head to head · open source
BookStack vs persepolis
BookStack has 19,123 GitHub stars, 2,435 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. persepolis has 7,490 stars, 711 forks, 317 open issues and last shipped 1.1 years ago. BookStack leads on adoption by 155% (19,123 vs 7,490 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 | 2026-11-04 | 2025-10-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.4K | ⑂ 711 |
| 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 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 persepolis
Persepolis Download Manager Content About How to install PersepolisDM FAQ Screenshots Credits About Persepolis is a download manager written in Python. Persepolis is a sample of free and open source software. It's developed for GNU/Linux distributions, BSDs, macOS, and Microsoft Windows. Features Multi segment downloading (64 connections) Scheduling downloads Download queuing Downloading videos from Youtube and ... and many more! Demonstration clip: How to install PersepolisDM? Please checkout the Persepolis wiki FAQ Where does the name come from? From Wikipedia: Persepolis (Greek: Περσέπολις Persépolis; "the…
read the full persepolis overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is BookStack or persepolis more popular?
BookStack has 19,123 GitHub stars and persepolis has 7,490. 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 (19,123 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose persepolis if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.