Blink vs BookStack
Blink
joinblink.com
BookStack
bookstackapp.comSide by side
| Figure | Blink | BookStack |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $4.50/mo | £37.50/mo |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| iOS | Yes | — |
| Android | Yes | — |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 3 | 4 |
| Spec score · HR Knowledge Base Software | 8.6 (#6) | 9.0 (#2) |
| Audience | Blink says its platform serves frontline and headquarters employees and lists industries including healthcare, retail, manufacturing, transit, and logistics. | both |
| Founded | 2015 | 2015 |
| Product | Blink describes itself as an employee experience app that connects employees with workplace tools. | BookStack is a simple, self-hosted, easy-to-use platform for organising and storing information. |
| Security | Blink says data is encrypted at rest with AES-256 and in transit over HTTPS using TLS. | BookStack supports CSP headers to increase protection against malicious content and stores MFA secrets encrypted in the database. |
| Support | Blink advertises customer support 24/7, 365 days a year, and priority support on Pro. | Official paid support services are provided by HTTP Functions Ltd., while community support is available through discussions, Codeberg, Reddit, documentation and YouTube. |
Plans
BookStack
- BookStack self-hostedFree
- Community SupportFree
- Professional Support Plan£450 a year
- Enterprise Support Plan£4,500 a year
In their own words
Blink
Blink is an employee experience app that brings workplace communications and tools together for frontline and headquarters employees. It includes secure one-to-one and group chats, company news feeds, recognition, surveys, stories, and communities. AI help can create or improve feed posts. A knowledge hub, single sign-on, digital forms, and employee journeys are among its workplace tools. Native integrations include ServiceNow, Salesforce, Zoom, and Microsoft 365; Zapier can connect Blink with over 1,000 other apps. An organization administrator must configure integrations before users can access them. Blink says data is encrypted at rest with AES-256 and in transit over HTTPS using TLS, and states that it is ISO 27001 certified. The app is listed for Android, iOS, macOS, web, and Windows. Pricing starts at $3.75/user/mo (annual), and a 14-day free trial is available; there is no free plan. Core is $4.50 per user per month and Pro is $6.00 per user per month. Blink lists healthcare, retail, manufacturing, transit, and logistics among the industries it serves.
BookStack
BookStack is a free, open-source platform for organizing and storing information on a self-hosted instance. It organizes content into Books, Chapters and Pages, with a WYSIWYG editor and an optional Markdown editor with live preview. Search works within a book or across books, chapters and pages, and users can link directly to paragraphs. The editor includes diagrams.net drawing capability. Authentication supports OIDC, SAML2 and LDAP, as well as social-based secondary authentication options. Built-in multi-factor authentication can be enforced by role and uses TOTP and static backup codes. Content exports include contained HTML, PDF, plain text, Markdown and Portable ZIP. The project describes a growing REST API for automation and importing content. The MIT-licensed software has no cost to download and install. Setup requires PHP 8.2 or newer, MySQL 8.0 or MariaDB 10.6 or newer, Git, Composer 2.2 or newer and a PHP-compatible web server. BookStack does not currently support shared PHP hosting. Community support is free but does not assure a response, support or resolution; paid support plans are also listed.