Docs by Suite Numerique

Last reviewed Aug 26, 2026 · 852 words

Docs is the closest thing to a self-hosted Google Docs that does not make you run an entire office suite: a block-based editor with live cursors, inline comments and link sharing, funded by the French government, MIT-licensed, and at 16,753 GitHub stars after roughly two years in public. The catch that stops most homelab installs on day one is that there is no local login. Docs authenticates only through OpenID Connect, so before you deploy it you deploy an identity provider, and the whole exercise sizes at 1 GB of RAM minimum for five containers plus whatever your IdP needs.

A government funds it, which changes the maintenance maths

Most young collaborative editors are one funding round away from an archived repository. Docs is part of La Suite numérique, the French state's programme of sovereign work tools, and it is co-developed with Germany's ZenDiS for the openDesk bundle. That means salaried engineers with a public-sector mandate and a project that first shipped in 2024 and already sits among the most-starred editors on GitHub. It also explains the engineering choices: Django on the back end, Next.js on the front, the BlockNote editor for the writing surface and Yjs for merging concurrent edits. These are well-worn parts picked by people who expect to be maintaining them in 10 years, which is exactly what I want from software that holds my documents.

The stack is five services and none of them is optional

A working instance runs the Django API, the Next.js front end, a Yjs collaboration server that handles live editing and also renders exports, PostgreSQL, Redis, and an S3-compatible object store for attachments. The repository's Compose files pair those with MinIO and a Keycloak container, but the maintainers treat Compose as a development setup and document Kubernetes with their Helm chart as the production route. On a single box, the practical path is to adapt the Compose file: swap the dev Keycloak for the IdP you already run, point the S3 settings at MinIO or a real bucket, and set the public URL consistently across the frontend, backend and collaboration server. Mismatched URLs between those three are the source of most "cursors do not move" bug reports, because the collaboration websocket is the piece that lives on a different origin.

Budget 2 GB of RAM if you want it comfortable. The Python API and the Node collaboration server each want a few hundred MB, PostgreSQL and Redis are small, and MinIO is only as hungry as the files you upload.

OIDC is the gate, and Keycloak is the path of least resistance

The backend uses standard OIDC settings, a handful of OIDC_OP_ and OIDC_RP_ variables pointing at your provider's discovery endpoints plus a client ID and secret. Keycloak is the reference integration because the dev environment ships with it, so it produces the fewest surprises. Authentik works well too and is the better choice if you already use it for a dozen other apps; the Authentik versus Authelia write-up covers picking one. If you have no IdP and only want two or three users, Pocket ID is the lightest thing that satisfies Docs, since it speaks OIDC with passkeys and nothing else.

This requirement is a feature for a workplace and a tax for a household. There is no admin panel to create a user with a password. Every account is whatever your provider says it is, which is correct design for a shared team tool and a genuine reason to pick something else for a solo notebook.

What it is not yet

Docs is a document editor with sharing and comments. It is not a Notion clone. There are no databases, boards or formulas, export covers PDF and DOCX rather than a full round-trip, and import tooling is thin, so moving a large Notion workspace in is a copy-and-paste job. The Notion alternatives page maps the fuller replacements. If what you want is a knowledge base with a tree of pages and search, Docmost offers local logins and a lower entry price in RAM, and Outline is the more mature wiki, though it shares the external-auth requirement. Docs wins specifically on the writing experience: the block editor is fast, co-editing is genuinely real time, and comments attach to selections the way people expect from Google Docs.

What I'd do

Stand up the identity provider first and get one other app logging in through it, because that is where the time goes. Then run Docs from an adapted Compose file on a box with at least 2 GB free, MinIO for storage, everything behind a reverse proxy with one public hostname per service. Use it as the shared drafting space for a team or family, keep a wiki for the reference material, and check the release notes monthly: a project this young and this well-funded ships changes fast, and the good ones are worth having.