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Documentation · head to head

BookStack vs Claroline

BookStack logo

BookStack

Documentation

Self-hosted documentation wiki with a fixed shelf, book, chapter and page structure

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite
Claroline logo

Claroline

LMS

Open source French-language learning platform, now developed as Claroline Connect

From
Free
Rated
-
Full reviewWebsite

The short version

  • Each has a real cost: BookStack there is no vendor-hosted option at all, so you own the server, TLS certificates, database backups and upgrades, or you pay a third-party host that has no support relationship with the project and no ability to fix a bug.; Claroline two products share the name and the abandoned original, last released in December 2021, dominates search results, so institutions regularly install unmaintained software believing it is current.
  • They diverge on capability: BookStack covers Shelves, books, chapters, pages, Claroline covers Workspaces.
  • Prices and features above were last checked on 31 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BookStack and Claroline actually diverge.

Attributes where BookStack and Claroline differ
AttributeBookStackClaroline
PlatformsWeb, Self-hosted, DockerWeb, Linux
CategoryDocumentationLMS

Identical on both: starting price (Free), pricing model (Open source, no licence fee), free tier (Yes), user rating (Not yet rated).

What each one covers

Drawn from each product's published feature list. An absence here means we hold no record of it - not that the product lacks it.

Only in BookStack

  • Shelves, books, chapters, pages
  • Dual editors
  • Granular permissions
  • Full text search
  • Page revisions
  • REST API
  • External authentication
  • Export

Only in Claroline

  • Workspaces
  • Resource model
  • Learning paths
  • Quizzes and evaluation
  • Competency framework
  • Planning and events
  • Self-hosting
  • SaaS option

What people use each for

The jobs each tool is most often brought in to do.

BookStack

  • Running an internal knowledge base on infrastructure inside a network that cannot reach external SaaSnot Claroline
  • Documenting procedures and runbooks where a fixed structure prevents the tree sprawl a free-form wiki producesnot Claroline
  • Replacing a Confluence licence for a team that needs pages, permissions and search but none of the surrounding suitenot Claroline
  • Publishing customer-facing manuals from the same instance as internal documentation using per-book permissionsnot Claroline

Claroline

  • A French or Belgian training organisation that needs a francophone platform where the interface and support are French-first rather than translated.not BookStack
  • A public body required to keep learner data on European infrastructure under an open licence it can audit.not BookStack
  • A training provider assembling learning paths from a shared library of reusable resources across many client workspaces rather than duplicating courses.not BookStack
  • An institution already running the abandoned Claroline 13 line that needs to plan a migration onto the maintained Connect codebase before its dependencies become unsupportable.not BookStack

Where each one falls short

Documented limitations, not opinions. Every one is a constraint you would hit in normal use.

BookStack

  • There is no vendor-hosted option at all, so you own the server, TLS certificates, database backups and upgrades, or you pay a third-party host that has no support relationship with the project and no ability to fix a bug.
  • The shelf, book, chapter, page hierarchy is fixed at four levels and cannot be reshaped, so migrating a deeply nested Confluence or MediaWiki space means flattening content by hand and losing the original structure.
  • It requires PHP and MySQL or MariaDB, which is a stack many engineering teams no longer run, so adopting it usually means introducing a database and runtime nobody else in the organisation maintains.
  • Development is concentrated on a single maintainer, which makes the bus factor a legitimate procurement question for anything the organisation intends to depend on for a decade.
  • Content lives in the database rather than in files under version control, so there is no docs-as-code workflow, no review by pull request and no branch per release.
  • Export is per page, chapter or book, so moving a large instance to another platform means writing a script against the REST API rather than copying a directory of Markdown.

Claroline

  • Two products share the name and the abandoned original, last released in December 2021, dominates search results, so institutions regularly install unmaintained software believing it is current.
  • The community is small compared with Moodle, so plugin choice, third-party integrations and the pool of people who can administer it in production are all thin.
  • Documentation and community discussion are French-first and English coverage is partial and inconsistent, which raises the effort for any non-francophone team.
  • The commercial hosting is offered by a small operator rather than a large partner network, so an institution depending on paid support has concentrated supplier risk.
  • The workspace and resource model is different enough from a conventional course-based LMS that staff moving from Moodle or Canvas have to relearn how content is organised, and migrations do not map cleanly.

Pricing, plan by plan

BookStack

Free
  • BookStackFree
    • MIT licence with no paid edition
    • All features included, no seat limits
    • Self-hosted on your own infrastructure

Claroline

Free
  • Claroline ConnectFree
    • GPL licence, no fee
    • Full source on GitHub
    • You provide Symfony and PHP hosting and operations
  • Hosted distribution$undefined/year
    • Managed hosting, maintenance and updates
    • Support from the commercial operator
    • Quoted by user count

Which should you pick?

Choose BookStack if

  • You need shelves, books, chapters, pages.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Self-hosted, Docker.
  • You also want dual editors.
BookStack review

Choose Claroline if

  • You need workspaces.
  • You want to start without paying.
  • You work on Web, Linux.
  • You also want resource model.
Claroline review

Questions people ask

Is BookStack or Claroline better?
Neither clearly leads. BookStack starts at Free and Claroline at Free, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BookStack or Claroline?
BookStack starts at Free and Claroline at Free.
Does BookStack or Claroline run on more platforms?
BookStack runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker. Claroline runs on Web, Linux.
Can I use BookStack for free?
Both have a free tier, so you can try either at no cost before committing.
What is BookStack best used for?
BookStack is most often used for running an internal knowledge base on infrastructure inside a network that cannot reach external saas, documenting procedures and runbooks where a fixed structure prevents the tree sprawl a free-form wiki produces, replacing a confluence licence for a team that needs pages, permissions and search but none of the surrounding suite, publishing customer-facing manuals from the same instance as internal documentation using per-book permissions. Of those, running an internal knowledge base on infrastructure inside a network that cannot reach external saas and documenting procedures and runbooks where a fixed structure prevents the tree sprawl a free-form wiki produces are not what Claroline is typically brought in for.
What can BookStack do that Claroline cannot?
BookStack covers Shelves, books, chapters, pages, Dual editors, Granular permissions, Full text search. Claroline covers Workspaces, Resource model, Learning paths, Quizzes and evaluation.

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

BookStack: Is there a paid or hosted version?

No. BookStack is MIT-licensed with no commercial edition and no official hosted service. Third-party hosts exist but are unaffiliated with the project.

Claroline: Which Claroline should I install?

Claroline Connect, the Symfony and React codebase currently on version 15. The original PHP Claroline stopped at 13.1.3 in December 2021 and should not be deployed.

BookStack: Can I nest pages more deeply?

No. Four levels is the design, not a limitation waiting to be fixed, and content that needs deeper nesting has to be restructured.

Claroline: Is it still maintained?

Yes. Point releases in the 15.0 line continued into 2026 with active commits on GitHub.

BookStack: Does it support single sign-on?

Yes, through LDAP, SAML2 or OpenID Connect, with group to role mapping, and none of it is gated behind a paid tier because there is no paid tier.

Claroline: Is it free?

The software is GPL and free. Hosted distribution with maintenance and support is a paid service from the commercial operator.

BookStack: How hard is it to migrate content in?

Straightforward for flat content through the REST API, awkward for deeply nested wikis, because the structure has to be collapsed to fit.

Claroline: Does it work in English?

The interface has English, but documentation and community support are French-first, so a non-francophone team will hit gaps.

Claroline: How big is the ecosystem compared to Moodle?

Much smaller. If you need a wide plugin market or an easy administrator hiring pool, Moodle is the safer open source choice.

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