Outline is an open-source team wiki and knowledge base. Compare 2026 pricing, features, self-hosting options, and alternatives like Notion and Confluence.
Outline is built specifically as a team knowledge base: a place for internal documentation, engineering runbooks, product specs, onboarding material, and meeting notes to live in organized, searchable collections rather than scattered across chat and shared drives.
The product exists in two forms. Teams can use the official hosted cloud service, or they can self-host the open-source codebase on their own infrastructure for full control over data residency and cost, since the vast majority of Outline's code, including its editor and website, is publicly available.
Documents in Outline are organized into nested collections, edited in a real-time collaborative markdown-based editor with commenting and @mentions, and tracked with full version history so changes can always be reviewed or reverted.
On top of the core editing experience, Outline adds instant full-text search, single sign-on and group-based permissions for larger teams, an API and webhooks for building custom workflows, and AI features such as question answering over existing documentation and multi-language translation.
The self-hosted, open-source version of Outline is free to run on a team's own servers, with the only ongoing cost being infrastructure. For teams that prefer not to manage hosting, Outline offers a cloud service billed by team size across Starter, Team, and Business tiers, each unlocking more integrations, permission controls, and support as team size grows.
All cloud plans include a 30-day free trial, and nonprofit or educational organizations can qualify for a discount. Organizations with more than 200 users are directed to a custom Enterprise plan negotiated directly with Outline's sales team.
Yes, the majority of Outline's codebase, including its editor and website, is open source and available on GitHub, allowing teams to self-host it for free.
Yes, self-hosting the open-source version is free aside from your own infrastructure costs; the hosted cloud version is a separate paid service.
Outline's cloud plans start at about $10 per month for the Starter tier, with Team and Business tiers priced higher based on team size and features.
Outline is best used as an internal team knowledge base for documentation, product specs, meeting notes, and onboarding content, particularly for engineering and product teams.
Yes, SSO authentication is available starting on the Team plan.
Outline is more narrowly focused on documentation and wikis, with a faster markdown-native editor and a self-hostable open-source option, whereas Notion is a broader all-in-one workspace with databases and project tools.
Yes, all cloud plans include a 30-day free trial.
Common alternatives include Notion, Confluence, GitBook, and Slab.