Is BookStack or Strapi better?

Neither clearly leads. BookStack starts at Free and Strapi at $35/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.

Which is cheaper, BookStack or Strapi?

BookStack has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for BookStack and $35/month for Strapi.

Does BookStack or Strapi run on more platforms?

BookStack runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker. Strapi runs on Node.js, Cloud, Self-hosted, Docker.

Can I use BookStack for free?

Yes. BookStack has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Strapi starts at $35/month.

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 Strapi is typically brought in for.

What can BookStack do that Strapi cannot?

BookStack covers Shelves, books, chapters, pages, Dual editors, Granular permissions, Full text search. Strapi covers GraphQL API, Content management, PostgreSQL, MySQL. Both handle REST API.

Documentation · head to head

BookStack vs Strapi

BookStack

Documentation

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

From: Free
Rated: -

Full review Website

Strapi

APIs

Headless CMS with REST and GraphQL APIs

From: $35/month
Rated: -

Full review Website

The short version

Only BookStack has a free tier, so it costs nothing to try first.
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.; Strapi cloud pricing is per project, not per account, so a second project doubles the bill
They diverge on capability: BookStack covers Shelves, books, chapters, pages, Strapi covers GraphQL API.
Prices and features above were last checked on 30 August 2026.

Where they differ

Only the attributes on which BookStack and Strapi actually diverge.

Attributes where BookStack and Strapi differ
Attribute	BookStack	Strapi
Starting price	Free	$35/month
Pricing model	Open source, no licence fee	subscription
Free tier	Yes	No
Platforms	Web, Self-hosted, Docker	Node.js, Cloud, Self-hosted, Docker
Category	Documentation	APIs
Founded	Unknown	2015

Identical on both: 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
External authentication
Export
Audit log

Only in Strapi

GraphQL API
Content management
PostgreSQL
MySQL
MongoDB
AWS
Webhooks
Node.js support

Both cover

REST API

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 Strapi
Documenting procedures and runbooks where a fixed structure prevents the tree sprawl a free-form wiki producesnot Strapi
Replacing a Confluence licence for a team that needs pages, permissions and search but none of the surrounding suitenot Strapi
Publishing customer-facing manuals from the same instance as internal documentation using per-book permissionsnot Strapi

Strapi

Running a self hosted headless CMS with a REST or GraphQL APInot BookStack
Giving editors a content admin panel over a custom content modelnot 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.

Strapi

Cloud pricing is per project, not per account, so a second project doubles the bill
Starter at $35 a month allows 100,000 API requests, and overage is $1.50 per 25,000
Extra bandwidth is $30 per 100 GB and extra asset storage $0.60 per GB
Backups start at the Pro plan, weekly, and only become daily at Business
An uptime SLA is Business only, at $450 a month per project
Additional environments cost $60 a month on Pro and $300 a month on Business

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

Strapi

$35/month

Starter$35/month
- 100k API requests
- 50 GB asset storage
- 50 GB asset bandwidth
Pro$90/month
- 1M API requests
- 250 GB asset storage
- 500 GB asset bandwidth
Business$450/month
- 10M API requests
- 1000 GB asset storage
- 1000 GB asset bandwidth

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 Strapi if

You need graphql api.
You work on Node.js, Cloud, Self-hosted, Docker.
You also want content management.

Strapi review

Questions people ask

Is BookStack or Strapi better?: Neither clearly leads. BookStack starts at Free and Strapi at $35/month, and user ratings are close enough to be indistinguishable. Choose on capability and platform support.
Which is cheaper, BookStack or Strapi?: BookStack has a free tier; the other does not. Paid plans start at Free for BookStack and $35/month for Strapi.
Does BookStack or Strapi run on more platforms?: BookStack runs on Web, Self-hosted, Docker. Strapi runs on Node.js, Cloud, Self-hosted, Docker.
Can I use BookStack for free?: Yes. BookStack has a free tier, so you can try it without paying. Strapi starts at $35/month.
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 Strapi is typically brought in for.
What can BookStack do that Strapi cannot?: BookStack covers Shelves, books, chapters, pages, Dual editors, Granular permissions, Full text search. Strapi covers GraphQL API, Content management, PostgreSQL, MySQL. Both handle REST API.

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.

Strapi: How much do API request overages cost?

Additional API requests beyond the plan limit cost $1.50 per 25000 requests. Extra asset storage costs $0.60 per GB, and additional bandwidth costs $30 per 100 GB.

Source

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.

Strapi: Is yearly billing available?

Yes, yearly billing saves up to 17% compared to monthly billing on Strapi Cloud plans.

Source

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.

Strapi: What is included with the Pro plan?

The Pro plan costs $90 per month per project and includes 1M API requests, 250 GB asset storage, 500 GB bandwidth, multi-environment support, weekly backups, and manual backups.

Source

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.

BookStack vs Strapi

BookStack

Strapi

The short version

Where they differ

What each one covers

Only in BookStack

Only in Strapi

Both cover

What people use each for

BookStack

Strapi

Where each one falls short

BookStack

Strapi

Pricing, plan by plan

BookStack

Strapi

Which should you pick?

Choose BookStack if

Choose Strapi if

Questions people ask

Answered from the vendors’ own pages

Related pages

More on BookStack

More on Strapi

Keep looking

Other head to heads