Self-Hosted Notes & Wikis

Team wikis

• ★ Outline — Notion-feeling team wiki; great UX; markdown export; SSO. The default for "shared team docs."
  • https://github.com/outline/outline
• ★ BookStack — book/chapter/page hierarchy; image-friendly; great for runbooks. Default for "structured documentation."
  • https://github.com/BookStackApp/BookStack
• Wiki.js — feature-rich; many auth backends; markdown / WYSIWYG.
  • https://github.com/Requarks/wiki
• DokuWiki — old, file-based, no DB; bulletproof.
  • https://github.com/splitbrain/dokuwiki
• MediaWiki — the Wikipedia software; if you want that flavor.

Personal notes (Notion / Obsidian alternatives)

• ★ AFFiNE — block-based; combines docs / whiteboards / databases (Notion-style).
  • https://github.com/toeverything/AFFiNE
• ★ AppFlowy — Notion alternative; native apps; data stays local.
  • https://github.com/AppFlowy-IO/AppFlowy
• Logseq — outliner / graph; markdown files; great for daily journaling.
  • https://github.com/logseq/logseq
• Obsidian — closed source, free for personal; the gold standard. Sync via Syncthing or self-hosted plugins.
• TriliumNext (Notes) — modern Trilium fork; powerful single-user notes.
  • https://github.com/TriliumNext/Notes
• Joplin Server — sync server for the Joplin client.
  • https://github.com/laurent22/joplin
• SilverBullet — markdown-first, end-user-programmable.
  • https://github.com/silverbulletmd/silverbullet
• Anytype — closed source; local-first; popular Notion alternative.

Quick notes / micro-blog

• ★ Memos — Twitter-shape personal log; tags, daily review, privacy levels.
  • https://github.com/usememos/memos
• Mubu / Diaryapp alternatives.

Documentation as code

• See the Web Dev Documentation page — Fumadocs (used by this site), Astro Starlight, Nextra, VitePress, Mintlify, Docusaurus.

Drawing / whiteboarding

• ★ Excalidraw — hand-drawn-style whiteboard; self-host via official Docker image.
  • https://github.com/excalidraw/excalidraw
• tldraw — see Whiteboards & Canvas.

Knowledge graph

• Logseq — outliner with backlinks.
• Obsidian + Self-hosted Sync — closed core, but the most popular knowledge-graph tool.
• TriliumNext — has built-in linking.
• Jupyter / Quarto — for research / data notebooks (different niche).

Patterns to adopt

• ★ Decide: shared (team wiki) vs. personal (notes) — different tools for each.
• Daily journal + tags is the simplest "second brain" that works.
• Markdown-first — your notes survive any tool change.
• Sync clients matter more than the server. Pick a tool with mobile + desktop apps that work offline.
• Backups — your second brain is high-value; back up the DB / files daily.
• Don't migrate too often. Pick one and use it for a year.

Pick this if…

• Default team wiki: Outline (Notion-feeling) or BookStack (structured).
• Personal Notion replacement: AFFiNE or AppFlowy.
• Outliner / graph notes: Logseq.
• Quick personal journal: Memos.
• Markdown files + good apps: Obsidian + Syncthing (closed core but great).
• Joplin user: Joplin Server.
• Hand-drawn diagrams: Excalidraw.