Comparison
Hosted vs self-hosted BookStack
BookStack is free, and it's one of the easiest wikis to run yourself. Here's an honest look at when that's the right call and when it's worth paying someone else.
Running it yourself
- Cost: a small server, from about $10 a month, plus backup storage.
- Setup: PHP, a MySQL or MariaDB database and a web server, or the community Docker images. BookStack's own installation guide is clear.
- Ongoing: applying updates (security fixes promptly), keeping backups and testing restores, renewing certificates, setting up single sign-on, and fixing things when an update misbehaves.
What we do instead
- Updates tested and applied for you, with critical security fixes within 72 hours.
- Nightly backups to a second provider, with restores tested every month.
- Google or Microsoft sign-in set up and kept working.
- Draw.io diagrams served from our own copy, so nothing leaves our hosting.
- Email support that is AI-assisted. The founder personally approves every price exception and any refund the terms don't already guarantee, and handles anything involving data deletion, privacy or security.
Self-host if
- Someone on your team enjoys running servers and has time for it.
- Your wiki must live on your own network.
- You need to change BookStack's code or run your own themes and hacks.
Let us host it if
- The person who set it up has moved on, or updates keep slipping.
- You want backups you don't have to think about.
- You'd rather spend $49 a month than an afternoon a month.
Already running BookStack yourself? Email us and we'll talk it through. Our free move covers Confluence for now. Either way, you can export and leave whenever you like.
Tablewide is not affiliated with or endorsed by the BookStack project.