protocol, an OpenCypher compatible query language, role based access control, and a set of graph analytics algorithms. It has been developed for roughly eight years and carries 12,387 stars, 1,330 forks, and 678 op…
read the full nebula overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is BookStack or nebula more popular?
BookStack has 19,048 GitHub stars and nebula has 12,395. BookStack has the larger community by that measure.
Are BookStack and nebula free?
Both are open source. BookStack is licensed under MIT and nebula under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BookStack and nebula?
BookStack is written in PHP and nebula in C++. 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 nebula?
Choose BookStack if you want the larger community (19,048 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose nebula if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.