Notion self-hosted alternative: how we replaced it with Outline

Summary

We replaced a $300/month Notion subscription with a self-hosted Outline instance costing $4/month — same wiki and docs workflow, a fraction of the bill, for a 30-person team.

Problem

The team was on Notion, paying $300 a month for workspace and documentation tooling — wiki pages, meeting notes, and internal docs shared across the whole team. That recurring cost for what is fundamentally a docs/wiki tool was hard to justify long-term.

Solution

We chose to self-host Outline, an open-source wiki and knowledge base, replacing Notion’s $300/month plan with a $4/month hosting bill.

How

Outline was deployed and configured to serve the same role Notion did: shared docs and wiki pages for the team, migrated over from the existing Notion workspace.

Result

The team’s docs and wiki workflow moved over intact, on a $4/month bill instead of $300/month — a $296/month saving, with self-hosted Outline standing in for every one of Notion’s daily-use features.