Etherpad — the editor for documents that matter
Real-time collaborative editing where authorship is the default, your server is the only server, and you decide what AI (if any) ever touches your text.
About
Etherpad is a real-time collaborative editor for documents that matter.
Every keystroke is attributed to its author. Every revision is preserved. The timeslider lets you scrub through a document's entire history, character by character. Author colours make collaboration visible at a glance — not buried in a menu.
Etherpad runs on your server, under your governance. No telemetry. No upsells. AI is a plugin you install, pointed at the model you choose, running on infrastructure you control — not a feature decided for you in a boardroom you weren't in. See PRIVACY.md for the two opt-out network calls Etherpad's own code makes and how to disable each.
The code is Apache 2.0. The data format is open. It scales to thousands of simultaneous editors per pad. Translated into 105 languages. Extended through hundreds of plugins. Used by Wikimedia, governments, public-sector institutions, and self-hosters worldwide since 2009.
Full data export is built in. The history is yours.
Try it out
Try out a public Etherpad instance
Project Status
Etherpad has been doing the same thing — well — since 2009. No pivots, no acquisitions, no enshittification. Maintained by a small volunteer team.
We are actively looking for maintainers. If you have experience with Node.js, real-time systems, or institutional collaboration tooling and you want to work on infrastructure that thousands of organisations quietly depend on, please open an issue or contact John McLear.
Code Quality
Testing
Engagement
Who uses Etherpad
For more than a decade, Etherpad has quietly underpinned the documents that matter to:
- Wikimedia Foundation — collaborative drafting across editor communities.
- Public-sector institutions across the EU — including organisations that legally cannot use US-cloud SaaS for sovereignty and GDPR reasons.
- Universities and schools worldwide — including jurisdictions where Google Workspace is no longer permitted in education.
- Civic-tech and democratic-deliberation projects — citizen assemblies, participatory budgeting, public consultations.
- Newsrooms and investigative journalism teams — where authorship and editing history matter for legal and editorial integrity.
- Tens of thousands of self-hosted instances worldwide, run by IT teams who chose Etherpad because it is theirs.
Public Etherpad Instances for you to try out. Third party instances not provided by the Etherpad foundation.
Installation
Quick install (one-liner)
The fastest way to get Etherpad running. Requires git and Node.js >= 24.
macOS / Linux / WSL:
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ether/etherpad/master/bin/installer.sh | sh
Windows (PowerShell):
irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ether/etherpad/master/bin/installer.ps1 | iex
Both installers clone Etherpad into ./etherpad-lite, install dependencies, and
build the frontend. When the installer finishes, run:
cd etherpad-lite && pnpm run prod
Then open http://localhost:9001.
To install and start in one go:
# macOS / Linux / WSL
ETHERPAD_RUN=1 sh -c "$(curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ether/etherpad/master/bin/installer.sh)"
# Windows
$env:ETHERPAD_RUN=1; irm https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ether/etherpad/master/bin/installer.ps1 | iex
Docker-Compose
The official image is published to both Docker Hub (etherpad/etherpad) and GitHub Container Registry (ghcr.io/ether/etherpad) with identical tags. Use whichever suits your environment; GHCR avoids Docker Hub's anonymous pull rate limits.
services:
app:
user: "0:0"
image: etherpad/etherpad:latest # or: ghcr.io/ether/etherpad:latest
tty: true
stdin_open: true
volumes:
- plugins:/opt/etherpad-lite/src/plugin_packages
- etherpad-var:/opt/etherpad-lite/var
depends_on:
- postgres
environment:
NODE_ENV: production
ADMIN_PASSWORD: "${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_ADMIN_PASSWORD:?Set DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_ADMIN_PASSWORD to a strong value}"
DB_CHARSET: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_DB_CHARSET:-utf8mb4}
DB_HOST: postgres
DB_NAME: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_DATABASE:-etherpad}
DB_PASS: "${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_PASSWORD:?Set DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_PASSWORD to a strong value}"
DB_PORT: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_PORT:-5432}
DB_TYPE: "postgres"
DB_USER: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_USER:-admin}
# For now, the env var DEFAULT_PAD_TEXT cannot be unset or empty; it seems to be mandatory in the latest version of etherpad
DEFAULT_PAD_TEXT: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_DEFAULT_PAD_TEXT:- }
DISABLE_IP_LOGGING: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_DISABLE_IP_LOGGING:-false}
SOFFICE: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_SOFFICE:-null}
TRUST_PROXY: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_TRUST_PROXY:-false}
restart: always
ports:
- "${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_PORT_PUBLISHED:-9001}:${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_PORT_TARGET:-9001}"
postgres:
image: postgres:15-alpine
environment:
POSTGRES_DB: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_DATABASE:-etherpad}
POSTGRES_PASSWORD: "${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_PASSWORD:?Set DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_PASSWORD to a strong value}"
POSTGRES_PORT: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_PORT:-5432}
POSTGRES_USER: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_USER:-admin}
PGDATA: /var/lib/postgresql/data/pgdata
restart: always
# Exposing the port is not needed unless you want to access this database instance from the host.
# Be careful when other postgres docker container are running on the same port
# ports:
# - "5432:5432"
volumes:
- postgres_data:/var/lib/postgresql/data
volumes:
postgres_data:
plugins:
etherpad-var:
Requirements
Node.js >= 24.
Windows, macOS, Linux
- Download the latest Node.js runtime from nodejs.org.
- Install pnpm:
npm install -g pnpm (Administrator privileges may be required).
- Clone the repository:
git clone -b master
- Run
pnpm i
- Run
pnpm run build:etherpad
- Run
pnpm run prod
- Visit
http://localhost:9001 in your browser.
Docker container
Find here information on running Etherpad in a container.
Plugins
Etherpad is very customizable through plugins.
Available Plugins
For a list of available plugins, see the plugins
site.
Plugin Installation
You can install plugins from the admin web interface (e.g.,
http://127.0.0.1:9001/admin/plugins).
Alternatively, you can install plugins from the command line:
cd /path/to/etherpad-lite
pnpm run plugins i ep_${plugin_name}
Also see the plugin wiki
article.
Suggested Plugins
Run the following command in your Etherpad folder to get all of the features
visible in the above demo gif:
pnpm run plugins i \
ep_align \
ep_comments_page \
ep_embedded_hyperlinks2 \
ep_font_color \
ep_headings2 \
ep_markdown \
ep_webrtc
For user authentication, you are encouraged to run an OpenID
Connect identity provider (OP) and install the
following plugins:
- ep_openid_connect to
authenticate against your OP.
- ep_guest to create a
"guest" account that has limited access (e.g., read-only access).
- ep_user_displayname
to automatically populate each user's displayed name from your OP.
- ep_stable_authorid so
that each user's chosen color, display name, comment ownership, etc. is
strongly linked to their account.
Upgrade Etherpad
Run the following command in your Etherpad folder to upgrade
- Stop any running Etherpad (manual, systemd ...)
- Get present version
git -P tag --contains
- List versions available
git -P tag --list "v*" --merged
- Select the version
git checkout v3.2.0
git switch -c v3.2.0
- Upgrade Etherpad
./bin/run.sh
- Stop with [CTRL-C]
- Restart your Etherpad service
Next Steps
Tweak the settings
You can modify the settings in settings.json. If you need to handle multiple
settings files, you can pass the path to a settings file to bin/run.sh
using the -s|--settings option: this allows you to run multiple Etherpad
instances from the same installation. Similarly, --credentials can be used to
give a settings override file, --apikey to give a different APIKEY.txt file
and --sessionkey to give a non-default SESSIONKEY.txt. Each configuration
parameter can also be set via an environment variable, using the syntax
"${ENV_VAR}" or "${ENV_VAR:default_value}". For details, refer to
settings.json.template. Once you have access to your /admin section,
settings can be modified through the web browser.
If you are planning to use Etherpad in a production environment, you should use
a dedicated database such as mysql, since the dirtyDB database driver is
only for testing and/or development purposes.
Secure your installation
If you have enabled authentication in users section in settings.json, it is
a good security practice to store hashes instead of plain text passwords in
that file. This is especially advised if you are running a production
installation.
Please install ep_hash_auth plugin
and configure it. If you prefer, ep_hash_auth also gives you the option of
storing the users in a custom directory in the file system, without having to
edit settings.json and restart Etherpad each time.
Customize the style with skin variants
Open http://127.0.0.1:9001/p/test#skinvariantsbuilder in your browser and start
playing!
Helpful resources
The wiki is your one-stop
resource for Tutorials and How-to's.
Documentation can be found in doc/.
Development
Things you should know
You can debug Etherpad using bin/debugRun.sh.
You can run Etherpad quickly launching bin/fastRun.sh. It's convenient for
developers and advanced users. Be aware that it will skip the dependencies
update, so remember to run bin/installDeps.sh after installing a new
dependency or upgrading version.
If you want to find out how Etherpad's Easysync works (the library that makes
it really realtime), start with this
PDF
(complex, but worth reading).
Contributing
Read our Developer
Guidelines
HTTP API
Etherpad is designed to be easily embeddable and provides a HTTP
API that allows your web
application to manage pads, users and groups. It is recommended to use the
available client
implementations
in order to interact with this API.
OpenAPI (previously swagger) definitions for the API are exposed under
/api/openapi.json.
jQuery plugin
There is a jQuery plugin
that helps you to embed Pads into your website.
Plugin Framework
Etherpad offers a plugin framework, allowing you to easily add your own
features. By default your Etherpad is extremely light-weight and it's up to you
to customize your experience. Once you have Etherpad installed you should visit
the plugin page and take control.
Translations / Localizations (i18n / l10n)
Etherpad comes with translations into all languages thanks to the team at
TranslateWiki.
If you require translations in plugins please
send pull request to each plugin individually.
FAQ
Visit the FAQ.
Get in touch
The official channel for contacting the development team is via the GitHub
issues.
For responsible disclosure of vulnerabilities, please write a mail to the
maintainers ([email protected] and [email protected]).
Join the official Etherpad Discord
Channel.
License
Apache License v2
Etherpad is a self-hosted, real-time collaborative document editor: every keystroke is attributed to its author, every revision is preserved, and a timeslider lets you scrub through a pad's entire history.