head to head · open source
BookStack vs Docs
BookStack has 19,048 GitHub stars, 2,422 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Docs has 16,829 stars, 634 forks, 370 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BookStack leads on adoption by 13% (19,048 vs 16,829 stars). BookStack is written in PHP under MIT; Docs is written in Python under MIT. BookStack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, Docs 4%. Docs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (documentation), 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 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| BookStack | Docs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 17K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | PHP | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 634 |
| 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 Docs if
- You want the Docs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Docs 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 Docs
Docs is an open source collaborative text editor for creating, editing, and sharing documents in real time. It lives in the open source documentation and knowledge base ecosystem, and it is built with Django and React for web native use. The repository describes Docs as a web native editor made for teams that need clean documents and sub documents without surrendering data to a hosted service.
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 Docs more popular?
BookStack has 19,048 GitHub stars and Docs has 16,829. BookStack has the larger community by that measure.
Are BookStack and Docs free?
Both are open source. BookStack is licensed under MIT and Docs under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BookStack and Docs?
BookStack is written in PHP and Docs in Python. 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 Docs?
Choose BookStack if you want the larger community (19,048 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose Docs if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.