What is Etherpad used for?

Etherpad is a self-hosted real-time collaborative document editor that attributes every keystroke to an author, keeps full revision history and extends through plugins. It is a good fit for collaborative meeting notes, co-writing documents in real time and embedding a shared editor in other tools.

Is Etherpad open source?

Yes. Etherpad is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at ether/etherpad and is written mainly in TypeScript.

Yes. Etherpad is open source, so the software itself is free to use.

Can I self-host Etherpad?

Yes. Etherpad can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.

What is Etherpad an alternative to?

Etherpad is an open-source alternative to Google Docs, Dropbox Paper, Quip and Microsoft Word. Other open-source alternatives to Google Docs include La Suite Docs, CryptPad and ONLYOFFICE Docs.

Is Etherpad actively maintained?

Yes. The most recent commit to Etherpad was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.3.6, published on 21 September 2026. The project has 19k stars on GitHub.

Etherpad: open-source alternative to Google Docs

About Etherpad

Etherpad is a collaborative editor in which several people write in the same document at the same moment. It attributes every keystroke to its author using color highlighting, preserves every revision, and provides a timeslider that lets you replay a document's whole history character by character.

It is built to run on your own server under your own governance, with no telemetry and no upsells, and the project documents the two optional network calls its own code makes and how to turn them off. AI is treated as a plugin that you install and point at a model you choose, running on infrastructure you control. The project says it scales to thousands of simultaneous editors on a single pad, is translated into 105 languages and is extended by hundreds of plugins. Topics mention PDF generation and rich-text editing.

Etherpad is written in TypeScript and licensed under Apache-2.0, and its data format is open. It is used by governments, public institutions, newsrooms and communities that need a simple, trustworthy shared writing space, from meeting notes to collaborative drafting.

Key features

Real-time collaborative editing
Per-author color attribution
Full revision history with timeslider
Hundreds of plugins
Translated into 105 languages
No telemetry and self-hosted control

Good fit for

→Collaborative meeting notes
→Co-writing documents in real time
→Embedding a shared editor in other tools

Built with: TypeScript
Tags: collaborative-editing; real-time; documents; self-hosted; writing; plugins; typescript; privacy

Etherpad: questions and answers

What is Etherpad used for?: Etherpad is a self-hosted real-time collaborative document editor that attributes every keystroke to an author, keeps full revision history and extends through plugins. It is a good fit for collaborative meeting notes, co-writing documents in real time and embedding a shared editor in other tools.
Is Etherpad open source?: Yes. Etherpad is open source under the Apache-2.0 licence. Its source code is on GitHub at ether/etherpad and is written mainly in TypeScript.
Is Etherpad free?: Yes. Etherpad is open source, so the software itself is free to use.
Can I self-host Etherpad?: Yes. Etherpad can be self-hosted on your own server or infrastructure.
What is Etherpad an alternative to?: Etherpad is an open-source alternative to Google Docs, Dropbox Paper, Quip and Microsoft Word. Other open-source alternatives to Google Docs include La Suite Docs, CryptPad and ONLYOFFICE Docs.
Is Etherpad actively maintained?: Yes. The most recent commit to Etherpad was on 1 October 2026, and the latest release is v3.3.6, published on 21 September 2026. The project has 19k stars on GitHub.