BookStack
Free (self-hosted) / Managed hosting ~$20/moBeautiful, open-source wiki organized as books, chapters, and pages—zero cost to self-host.
Why founders use BookStack
The Good
The Bad
The Verdict
BookStack is a free, open-source wiki platform built with Laravel that excels at creating structured, readable documentation. It organizes content hierarchically as Shelves > Books > Chapters > Pages, making it ideal for creating manuals, policies, and knowledge bases. Unlike Confluence, which charges per user, BookStack is completely free to self-host on minimal infrastructure.\n\nThe platform includes a WYSIWYG editor, full-text search, role-based access control, page revisions, and a REST API for automation. It's lightweight—running happily on a $5 DigitalOcean VPS. For indie hackers and small teams documenting products or internal processes, BookStack is unbeatable on cost and simplicity.