If you want to replace Notion or Confluence with software you control, the main open-source options fall into three groups: collaborative document editors and workspaces, personal or team knowledge bases, and static documentation sites built from Markdown. Which one fits depends on whether your team needs live co-editing, a structured wiki, or published docs for a product.

The list below covers the products in the Stackora catalog that fit this topic. Each entry notes its category, license and star count as listed in the catalog, so you can compare them on the same basis.

Notion-style workspaces

AppFlowy

AppFlowy is an open-source desktop note-taking and knowledge-base app for documents, wikis and projects. It is the closest match to Notion's block-based workspace, and it keeps your data local rather than in a vendor cloud. It is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and has about 77,000 stars on GitHub. It also includes AI features. Choose it when individuals or small teams want a Notion-like workspace on their own machines.

Trilium Notes

Trilium Notes is a free, open-source, cross-platform hierarchical note-taking app built for large personal knowledge bases. Its tree structure suits people who organize information deeply rather than in flat pages. It is AGPL-3.0 licensed with roughly 38,000 stars. It is a strong pick for a personal or research wiki that grows over many years.

Collaborative editing

Etherpad

Etherpad is an open-source, real-time collaborative document editor. Every edit is attributed to its author and full revision history is kept on your own server. It is Apache-2.0 licensed with about 18,600 stars. Etherpad does not try to be a full wiki. It is the right tool when the need is shared drafting, meeting notes or live editing without account lock-in.

Documenso

Documenso is an open-source document signing application and DocuSign alternative. It is not a wiki, but teams that move contracts or approvals out of Confluence often need signing alongside their docs. It is AGPL-3.0 licensed with about 15,400 stars and can be self-hosted for e-signature workflows.

Documentation sites

If your Confluence space is really a set of product or API docs published to the web, a static site generator is usually a better fit than a wiki.

Docusaurus

Docusaurus is an open-source CLI and React-based framework for building, deploying and maintaining documentation websites for software projects. It is MIT licensed with about 66,500 stars and is maintained under the facebook publisher. It suits teams already working in React who want versioned docs in their repository.

Material for MkDocs

mkdocs-material turns Markdown files into a searchable, responsive static documentation site. It is an MIT-licensed theme and framework for MkDocs with about 27,600 stars. It works well for technical teams who write in Markdown and want a clean, searchable site without a JavaScript build setup.

Storybook

Storybook is an open-source, CLI-driven tool for building, documenting and testing frontend components in isolation across React, Vue, Angular and more. It is MIT licensed with about 91,300 stars. It is not a wiki, but design-system and component documentation is a common reason teams move off Confluence.

Docs from existing material

Skill_Seekers

Skill_Seekers converts documentation websites, GitHub repositories and PDFs into Claude AI skills, with automatic conflict detection. It is MIT licensed with about 15,200 stars. Teams with a large back catalog of documentation may use it to make that material usable by AI assistants. It is listed in the MCP servers category.

book-to-skill

book-to-skill turns a technical book PDF into a Claude Code skill. It is MIT licensed with about 35,000 stars. It is useful for internal reference material that exists only as PDFs.

Understand-Anything

Understand-Anything turns code into an interactive knowledge graph that you can explore, search and query. It is MIT licensed with about 86,500 stars and works with several AI coding tools. It helps teams document how an existing codebase fits together, which is often missing from Confluence.

How to choose

Start with the question you are answering:

  • Do you need a workspace where people write and organize pages daily? Look at AppFlowy or Trilium Notes.
  • Do you need live co-editing with a clear history of who changed what? Look at Etherpad.
  • Do you publish product or API docs to the public or to customers? Look at Docusaurus or mkdocs-material.
  • Do you document UI components? Look at Storybook.
  • Do you need to turn existing files into material AI tools can use? Look at Skill_Seekers or book-to-skill.

Check the license before you adopt a tool. Several options here, including AppFlowy, Trilium Notes, Etherpad and Documenso, use AGPL-3.0 or Apache-2.0, while the documentation frameworks are MIT licensed. Review what your organization requires for self-hosted use.

For most teams replacing Confluence, the practical path is a split: a workspace or wiki for internal knowledge, and a static docs site for anything published. Browse more options in the developer tools and self-hosted web apps catalogs.