Confluence
A weekend of work, and real gaps remain.
A company wiki: spaces of pages with templates, comments and approvals, tied into the rest of the Atlassian tools and permissioned for large organisations.
Build me an internal wiki for a team of twenty, with the two things wikis get wrong. STACK - Astro with a Node adapter, SQLite via better-sqlite3, server-rendered - Markdown stored as text; render server-side PAGES - Tree structure with a parent id, and a stable id in the URL so moving a page never breaks a link - Slug in the URL for readability, but resolution is by id THE FIRST THING WIKIS GET WRONG: HISTORY - Every save is a new revision with author and timestamp; nothing is overwritten - Diff between any two revisions, rendered word by word - Restore is a new revision copying an old one, never a rollback that erases THE SECOND: FINDING ANYTHING - SQLite FTS5 over title and body, with title matches weighted higher - Results show the breadcrumb, not just the page name - Track searches that returned nothing and show them on an admin page — that list is the backlog of missing documentation STALENESS - A review date per page; anything past it shows a banner and appears on a list - Ownership per page, required before publishing PERMISSIONS - Space-level only: reader, editor, admin. No page-level rules, and the README explains that this keeps it comprehensible Include a README on the FTS index rebuild, the empty-search report and the review cadence.
What you lose
- Permissions granular enough for a large company, inherited across spaces and pages
- Integration with Jira, so a page and an issue reference each other automatically
- Search across a decade of pages that people actually find things in
- Page history, comparison and restore over years of edits
- Compliance features: retention, legal hold, audit logs and data residency
If you would rather not build
- Notion — paid, more flexible, weaker permissions
The escape hatch
open source · no votes, no paid placement
BookStack
$0Documentation organised as shelves, books and pages, easy to self-host.
BookStackApp/BookStackfree · open source
Why this verdict
our own opinion · changed only by a person
42/100
Verdict kinda at 42: revisions, diffs and a decent search are one weekend, and the empty-search report is worth more than most wiki features. Where a build loses is permissions at company scale and the Jira link that makes Confluence hard to leave.
History
tracked since 9 Aug 2026 · nothing is ever overwritten
Nothing recorded yet. This chart fills in once the page has visitors, votes or prompt copies — it will not draw a flat line to look busy.
Questions about Confluence
answered from the record above
Is Confluence free?
No — the plan we track is $6.40 a month. Standard at about $6.40 per user per month; Premium roughly doubles it and a free tier covers up to ten users.
Can you replace Confluence by building your own?
ALMOST. A weekend of work, and real gaps remain. Replacement score 42 out of 100, build time a weekend. Read what you lose before you decide.
How much does Confluence cost?
$6.40 a month on Standard — $76.80 a year. Recorded 9 Aug 2026.
What do you lose by replacing Confluence?
Permissions granular enough for a large company, inherited across spaces and pages; Integration with Jira, so a page and an issue reference each other automatically; Search across a decade of pages that people actually find things in; Page history, comparison and restore over years of edits; Compliance features: retention, legal hold, audit logs and data residency. If any of those carry weight for you, keep paying.
Is there an open-source alternative to Confluence?
Yes: Outline, BookStack. The prompt on this page is for when you want it your way instead.
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