head to head · open source
BookStack vs PandaWiki
BookStack has 19,050 GitHub stars, 2,422 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped today. PandaWiki has 10,273 stars, 1,024 forks, 324 open issues and last shipped 5 days ago. BookStack leads on adoption by 85% (19,050 vs 10,273 stars). BookStack is written in PHP under MIT; PandaWiki is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. BookStack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, PandaWiki 10%. 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.
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Side by side
| BookStack | PandaWiki | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 10K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 PandaWiki if
- You want the PandaWiki feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and PandaWiki 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 PandaWiki
PandaWiki is an open source knowledge base system driven by large language models, written in TypeScript and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It lives in the self hosted documentation and knowledge base ecosystem, alongside the AI and LLM tooling that powers its features. The project is designed to build intelligent product documentation, technical documentation, FAQ pages, and blog systems, and it ships as a self hosted application that runs on a Linux server through Docker. Its topic list places it squarely in the ai, docs, documentation, kb, llm, self hosted, and wiki space, and the repository has accumula…
read the full PandaWiki overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is BookStack or PandaWiki more popular?
BookStack has 19,050 GitHub stars and PandaWiki has 10,273. BookStack has the larger community by that measure.
Are BookStack and PandaWiki free?
Both are open source. BookStack is licensed under MIT and PandaWiki under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BookStack and PandaWiki?
BookStack is written in PHP and PandaWiki in TypeScript. 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 PandaWiki?
Choose BookStack if you want the larger community (19,050 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose PandaWiki if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.