Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Milanote VS BookStack

Compare Milanote VS BookStack and see what are their differences

Milanote logo Milanote

Milanote is a note taking app for creative work.

BookStack logo BookStack

An open source knowledge management application that's focused on ease of use.
  • Milanote Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-27
  • BookStack Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-01-31

Milanote features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Milanote offers a highly intuitive and visually appealing interface that enables users to organize their ideas effortlessly using drag-and-drop functionality.
  • Collaboration Features
    It provides robust collaboration tools, allowing teams to share boards, comment on tasks, and work together in real-time.
  • Multimedia Support
    Supports a wide range of media types, including text, images, links, and videos, which makes it a versatile tool for diverse projects.
  • Flexible Organization
    Users can organize their boards hierarchically and nest elements within each board, providing flexibility in how information is structured.
  • Cloud Synchronization
    Milanote automatically syncs across devices, ensuring that your work is always up-to-date and accessible from anywhere.

Possible disadvantages of Milanote

  • Limited Free Plan
    The free version of Milanote comes with significant limitations, such as a cap on the number of notes and boards you can use, which may require users to upgrade to a paid plan for more extensive use.
  • Lack of Integrations
    Compared to some competitors, Milanote has fewer integrations with other productivity tools like calendars, task managers, and communication platforms.
  • Web-Based Application
    Milanote is primarily a web-based application with limited offline capabilities, which might be a downside for users who need access without an internet connection.
  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, some users might find the abundance of features and customization options overwhelming at first.
  • Cost
    The premium version of Milanote can be relatively expensive for individual users or small teams, especially when compared to other tools offering similar features.

BookStack features and specs

  • Open Source
    BookStack is an open-source platform, meaning it is freely available for anyone to use, modify, and contribute to. This ensures a large community support and continuous updates.
  • User-Friendly Interface
    The software has a clean and intuitive interface that makes it easy for users of all skill levels to create and manage documentation.
  • Integrated WYSIWYG Editor
    The application includes a built-in 'What You See Is What You Get' editor, making it simple to format text and add multimedia without HTML knowledge.
  • Permission Management
    BookStack offers granular permission settings, which allow administrators to control access on a per-page, book, or shelf level.
  • Customizable
    With open-source software, the level of customization available is high, allowing organizations to tailor the software to their specific needs.

Possible disadvantages of BookStack

  • Hosting and Maintenance
    As an open-source product, users need to handle their own hosting and maintenance, which could be challenging for those without technical expertise.
  • Limited Integrations
    BookStack does not natively integrate with as many third-party applications compared to some proprietary knowledge management systems.
  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, setting up and customizing the platform may require a learning curve, especially for those unfamiliar with open-source software.
  • Performance
    In some instances, performance issues have been reported, especially when handling a large volume of data or concurrent users.
  • Feature Limitations
    Some advanced features found in proprietary knowledge management systems, such as advanced analytics or AI-driven search, may be lacking.

Analysis of Milanote

Overall verdict

  • Milanote is well-regarded for its user-friendly design and capability to foster creative processes. It effectively balances simplicity with powerful features, making it a strong choice for those needing a visual and flexible workspace.

Why this product is good

  • Milanote is a versatile tool designed for creative professionals, providing a visual approach to project management and organization. Users appreciate its ability to combine text, images, visual boards, and links in a flexible layout, making it ideal for brainstorming and project planning. The intuitive user interface allows for easy drag-and-drop actions, encouraging creativity and experimentation.

Recommended for

  • Creative professionals such as designers, artists, and writers
  • Teams involved in brainstorming and collaborative planning
  • Individuals and groups seeking a visually engaging way to organize ideas and projects

Analysis of BookStack

Overall verdict

  • BookStack is a good choice for individuals and teams looking for a straightforward, open-source documentation tool. It's ideal for those who prefer a self-hosted solution without incurring additional costs or dealing with the complexities of some enterprise-level systems.

Why this product is good

  • BookStack is an open-source, self-hosted platform designed to make documentation and knowledge sharing easy. It's praised for its user-friendly interface, which resembles a digital version of a traditional book with chapters and pages, making it intuitive for users to navigate and organize content. The platform supports Markdown editing, which allows for easy formatting and media embedding. In addition, it has built-in support for authentication methods and role-based access control, providing flexibility and security for teams. The active community and frequent updates also contribute to its reliability and ongoing improvement.

Recommended for

    Small to medium-sized teams, open-source enthusiasts, educational institutions, and projects that require a user-friendly documentation system with the flexibility of self-hosting.

Milanote videos

Recap: Milanote | Creative Workspace

More videos:

  • Review - 3 New Features in Milanote 2.0
  • Review - Milanote | full review + (100 x 2 MONTHS FREE GIVEAWAY)

BookStack videos

BookStack Review- 7 Brief Lessons in Physics

More videos:

  • Review - Bookstack, a free, open source, self hosted documentation wiki with style.
  • Review - Bookstack - Meine favorisierte Wiki Software

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Milanote and BookStack)
Note Taking
85 85%
15% 15
WiKis
0 0%
100% 100
Productivity
100 100%
0% 0
Knowledge Base
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Milanote and BookStack

Milanote Reviews

Compare The 10 Best Mind Mapping Software of 2021
Milanote is an easy-to-use concept map maker to organize your ideas and projects into visual boards. Far from a basic mind map maker, Milanote allows you to add rich media to your boards when you create a conceptual map (images, videos, links), and create as many levels of hierarchy as you wish to go deeper into topics.
Top 15 Best Evernote Alternatives You Can Use
Some people are visual thinkers, and they need a different note-taking experience. For them, I suggest Milanote. Milanote is kind of an endless whiteboard where you can add notes, columns, photos, links, and more. You can create multiple boards and even nest boards inside other boards. The app is really good and responsive, and I love the clean look and feel of it. I find it...
Source: beebom.com

BookStack Reviews

Best Gitbook Alternatives You Need to Try in 2023
Bookstack is a simple, self-hosted platform for organizing and storing information, focusing on creating a knowledge base. It is similar to Gitbook in its functionality but differs in how it is organized and presented. It allows you to collect information in a hierarchical structure, similar to a book, with chapters and sections. This can make it easier to navigate large...
Source: www.archbee.com
The 10 Best Self-hosted Wiki Software for Linux System
Another powerful self-hosted Wiki software for Linux is BookStack. One of the most attractive features of BookStack is its cross-book sorting capability. It can sort all books based on tags such as title, author name, publisher, and genre. Users can even use it to search for particular titles based on a keyword. Other features of this open-source software include image...
Best 11 Open-source Free Wiki Engines for teams and enterprise in 2022
The BookStack App is not just a Wiki Engine, but it works the same. It aims for creating books by easing collaboration among writers and editors, we run it for us and some clients as a Wiki Engine, where they use books as projects.
Source: medevel.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Milanote seems to be a lot more popular than BookStack. While we know about 57 links to Milanote, we've tracked only 4 mentions of BookStack. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Milanote mentions (57)

  • Tanais Online, Week 1 - 2.
    I started two weeks ago by sitting down to plan my game in Milanote. They had an ad on YT and it looked like the best tool for the job. I quickly added a gazillion small notes and hit the free limit. I realized the unlimited plan cost $10 a month. Whhaaaat? So I just did some Sulla-like purges between those ideas hopefully keeping the most successful ones. - Source: dev.to / almost 2 years ago
  • Your Favorite Note Taking App
    Heptabase is terrific. If you are however very very visual: https://milanote.com/. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Character profile apps
    I like Milanote for a lot of writing tasks and use the paid version. In my novel-length works, each character gets a "board," which can be a character profile, reference art, a mood board, etc. Or ALL of those in one. Your mileage will depend on your tolerance of the price point and how many characters you have. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Me as a new DM:
    And here's a tool to help: https://milanote.com/ I've fallen in love with this thing because it let's you construct a visual board with it all your nodes a separate bubbles connected with lines, basically a digital cork board for pining then and stifling things around as the players proceed to waltz through your world. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Hi, Iโ€™ve just launched a new design app that I'd really appreciate feedback on. It's a digital canvas to ideate & moodboard. Think Illustrator & Canva but for textile design. As a thanks, you'll get a free account and we'll feature your work on our website & social media. URL in comments ๐Ÿ™‚
    Milanote looks very similar I think. Source: about 3 years ago
View more

BookStack mentions (4)

  • Ask HN: Best self-hosted wiki solution in 2025? Mediawiki or something else?
    Check out https://bookstackapp.com (PHP/Laravel). - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
  • Customize the theme a bit?
    That said, is it possible to customize the theme a bit? Specifically, how can I set the code-block background to dark-grey? Also, how can I make the horizontal line a bit taller than 1px? I saw the Customizing Visuals page on bookstackapp.com (specifically the "Changing Code Block Themes" topic) but was a little lost on exactly how to make the changes. Source: almost 3 years ago
  • Looking to move internal docs from share Onenote to.. ?
    Maybe look at BookStack to see if it fits your needs. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Self hosting WordPress website
    If youโ€™re looking for a books-styled documentation platform, look into https://bookstackapp.com. Source: over 3 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Milanote and BookStack, you can also consider the following products

Evernote - Bring your life's work together in one digital workspace. Evernote is the place to collect inspirational ideas, write meaningful words, and move your important projects forward.

DokuWiki - DokuWiki is a simple to use and highly versatile Open Source wiki software that doesn't require a database.

Miro - Join Millions of users that collaborate from all over the planet using Miro. Experience the power of the #1 visual workspace for innovation. More than 100M users and 250,000 companies are collaborating on the canvas.

TiddlyWiki - a non-linear personal web notebook

Notion - All-in-one workspace. One tool for your whole team. Write, plan, and get organized.

MediaWiki - MediaWiki is a free software wiki package written in PHP, originally for use on Wikipedia.