This site runs on BookStack, a PHP-based Wiki/documentation software. While there are other documentation generators I considered (mdBook, MkDocs) I wanted something that could allow collaboration/contribution without managing Github pull requests, which didn’t leave too many easy/open source options (HedgeDoc, Outline, and Wiki.js were runners up).
Bookstack is run with Docker Compose using solidnerd/docker-bookstack. (I spent a detour setting up my own container without Apache 2.0 but ran into issues with php-fpm and ended up giving up).
2023-12 Review
While Bookstack has worked pretty well, I’m actually not such a big fan of it’s rendering (slightly less nice than the other “Doc” style sites) and there’s a bit more friction than I’d like.
Requirements
- Fast Editing
- Ideally collaboration support but not necessary
- Good Markdown support (ideally in-line editing)
- Ideally could work w/ git, MarkText, Obsidian etc, but not a requirement
- Navigation (eg Hedgedoc much faster to edit but has no nav)
- Search
- Github logins (for 3rd party contribs)
- Ideally allow banning/locking in case spam becomes an issue
Options
- Bookstack - our current winner, just keep running it
- Flowershow or Quartz - skip contributors, just keep this as a personal logbook? Will make editin a lot smoother
Unsuitable
- Hedgedoc - doesn’t support good search, navigation, but very convenient editing
- Outline - slick, but was impossible to setup/lost data before
- Affine, Appflowy, AnyType are neat Notion clones but aren’t suitable for publishing
- OtterWiki - neat, but I don’t n