head to head · open source
BookStack vs persepolis
BookStack has 19,050 GitHub stars, 2,422 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped today. persepolis has 7,455 stars, 708 forks, 317 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. BookStack leads on adoption by 156% (19,050 vs 7,455 stars). BookStack is written in PHP under MIT; persepolis is written in Python under GPL-3.0. BookStack has attracted 13% as many forks as stars, persepolis 9%. 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 | persepolis | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 19K | ★ 7.5K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-20 | 2025-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 708 |
| 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 persepolis if
- You want the persepolis feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and persepolis 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 persepolis
Persepolis is a download manager written in Python and released under the GPL 3.0 license. It ships a graphical interface built with PyQt5 or PySide6 and is developed for GNU/Linux distributions, the BSDs, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. The project has existed for roughly ten years, carries 7,449 stars and 709 forks on GitHub, and uses the Meson build system. It is packaged for Arch Linux through the persepolis git AUR package, and it belongs to the desktop application ecosystem of Python and Qt rather than to any single distribution.
read the full persepolis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is BookStack or persepolis more popular?
BookStack has 19,050 GitHub stars and persepolis has 7,455. BookStack has the larger community by that measure.
Are BookStack and persepolis free?
Both are open source. BookStack is licensed under MIT and persepolis under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between BookStack and persepolis?
BookStack is written in PHP and persepolis 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 persepolis?
Choose BookStack if you want the larger community (19,050 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose persepolis if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.