BookStack vs Confluence for small and medium teams

The short answer

Pick BookStack if you want a focused, easy-to-learn documentation wiki with a fixed structure, open-source code and a predictable cost that does not grow with every new colleague. Pick Confluence if your team already lives in Jira, needs single sign-on through an identity provider, or relies on Marketplace apps and real-time co-editing.

A note on who is writing: BookHost sells managed BookStack hosting. We have tried to keep the comparison fair, and the section on when Confluence is the better choice is meant seriously.

At a glance

Structure: books and chapters vs spaces

BookStack uses a deliberately simple hierarchy borrowed from print. Pages live in chapters, chapters live in books, and books can be grouped on shelves. There are only those levels, which keeps things tidy: a new colleague can usually guess where the VPN guide or the onboarding checklist lives.

Confluence organises content in spaces. Inside a space, pages can be nested as deeply as you like. That flexibility suits large organisations with many teams, but small teams often end up with page trees that grow sideways and downwards until nobody is sure where anything belongs. If your main pain is “we can’t find things”, BookStack’s fixed structure is a real advantage. If your content does not fit three levels, it is a limitation.

Editing

BookStack offers a WYSIWYG editor and a separate Markdown editor with live preview; each user can choose. It also has diagrams.net drawing built in, page revisions, and full-text search across all content. It does not do real-time co-editing: if two people open the same page, BookStack warns them rather than merging their typing live.

Confluence’s editor is richer. Several people can edit a page at the same time, and macros let you embed Jira issues, status labels, page trees and other dynamic content. That power has a cost when you want to leave: macro content does not translate cleanly to plain HTML or Markdown.

Permissions

BookStack has a role-based permission system. Roles grant system-wide abilities, and you can override permissions on individual shelves, books, chapters and pages. For a team that needs “sales can read the handbook, only ops can edit runbooks, the client folder is private”, it is enough and easy to reason about.

Confluence uses space permissions plus page restrictions, with groups usually managed through Atlassian’s admin tools or an identity provider. It scales further for large organisations with many departments. For 10 people, both are more than sufficient.

Integrations and extensibility

Confluence wins on breadth. The Jira link is the main reason many teams choose it, and the Atlassian Marketplace offers apps for diagrams, templates, reporting and more.

BookStack is more modest. It has a documented REST API and webhooks, so you can script imports, sync content or notify a chat channel when a page changes. On a self-hosted instance you can also use themes and customisations. On BookHost, custom server extensions do not run on our hosting; the API and BookStack’s built-in settings are available.

Pricing model

Confluence Cloud is priced per user per month, with a free tier for small teams and several paid tiers. Annual billing is also offered. The total therefore grows with headcount, and the features you need (for example data residency, which Atlassian offers only on paid plans) determine the tier. Prices change, so check Atlassian’s pricing page for current numbers.

BookStack costs nothing to license. You pay for somewhere to run it. Self-hosting means a server plus your own time for updates, backups and monitoring; our self-hosted vs managed comparison goes through that honestly. BookHost charges a flat €39 per month plus applicable VAT for a workspace, after a 14-day free trial with no card required. Up to 25 BookHost dashboard members per workspace, including the owner. Native or imported BookStack accounts are not counted by this limit. See pricing for everything that is included.

Hosting and data location

Atlassian runs Confluence Cloud on its own infrastructure. On Standard, Premium and Enterprise plans you can pin product data to a location such as the EU or Germany using Atlassian’s data residency feature; the free plan does not include it. Confluence Data Center, the self-managed edition, reaches end of life on 28 March 2029 according to Atlassian, so self-hosting Confluence is not a long-term option.

With BookStack, the data lives wherever the instance runs. BookHost’s core hosting and backups use Hetzner infrastructure in Germany or Finland. That does not mean every service processes data only in the EU: Stripe payments and optional Google sign-in can involve international processing. Our EU-hosted team wiki guide lists what to check with any provider.

Moving from Confluence to BookStack

There is no one-click path. A realistic plan for a small team looks like this:

1. Inventory your spaces and decide which are still in use. Stale spaces are often better archived than migrated.
2. Map each active space to a book (or a shelf of books) and the top levels of its page tree to chapters.
3. Export the content from Confluence and bring it into BookStack by hand for small spaces, or with the BookStack API for larger ones.
4. Replace macros, Jira embeds and inline comments. These do not carry over and are the most time-consuming part.
5. Recreate permissions per book and check them with a regular member account, not only as an admin.
6. Keep Confluence read-only until the team has signed off.

BookHost’s documented migration service is for existing BookStack instances; see moving your BookStack. Help with a Confluence move is additional work that we assess and agree separately before anything starts.

When Confluence is the better choice

• Your team plans work in Jira and wants issues and docs linked closely.
• You need sign-in through Azure AD, Okta, Google Workspace or another identity provider. BookHost does not offer LDAP, SAML or OIDC single sign-on today.
• Several people regularly need to edit the same page at the same time.
• You depend on Marketplace apps or complex page macros.
• You need contractual availability commitments. BookHost does not offer a contractual availability commitment or a 24/7 support promise.

When BookStack is the better choice

• You want a clear structure that new people understand in minutes.
• You prefer open-source software you could run yourself at any time.
• You want a flat monthly cost instead of a price per seat.
• You want the option to take a database dump and file archive with you and restore it into any BookStack installation.