Overleaf
Self-hosted collaborative LaTeX editor for academic writing and publishing
Overview
Overleaf Community Edition is the open-source version of the popular cloud LaTeX editor that lets teams write, compile, and review LaTeX documents in the browser. It supports real-time collaboration, version history, rich comment threads, and thousands of journal templates. The self-hosted instance runs via Docker Compose with MongoDB and Redis. The commercial Overleaf Cloud adds features like Git integration, track-changes, and institutional SSO that are not included in the community build.
Where it falls short of Notion
- Track changes and full Git integration are cloud-only (paid) features not available in the Community Edition.
- No built-in reference manager; requires manual BibTeX or integration with Zotero/Mendeley.
- Admin panel is minimal; user and quota management requires direct database access.
- Requires a non-trivial server (2+ CPU, 4 GB RAM) for a comfortable multi-user compile experience.
We list the gaps honestly so you can decide if the trade-off is worth owning your data.
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