Alternatives / Confluence
These projects range from direct team-wiki replacements to broader collaborative workspaces, local-first knowledge bases, document platforms, and Markdown-focused content management. The right fit depends on whether your team mainly needs wiki pages, project documentation, company knowledge management, or publishing.
Written by Maxime DERAME
Last updated:
Docmost, Outline, and XWiki preserve the traditional wiki model organized around pages, spaces, hierarchies, permissions, search, history, and comments. AppFlowy, AFFiNE, Huly, and Colanode place documents alongside databases, project boards, messaging, tasks, or whiteboards. A broader workspace can replace more applications but also adds complexity.
Docmost is one of the closest modern Confluence alternatives, with team spaces, nested documentation, search, permissions, comments, attachments, collaborative editing, and page history. It adds Draw.io, Excalidraw, Mermaid, AI search, MCP integrations, and Confluence import. Its AGPL-3.0 core is accompanied by separately licensed Enterprise features.
Outline emphasizes editor usability, navigation, search, collections, sharing, and integrations. It is self-hostable, but current versions use Business Source License 1.1 rather than an OSI-approved open-source license. Teams requiring a standard open-source license should account for that distinction.
XWiki is more customizable than most alternatives. Pages can include structured data, custom fields, forms, scripts, workflows, and extensions to create internal business applications. This suits larger organizations and complex intranets, with more administration and complexity than a basic wiki.
AFFiNE and Colanode use local-first architectures so data can remain available locally and synchronize in the background. This supports offline use and responsiveness. AppFlowy also provides offline support, unlike the traditional browser-first Confluence model.
Docs by La Suite numérique focuses on collaborative document creation, while Typemill focuses on structured publishing and documentation sites. Neither offers the full company-wiki architecture of XWiki or Docmost, but each can fit when Confluence is mainly used for shared documents, manuals, or handbooks.
Teams look beyond Confluence for self-hosting, data sovereignty, real-time editing, Markdown, AI search, granular permissions, SSO and LDAP, page history, offline access, local-first documents, or more predictable costs. Confluence may function as a wiki, project documentation system, meeting-notes archive, technical specification library, or company intranet, so the best replacement depends on which use cases matter most.
| Alternative | Type | License | Status | GitHub stars | Self-hosted |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Macro Docs | Collaborative docs | AGPL-3.0 | Open source | ~4.4k | Yes |
| AppFlowy | Workspace / wiki | AGPL-3.0 app | Open source / open core | ~76.9k | Yes |
| AFFiNE | Local-first workspace | MIT CE + backend terms | Mixed | ~72.9k | Yes |
| Outline | Knowledge base | BSL-1.1 | Source available | ~40.7k | Yes |
| Huly | Collaborative workspace | EPL-2.0 | Open source | ~27.8k | Yes |
| Docmost | Wiki | AGPL-3.0 core | Open core | ~21.8k | Yes |
| Docs by La Suite numérique | Collaborative docs | MIT | Open source | ~16.8k | Yes |
| Colanode | Local-first workspace | Apache-2.0 | Open source | Active project | Yes |
| XWiki | Enterprise wiki | LGPL-2.1-or-later | Open source | ~1.1k | Yes |
| Typemill | Documentation CMS | MIT | Open source | ~616 | Yes |
Want the closest open-source Confluence replacement
Docmost focuses on team spaces, nested pages, collaborative editing, permissions, comments, history, diagrams, embeds, and Confluence import.
Need a mature enterprise wiki
XWiki supports structured content, custom applications, workflows, forms, permissions, extensions, migration tooling, and on-premises deployment.
Want a polished modern wiki interface
Outline offers a clean team knowledge-base experience with nested documents, collections, search, comments, and sharing; note its current BSL-1.1 is source available, not OSI-approved open source.
Want documents, databases, and project management together
AppFlowy combines documents and wikis with databases, Kanban, calendars, projects, AI, and team workspaces.
Want local-first documents and whiteboards
AFFiNE combines structured documents, databases, and Kanban with an infinite visual canvas and offline use.
Want to replace Confluence and team chat together
Huly combines collaborative documents with chat, project management, CRM, planning, and team workflows; Colanode is a more local-first workspace alternative.
Want AI agents working inside collaborative documents
Macro Docs integrates AI agents and links document content to tasks, channels, email, CRM data, and other workspace objects.
Need lightweight Markdown documentation
Typemill is a flat-file documentation CMS that stores content in Markdown and is suited to handbooks, manuals, and knowledge sites.
Want a permissively licensed collaborative document editor
Docs by La Suite numérique uses MIT and focuses on structured documents, sub-documents, real-time collaboration, and versioning.
Want the largest project communities
AppFlowy and AFFiNE both have more than 70,000 GitHub stars, though they are broader Notion-style workspaces rather than dedicated wikis.