Groupware & Collaboration

Why Self-Host Your Groupware?

SaaS collaboration suites like Notion, Confluence, and Miro charge per-user fees that scale linearly with your team. Notion’s Team plan costs $10/user/month, and Confluence runs $6-11/user/month — costs that add up quickly for organizations with dozens or hundreds of collaborators. These platforms also store all your internal documentation, meeting notes, project plans, and knowledge bases on their infrastructure, meaning your organization’s collective knowledge sits in a database governed by someone else’s security practices and data retention policies.

Self-hosted groupware provides the same collaborative workspace experience without per-seat costs. AFFiNE offers a Notion-like workspace with documents, whiteboards, and databases in a single application. SiYuan provides a knowledge management system with block-level references, graph views, and end-to-end encryption. Outline delivers a clean, fast wiki and knowledge base with real-time collaboration, Slack integration, and Markdown support — a direct Confluence replacement. DocMost focuses on collaborative documentation with a modern editor and nested page hierarchies.

The advantage of self-hosted groupware extends beyond cost. Organizations in regulated industries need to know exactly where internal documents are stored and who has accessed them. XWiki provides enterprise wiki functionality with granular permissions, audit logging, and extension marketplace. Colanode offers a collaborative workspace with real-time editing. WorkAdventure takes a unique approach, providing a virtual office space where team members navigate a 2D map and enter video calls by walking near each other. With self-hosted groupware, your team’s internal knowledge, processes, and documentation remain on infrastructure you control, with no risk of a SaaS provider mining your content for AI training or sharing usage data with third parties.