5 tools compared
Best wiki and documentation software
Internal knowledge, runbooks, specs and meeting notes — plus whether anyone can actually find them.
The field
Every wiki worth considering
Cheapest first. Ranked properly once you tell us about your team.
Confluence
Atlassian’s enterprise wiki, strongest when you already run Jira.
$6.4 · free tier
Slite
A deliberately small wiki with AI search, built to keep knowledge current.
$8 · free tier
Notion
Flexible docs and databases that teams shape into a wiki, a tracker, or both.
$10 · free tier
Outline
Fast open-source wiki you can self-host, with excellent search.
$10
Coda
Documents with a real formula and automation layer underneath them.
$12 · free tier
Prices are unverified estimates — useful for comparing orders of magnitude, not for budgeting. Confirm the current figure with the vendor before you commit to anything.
Feature matrix
What each wiki can do
Generated from the dimensions this category is compared on, so it stays true as the catalogue changes. Blank means we have not established it either way.
| Capability | Coda | Confluence | Notion | Outline | Slite |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Database-style tablesTables with typed fields and filtered views, not just formatted grids. | Yes | No | Yes | No | No |
| Publish public pages | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| AI search over your content | Yes | No | Yes | No | Yes |
| Version history | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Page-level permissions | No | Yes | No | Yes | No |
| SAML single sign-onAvailable on some tier — check which, it is usually the expensive one. | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| SOC 2 | Yes | Yes | Yes | No | Yes |
| EU data residency | No | Yes | No | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hostable | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| Open source | No | No | No | Yes | No |
| Public API | Yes | Yes | Yes | Yes | No |
| Native mobile apps | No | Yes | Yes | No | No |
How to choose
The questions that actually decide a wiki
Everyone asks about price and seat count. These are the ones specific to this category — and the ones our questionnaire asks you.
- 01
Who reads what you write?
Our team only · Internal, plus some public pages · Mostly customers
- 02
Do you need structured data alongside the prose?
Yes, that is half the point · Occasional tables are enough · No — just good documents
- 03
What is actually broken today?
Nobody can find anything · Everything is out of date · People hate writing in it · Permissions are too blunt
The trade-offs
What each one asks you to accept
No tool here is strictly better than the others. These are the prices of admission.
Editing experience is dated enough that adoption outside engineering is a fight.
Intentionally limited — no database layer, no app-building.
Search and permissions strain once you pass a few thousand pages.
Self-hosting means you own upgrades, backups and uptime.
Powerful docs become single points of failure owned by one person.
10 comparisons
Head to head
If you have narrowed it to two.
Questions
Choosing a wiki
What is the best wiki?
There is no single best one, and any page that names one without asking about your team is guessing. The credible options are Coda, Confluence, Notion, Outline, Slite. Which fits depends on the answers to the 3 questions this category turns on, plus your team size and budget — our questionnaire scores all 5 against them in about three minutes.
Is there a free wiki?
Coda, Confluence, Notion, Slite all have a free tier. The limits differ sharply though — usually on history, seat count, or exactly the features that pass a security review. Check what the free tier withholds before you plan around it.
How much should we expect to pay for a wiki?
Median list price across the tools we cover is about $10 per seat per month, which is roughly $6,000 a year for 50 people. Real bills land above that once you add the tier that includes single sign-on, and again once add-ons appear.
When is it worth switching wiki?
When the problem is a capability the current tool does not have — a price that scales the wrong way, a compliance control it cannot enforce, an integration that does not exist. When the problem is how your team uses the tool, a new one reproduces the same mess in a fresh interface within six months, and you will have paid for the privilege.
What should we compare wikis on?
The dimensions that actually separate them: database-style tables, publish public pages, ai search over your content, version history, page-level permissions. Price matters, but it is rarely the thing that decides whether a tool survives contact with your team.