Confluence Cloud's Free plan stops at 10 users, and unlimited storage plus page analytics only arrive on Premium, while the self-managed Data Center edition goes read-only on March 28, 2029. Anyone running space-level permissions, directory-synced groups, and macro-heavy page trees has to either climb the Cloud tiers or replatform before that date. Self-hosting lets you bind logins directly to your own LDAP directory: XWiki, BookStack, Wiki.js, and DokuWiki ship that in their free editions, while Docmost reserves LDAP and SSO for its paid license. It also lets you choose how content is stored and moved, from Wiki.js's bidirectional Git sync and DokuWiki's database-free plain-text pages to XWiki's free Confluence XML importer for existing spaces.
| Name | Main Category | Sub-Category | Target Alternative | Free Tier Summary | Self-Hostable? | Short Description | Primary Link |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
BookStack | Project Management & Developer Workspaces | Hierarchical Documentation Wiki (Shelves / Books / Chapters) | Confluence Cloud / Confluence Data Center / Notion | 100% Free - Self-Hosted (MIT License with no seat caps or enterprise gates) | Yes - Docker | PHP/Laravel wiki that organizes documentation into real-world library abstractions (Shelves, Books, Chapters, Pages) with role-based permissions. Ships with built-in LDAP, SAML 2.0, OIDC, MFA, audit logging, and dual Markdown/WYSIWYG editors. Has no native Confluence importer, requiring API or HTML parsing for migrations. | |
DokuWiki | Project Management & Developer Workspaces | Flat-File Wiki | Confluence Cloud / Confluence Data Center | 100% Free - Self-Hosted (GPL-2.0) | Yes - Docker | PHP wiki that stores pages as plain text files with no database, ACL-based namespace permissions, and an LDAP auth backend included in the release. Plugins add structure, but there is no native real-time co-editing. | |
Wiki.js | Project Management & Developer Workspaces | Git-Backed / Git-Synced Markdown Wiki | Confluence Cloud / Confluence Data Center / Notion | 100% Free - Self-Hosted (AGPL-3.0 with no seat limits or plan gates) | Yes - Docker | Node.js wiki with Markdown and visual editors, bidirectional Git storage sync, path-based page permissions, and native LDAP, SAML 2.0, and OAuth authentication. Has no native Confluence importer (requires Markdown/API migration); the 2.x line is the maintained stable release while 3.0 is in Beta. | |
Docmost | Project Management & Developer Workspaces | Collaborative Spaces Wiki & Docs Hub | Confluence Cloud / Confluence Data Center / Notion | Free - AGPL-3.0 Community Edition with unlimited users; SSO, LDAP, page-level permissions, Confluence import, and audit logs require a paid commercial license | Yes - Docker | Real-time collaborative wiki built on NestJS and React with spaces, group-based permissions, nested pages, and Draw.io/Excalidraw/Mermaid diagram embeds. Deploys via Docker Compose backed by PostgreSQL and Redis. Advanced capabilities including SAML/OIDC/LDAP authentication, page-level permissions, audit logs, and a native Confluence importer require a paid Business/Enterprise license key. | |
XWiki | Project Management & Developer Workspaces | Structured Enterprise Wiki / Application Platform | Confluence Cloud / Confluence Data Center | 100% Free - Self-Hosted (LGPL-2.1); LDAP, OIDC, and Confluence XML importer are free extensions; paid Confluence Migrator Pro is optional | Yes - Docker | Java wiki with a structured data model, nested pages, per-space and per-page rights, and LDAP/OIDC extensions. The closest feature match to Confluence for macro-driven documentation, though many Confluence macros have no direct equivalent. |
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