Outline vs Slab
Outline and Slab are both wiki and knowledge base software. Outline is open source under a license set out in its repository, with 41k GitHub stars. Slab is a commercial product from Slab.
Which to pick
- 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.
- Pick Slab when
- A small or mid-size team wants a simpler, tidier wiki than Confluence or Notion.
Side by side
A team knowledge base with real-time collaborative Markdown editing, collections, search, permissions and Slack integration.
A clean team wiki with topics, a good editor and unified search across tools like Google Drive, GitHub and Slack.
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.
A small vendor with fewer features and integrations than the large suites.
Production-ready (both)
Self-hosted server and cloud service
Cloud service
TypeScript, React, Node.js, Koa, PostgreSQL and Redis
Not published
Open source, license unclear on GitHub
Closed source, sold by Slab
GitHub could not read the license. Check it in the repository before reusing any code.
Closed source: you use it under the maker's terms and cannot change or resell the code.
41k GitHub stars
No Wikipedia article of its own
Established: started 10 years ago, latest release v1.12.0.
Not known
Other comparisons
More wiki and knowledge base software
Both sides were judged on 2026-11-06 from makers' descriptions, Wikipedia, READMEs and GitHub data. License, age and popularity lines are worked out directly.