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The self-hosted, open-source Slab alternative
Last updated June 30, 2026
Slab is a clean, well-designed team knowledge base — but it is proprietary, cloud-only SaaS with no self-hosting, content lives in a proprietary rich-text format, and its AI "Ask" is gated to a higher plan. tela gives you the same organized team wiki — self-hostable, markdown-native, with AI and agents built in.
tela vs Slab, at a glance
| Feature | tela | Slab |
|---|---|---|
| License | Open source (AGPL-3.0) | Proprietary SaaS |
| Self-hostable | Yes — self-host free, plus a free cloud tier | No — cloud only |
| Storage | Canonical markdown you own | Proprietary rich-text "Posts" |
| Ask your docs (AI) | Built in — semantic + full-text, answers with citations | AI "Ask" — on a higher plan |
| Agents read & write (MCP) | Built in — agents read & write (39 scoped tools) | No official server (community only) |
| Generate docs from your code | Yes — Atlas builds a cited, coverage-checked wiki from git + Jira | No |
Why teams switch to tela
- Own your knowledge base and your data — self-host under AGPL; Slab is cloud-only.
- Markdown you can export and version, not a proprietary post format.
- Atlas generates a cited wiki from your sources; Slab's repo integration only mirrors existing markdown.
When Slab is the better choice
Slab's editing experience and integration breadth are strong — a refined writing UI and a unified search that federates across Slack, Drive, GitHub, Linear, Jira and more. For a fully-managed, no-ops SaaS that ties a stack of existing tools together, Slab is a polished choice.
Try tela
tela is an open-source (AGPL), self-hostable team wiki. Self-host it, or start on the free cloud tier at telawiki.com. See the MCP server docs for connecting your agents, or compare tela with other tools.
Slab pricing + unified search docs (verified 2026). tela facts current as of June 2026.