A lightweight, tree-based Markdown wiki – no database, just a single Go binary.

LeafWiki is designed for teams and individuals who want a clean, fast, and self-hosted knowledge base — with full control over structure, content, and deployment.

Feature complete – evolving carefully LeafWiki has reached functional completeness for its original vision and is already powering real documentation workflows.
Development now focuses on steady refinement rather than rapid feature growth.

The current focus is on:

• Stability and reliability
• Usability improvements
• Testing and CI improvements

In the long term, additional features like versioning, improved diagram support (e.g. Mermaid), … are planned —
but they’ll be introduced gradually, with stability taking priority.

Want to try it and help shape it? You’re more than welcome.

LeafWiki now builds and runs natively on:

• Linux (x86_64 and ARM64)
• Windows (x86_64)
• Raspberry Pi (tested with 64-bit OS)

• 🧾 Markdown-first with live editor + preview
• 🌲 True tree-structured pages (nested folders)
• 🔒 Role-based access (admin / editor)
• 🧠 no DB required
• 📂 Per-page assets with upload support
• 🖼️ Embed images and files with Markdown
• ⚙️ Single statically-linked Go binary (no dependencies)
• 🚀 Easily self-hosted (Docker or standalone)
• 🔁 Session auth with JWT tokens + refresh
• 🔍 Search functionality for page titles and content
• 📱 Mobile-friendly design
• 🌐 Public pages (viewable without login)
• 🖨️ Print view support

After trying out tools like Wiki.js, Confluence, and DokuWiki, I wanted something simpler: no database, easy to host, Markdown-based, and truly Git-friendly.

• Why use a database just to store Markdown?
• Why should setup be a weekend project?
• Why can't a wiki just be file-based and fast?

LeafWiki was born out of that frustration — and the desire to have:

• 🧾 Clean Markdown files, organized in folders
• 🧠 A real tree structure, not a flat list
• ⚙️ A single binary with no external dependencies
• 🛠️ Something teams can actually self-host without DevOps pain

It’s not trying to be everything — just a solid, minimal wiki for people who want clarity over complexity.

LeafWiki is often compared to simple Markdown viewers or file browsers - but it’s built for a very different purpose.

LeafWiki doesn’t just read Markdown files — it organizes, edits, and serves them.
It’s not a viewer, but a small wiki engine that happens to store everything as Markdown.

# Download the latest release from GitHub
chmod +x leafwiki
./leafwiki --jwt-secret=yoursecret

Default port is 8080, and the default data directory is ./data. You can change the data directory with the --data-dir flag.

✅ Native ARM64 builds are available in the Releases section.

The first time you run LeafWiki, it will create an admin user with the default password admin.

You can change this password later in the admin settings or by using the CLI:

./leafwiki --admin-password=newpassword --jwt-secret=yoursecret

Note: --admin-password (or the LEAFWIKI_ADMIN_PASSWORD env var) is only used on first startup, when no admin user exists yet.

If you need to reset the admin password, you can do so by running:

./leafwiki reset-admin-password

Instead of CLI flags, you can also configure LeafWiki using environment variables:

These environment variables override the default values and are especially useful in containerized or production environments.

If you run a reverse proxy (nginx, Caddy, Traefik) in front of LeafWiki, you may want the Go server to only listen on the loopback interface. You can do that with the --host flag or the LEAFWIKI_HOST env var:

# bind to localhost only
LEAFWIKI_HOST=127.0.0.1 ./leafwiki --jwt-secret=yoursecret

# or with the CLI flag
./leafwiki --host 127.0.0.1 --jwt-secret=yoursecret

When bound to 127.0.0.1, the server will only listen on localhost and won't be directly reachable from the public internet; the reverse proxy can forward requests from the external interface.

# 1. Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/perber/leafwiki.git
cd leafwiki

# 2. Install frontend dependencies

cd ui/leafwiki-ui
npm install
npm run dev   # Starts Vite dev server on http://localhost:5173

# 3. In another terminal, start the backend

cd ../../cmd/leafwiki
go run main.go

• Tree-based page structure
• Markdown file creation
• Slug + file path mapping
• Move / rename / delete logic
• Markdown editor with preview
• File/image uploads per page
• Simple page title search
• Asset management (images, files)
• Basic JWT auth (session-based)

• Use CodeMirror for Markdown editing
• Add Toolbar with common actions like bold, italic, links, etc.
• Allow Undo/Redo actions

• Allow uploading multiple files at once
• Allow renaming of uploaded files
• Fix caching issues with uploaded assets
• Fix syntax highlighting in preview
• Fix favicon not displayed
• ARM64 support for Raspberry Pi and other ARM devices (thanks @nahaktarun)

• Add Search functionality for page titles and content
• Add Mobile optimizations for better usability
• Allow Public Pages (viewable pages without login)
• Add shortcuts in the editor (e.g. Ctrl+S to save, Ctrl+B for bold, Ctrl+Z for undo, ...)
• Smaller improvements and bugfixes in the UI
• Added "Create & Edit" option to dialog to allow creating structure before editing
• Warn user about unsaved changes when navigating away (via beforeunload and react-router)
• Updated the tree view design – it now has a more documentation-style look
• Print view support for pages (print-friendly layout)

• Several dependencies updates
• Allow to configure --host to bind to specific IP (e.g. --host 127.0.0.1) - thanks @magnus-madsen for the suggestion!

• Several dependencies updates
• Not Found page now suggests creating a new page - thanks @magnus-madsen for the suggestion!
• links to non-existing pages now show a create page dialog - thanks @magnus-madsen for the suggestion!
• smaller UI improvements and bugfixes (e.g. green save button, ...)

• Mermaid diagram support
• Documentation and offering setup guides for nginx, raspberry pi, ...

• Simple to run: No container, no DB, just Go
• Simple to host: You know where your data is
• Simple to trust: Markdown is portable & future-proof

Contributions, discussions and feedback are very welcome.
This project is still early – feel free to open issues or ideas!

More updates coming soon.
Watch the repo or drop a star ⭐ if you’re curious!