HedgeDoc is a free, open-source platform for real-time collaborative Markdown notes — think of a shared document where several people type at once, but written in Markdown and hosted entirely on your own server. It is the self-hosted answer to collaborative note tools when you want the collaboration without the cloud company in the middle. This guide explains what HedgeDoc is good for and how to deploy it as a one-click Docker stack.
What HedgeDoc does
HedgeDoc gives you documents that multiple people can edit simultaneously, with changes appearing live for everyone. You write in Markdown on one side and see the formatted result on the other. Because it is Markdown, your notes are portable plain text you can export anywhere — not trapped in a proprietary format. Common uses:
- Meeting notes taken as a group — everyone contributes to the same doc in real time, no "send me your notes afterward".
- Shared documentation drafts before they graduate to a permanent wiki.
- Collaborative writing and planning — agendas, retrospectives, brainstorms.
- Presentations from Markdown — HedgeDoc can render slide decks straight from a note.
- Quick shareable notes — paste something, share the link, done.
The distinction from a permanent wiki like BookStack is the working mode: HedgeDoc is for the fast, live, collaborative draft; a wiki is for the organized, permanent home. Many teams run both — draft in HedgeDoc, publish to the wiki.
Deploying HedgeDoc on Panelica
HedgeDoc stores its notes in a database, so the template deploys it as a linked stack — the HedgeDoc application and its database together, connected automatically with a generated password.
- Deploy the HedgeDoc template from the Docker app catalog.
- Let the database password auto-generate as a required secret.
- Set the domain URL. HedgeDoc needs to know its own address to build the shareable links that are its whole point — so this setting matters more here than in most apps.
- Budget a modest amount of RAM; HedgeDoc is lightweight for typical team sizes, with the database needing a little of its own.
- Open the web UI and create your first note.
Get the domain right — it is load-bearing here
HedgeDoc's value is sharing links, and those links are only correct if HedgeDoc knows its public URL. Link a subdomain like notes.example.com or pad.example.com through Panelica's reverse proxy for automatic HTTPS, and set that as HedgeDoc's domain. Real-time collaboration relies on WebSocket connections, which the panel's generated proxy config passes through automatically — so live editing works without extra configuration. If you get a HedgeDoc instance where links point to the wrong place or live updates stall, the domain URL setting is the first thing to check.
Access control: decide who can create and edit
HedgeDoc supports different permission models — from fully open (anyone with the link can edit) to authenticated-only. For an internal team tool, require accounts. For a public paste-and-share service, open notes may be fine, but understand that open means open. Configure this deliberately based on whether HedgeDoc faces your team or the world.
Frequently asked questions
How is this different from a wiki?
HedgeDoc is optimized for live, simultaneous editing and quick sharing — the draft stage. A wiki is optimized for organized, permanent, searchable knowledge. Use HedgeDoc to write together, a wiki to keep what you wrote.
Can people edit at the same time without conflicts?
Yes — real-time collaborative editing with live cursors is the core feature. Multiple people typing in the same note is the normal case, not an edge case.
Are my notes portable?
Very. Notes are Markdown, which you can export and read anywhere. There is no lock-in — the whole point of self-hosting a Markdown tool is that your content stays plain text you own.
How do I back up the notes?
Notes live in HedgeDoc's database, so an application-aware stack backup that dumps the database is the correct approach — a running-database file copy risks corruption.
The takeaway
HedgeDoc gives your team real-time collaborative Markdown notes on your own server — the shared-typing experience of cloud note tools, with your content staying portable and private. On Panelica it is a one-click app-plus-database stack; the one setting that matters most is the domain URL, because HedgeDoc's shareable links and live collaboration depend on it. Point a notes. subdomain at it, decide your access model, and back up the database that holds everything.