Notion vs Outline
Notion and Outline are both wiki and knowledge base software. Notion is a commercial product from Notion Labs. Outline is open source under a license set out in its repository, with 41k GitHub stars.
Which to pick
- Pick Notion when
- A small or mid-size team wants one flexible tool for docs, wiki and light project tracking.
- Pick Outline when
- Your team wants a fast Notion- or Confluence-style wiki that you can either buy as a hosted service or run on your own server.
Side by side
A workspace of pages and databases for notes, wikis, project tracking and docs, with AI search and agents built in.
A team knowledge base with real-time collaborative Markdown editing, collections, search, permissions and Slack integration.
Cloud only, slow on large workspaces, offline support is limited, and its flexibility leads to messy structures.
It uses the Business Source License rather than an OSI licence, and self-hosting needs PostgreSQL, Redis, file storage and an external SSO provider for login.
Production-ready (both)
Cloud service, desktop app and mobile app
Self-hosted server and cloud service
Not published
TypeScript, React, Node.js, Koa, PostgreSQL and Redis
Closed source, sold by Notion Labs
Open source, license unclear on GitHub
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
GitHub could not read the license. Check it in the repository before reusing any code.
4.1k Wikipedia readers a month on phones
41k GitHub stars
Not known
Established: started 10 years ago, latest release v1.12.0.
Other comparisons
More wiki and knowledge base software
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-03 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.