A Confluence alternative you host yourself
If Confluence feels heavy, expensive, or you need it on your own servers, CompassDocs is a modern open-source alternative: spaces and permissions, an approval workflow, full version history, and AI answers that cite your docs — with unlimited users and no per-seat pricing.
Spaces, typed documents, approvals, and AI search — familiar ideas, self-hosted and open.
What you get moving from Confluence
- Spaces with three visibility tiers (internal, private, public) and per-space edit rights
- Approval workflow, version history, and restore — without paid add-ons
- Cited AI search grounded only in your content, plus fast keyword search
- Self-hosted in one Docker command; import your existing docs as Markdown
- Flat pricing: free and open-source core, Enterprise a flat $599/year — not per user
Painless import
Bring content in as front-matter Markdown and export it the same way — no proprietary format, no lock-in on the way in or out.
Your servers, your data
Self-host on infrastructure you control, with SSO and private spaces — a fit for teams that can't put docs in someone else's cloud.
No per-seat tax
Unlimited users on the open-source core. Enterprise features are a single flat yearly price, so growing the team doesn't grow the bill.
Frequently asked
Is CompassDocs really open source?
Yes — the core is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and you can self-host it for free with unlimited users and documents. Enterprise adds SSO, compliance, and training for a flat annual fee — approvals are included free in Community.
Can I migrate content from Confluence?
CompassDocs imports and exports front-matter Markdown. Confluence pages exported to Markdown can be imported, and you're never locked in — your whole knowledge base exports back out at any time.
How does pricing compare?
The self-hosted core is free for unlimited users. Enterprise is a flat $599/year regardless of headcount — which is typically far less than per-seat wiki pricing as teams grow.
Do I lose AI features by self-hosting?
No. Bring your own Anthropic key in the UI for cited AI answers and semantic search, or use free keyword search — either way it's grounded only in your documents.
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Free & open source to self-host
One Docker command installs CompassDocs with unlimited users and documents. Enterprise adds SSO, Microsoft 365 sync, compliance, and training for a flat $599/year.
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