Etherpad

Real-time collaborative editing where authorship is the default, your server is the only server, and you decide what AI (if any) ever touches your text. Etherpad runs on your server, under your governance. No telemetry. No upsells. AI is a plugin you install, pointed at the model you choose, running on infrastructure you control — not a feature decided for you in a boardroom you weren't in. See PRIVACY.md for the two opt-out network calls Etherpad's own code makes and how to disable each. The code is Apache 2.0. The data format is open. It scales to thousands of simultaneous editors per pad. Translated into 105 languages. Extended through hundreds of plugins. Used by Wikimedia, governments, public-sector institutions, and self-hosters worldwide since 2009. We are actively looking for maintainers. If you have experience with Node.js, real-time systems, or institutional collaboration tooling and you want to work on infrastructure that thousands of organisations quietly depend on, please open an issue or contact John McLear. Public Etherpad Instances for you to try out. Third party instances not provided by the Etherpad foundation. The fastest way to get Etherpad running. Requires git and Node.js = 24. Both installers clone Etherpad into ./etherpad-lite , install dependencies, and build the frontend. When the installer finishes, run: The official image is published to both Docker Hub ( etherpad/etherpad ) and GitHub Container Registry ( ghcr.io/ether/etherpad ) with identical tags. Use whichever suits your environment; GHCR avoids Docker Hub's anonymous pull rate limits. 1. Stop any running Etherpad (manual, systemd ...) 2. Get present version You can modify the settings in settings.json . If you need to handle multiple settings files, you can pass the path to a settings file to bin/run.sh using the -s --settings option: this allows you to run multiple Etherpad instances from the same installation. Similarly, --credentials can be used to give a settings override file, --apikey to give a different APIKEY.txt file and --sessionkey to give a non-default SESSIONKEY.txt . Each configuration parameter can also be set via an environment variable , using the syntax "${ENV VAR}" or "${ENV VAR:default value}" . For details, refer to settings.json.template . Once you have access to your /admin section, settings can be modified through the web browser. If you are planning to use Etherpad in a production environment, you should use a dedicated database such as mysql , since the dirtyDB database driver is only for testing and/or development purposes. Please install ep hash auth plugin and configure it. If you prefer, ep hash auth also gives you the option of storing the users in a custom directory in the file system, without having to edit settings.json and restart Etherpad each time. You can run Etherpad quickly launching bin/fastRun.sh . It's convenient for developers and advanced users. Be aware that it will skip the dependencies update, so remember to run bin/installDeps.sh after installing a new dependency or upgrading version. If you want to find out how Etherpad's Easysync works (the library that makes it really realtime), start with this PDF (complex, but worth reading). OpenAPI (previously swagger) definitions for the API are exposed under /api/openapi.json . There is a jQuery plugin that helps you to embed Pads into your website. Etherpad offers a plugin framework, allowing you to easily add your own features. By default your Etherpad is extremely light-weight and it's up to you to customize your experience. Once you have Etherpad installed you should visit the plugin page and take control. Etherpad comes with translations into all languages thanks to the team at TranslateWiki. If you require translations in plugins please send pull request to each plugin individually. The official channel for contacting the development team is via the GitHub issues. For responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities , please write a m