What it is
Docmost is an open-source collaborative wiki and documentation software written in TypeScript and licensed under the AGPL-3.0 license. It positions itself as an open alternative to Atlassian Confluence and Notion, and its tagline describes it as a self-hosted wiki with AI, compliance, and real-time editing. The project lives in the knowledge management and note-taking ecosystem, where teams manage documentation and knowledge-base content.
The concrete problem Docmost addresses is the need for a team wiki that can be self-hosted while still supporting shared authoring, structured organization, and controlled access. The README lists spaces, permissions management, groups, comments, page history, search, file attachments, diagrams, embeds, and translations as features. These capabilities support common documentation workflows in which users create pages, discuss them, revise them, attach files, and find content later.
Key capabilities
- Real-time collaboration allows multiple users to work on wiki content together, as indicated by the GitHub description and the realtime-collaboration topic.
- Spaces, groups, and permissions management provide organizational structures for separating content areas and controlling access.
- Comments, page history, and search support review, revision tracking, and retrieval of documentation.
- Diagram support includes Draw.io, Excalidraw, and Mermaid, which lets users embed visual material in pages.
- File attachments and embeds from Airtable, Loom, Miro, and other services allow documentation to reference external assets and content.
- Translations for 10 or more languages are listed as a feature for localization.
- The core is licensed under AGPL-3.0, while enterprise features are available under an enterprise license in designated enterprise directories.
Who uses it and how
- Teams can use Docmost as a self-hosted wiki for internal documentation and knowledge-base content.
- Groups can organize material into spaces and assign access through permissions and groups.
- Contributors can edit pages collaboratively, add comments, review page history, and attach files to documentation.
- Authors can include diagrams and embedded external content such as Draw.io, Excalidraw, Mermaid, Airtable, Loom, and Miro.
- Users who prefer a managed option can try the cloud version referenced by the README.
Getting started
The README directs users to the project documentation for setup and offers a hosted cloud version at docmost.com/pricing. It also points to self-hosting development documentation for contributors.
When to use it — and when not to
Docmost is suitable when a team wants an open-source, self-hosted alternative to Atlassian Confluence or Notion and needs wiki features such as spaces, permissions, groups, comments, history, search, diagrams, attachments, and embeds. The README does not specify database, storage, SMTP, or other self-hosting dependencies, so a self-hoster must consult the documentation before deployment. The AGPL-3.0 core and enterprise-licensed directories mean that some functionality may require the Enterprise Edition rather than the open-source core alone.
