BookStack

Updated 21 October 2026

BookStack is a documentation platform built around a structure everyone already understands: shelves hold books, books hold chapters, chapters hold pages. That hierarchy is the whole reason people pick it. A flat pile of markdown files needs discipline to stay navigable; BookStack gives the structure to you up front and makes it hard to lose things.

It ships a WYSIWYG editor alongside a markdown one, so contributors who don't write markdown can still contribute. Full-text search covers everything, pages keep a revision history you can diff and revert, and permissions can be set per shelf, book, chapter, or page.

Good fits: a team handbook, a homelab runbook, a game world's lore bible, a customer-facing knowledge base, or the documentation for a project whose contributors won't touch Git.

Get a 7-day trial of ElfHosted BookStack!

How do I access BookStack?

BookStack is available:

• From your dashboard: https://your-username.elfhosted.com
• Directly: https://your-username-bookstack.elfhosted.com

How do I use it?

First run

BookStack sets up its database on first start, so give it a minute or two before the page loads. Sign in with the default administrator account:

• Email: admin@admin.com
• Password: password

Change both immediately under Edit Profile. Your instance sits behind ElfHosted's SSO by default, so this isn't an open door, but it becomes one the moment you turn SSO off (see below).

Structure

Start with a shelf per broad area, a book per topic, and let chapters appear as books grow. You don't have to use every level: pages can live directly in a book. Resist the urge to design the whole tree up front, because moving pages later is a drag-and-drop and costs nothing.

Sharing it with people who don't have ElfHosted accounts

By default BookStack is behind ElfHosted's SSO (ForwardAuth), so its own login is a second layer on top and only you can reach it.

If you want to publish your documentation, or share it with collaborators who aren't ElfHosted customers, use ElfBot to set bookstackexposed.enabled: true. That drops the ElfHosted auth layer entirely and leaves BookStack's own login and permission system in charge.

Before you do that:

1. Change the default admin credentials, if you somehow still haven't.
2. Decide what anonymous visitors should see. Settings → Registration controls whether the public can read without an account, and whether they can sign themselves up. Public read with self-registration off is the usual answer.
3. Set per-shelf and per-book permissions for anything that shouldn't be public.

Importing what you already have

BookStack imports markdown and HTML directly into pages, so a pile of existing notes can be pasted in with formatting intact. There's also a full REST API if you'd rather script a bulk migration than click through it.

Attachments and images

Uploads land on your instance's storage and are backed up along with everything else. Large image-heavy books are fine; the page editor handles paste-from-clipboard.

BookStack or Wiki.js?

They solve overlapping problems differently, and plenty of people run both:

• BookStack gives you the structure up front, is WYSIWYG-first, and has no Git. Best when the contributors are not all developers.
• Wiki.js is markdown-native, Git-backed, and flexible about hierarchy. Best when the docs live alongside code and you want them in version control.

BookStack also works with

• WikiJS

• FoundryVTT

How do I get support for BookStack?

1. For general use of BookStack, refer to the official site or to one of the links in the resources section below.

2. For specific support re your ElfHosted configuration / account, see the ElfHosted support options!

Sponsor BookStack ❤️

You can contribute directly to the development of BookStack using the following:

• GitHub Sponsors

BookStack resources

• BookStack (official site)

• BookStack GitHub

• BookStack Documentation

What users say..

We're rocking some excellent TrustPilot Reviews, and here's what some of our usersfriends say..