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.

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.

If your organisation runs Etherpad and would be willing to be listed publicly, please add it to the wiki.

Installation

Quick install (one-liner)

The fastest way to get Etherpad running. Requires git and Node.js >= 20.

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:-admin}
      DB_CHARSET: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_DB_CHARSET:-utf8mb4}
      DB_HOST: postgres
      DB_NAME: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_DATABASE:-etherpad}
      DB_PASS: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_POSTGRES_PASSWORD:-admin}
      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: ${DOCKER_COMPOSE_APP_TRUST_PROXY:-true}
    restart: always
    ports:
      - "${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:-admin}
      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 >= 20.

Windows, macOS, Linux

1. Download the latest Node.js runtime from nodejs.org.
2. Install pnpm: npm install -g pnpm (Administrator privileges may be required).
3. Clone the repository: git clone -b master
4. Run pnpm i
5. Run pnpm run build:etherpad
6. Run pnpm run prod
7. 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

1. Stop any running Etherpad (manual, systemd ...)
2. Get present version

git -P tag --contains

3. List versions available

git -P tag --list "v*" --merged

4. Select the version

git checkout v2.2.5
git switch -c v2.2.5

5. Upgrade Etherpad

./bin/run.sh

6. Stop with [CTRL-C]
7. 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 (a.mux@inwind.it and contact@etherpad.org).

Join the official Etherpad Discord Channel.

License

Apache License v2