A small, self-hosted place to write stories with friends.

Inkspace is a web app for sharing stories, drafts, comments and reading moments with a group of people you know. You run it on your own server, invite who you want, and write.

It's early. The latest build is 0.0.5-nightly.1, from October 23, 2026.

Set it upRead the docsSource on GitHub

The stories feed. The stories and people here are made up.

What it does

Here's what's there today.

Writing
A Markdown editor. Write a story as one long page, or split it into pages that each get their own publish date. Add a cover, images, tags, an excerpt and a font. Drafts save as you type.
Reading
Stories open on dark, sepia or light paper. Each reader picks their own font, size, line height and width. Progress through paged stories is saved to your account.
Talking about it
Comment threads with Markdown and images, likes, half-star ratings and short reviews. Notifications for likes, comments, replies, story updates and invites, each one optional.
Finding things
A feed of everything you're allowed to read, search, bookmarks, and a Browse page with a few shelves: favorites this month and year, new releases, long reads, hidden gems.
Who sees what
Each story is private, friends-only, unlisted or public. New stories start as friends-only. Members choose whether their profile, reading and writing activity are visible.
Members
The first person to sign up becomes the admin. Everyone after that joins with an invite link.
Looks
Four app themes, or upload your own CSS for the app and the reader. The interface is in English and Vietnamese.
Your data
Export everything you've written as JSON, import stories into another Inkspace as drafts, or delete your account.

The user guide goes through each of these in more detail.

The reader

These are the same reader settings the app has. Try them.

Page 7 · The one that wouldn't burn

The Lantern Keeper of Hội An

The last lantern hung lower than the rest, its paper the colour of old tea. Bà Sáu struck a match, and then another, and the wick only looked back at her — patient, the way the river was patient, the way she had once been.

Behind her, the ferryman cleared his throat. “Some lights,” he said, “wait for the right hand.”

Running it

You need a machine with Docker. Inkspace is one app container that runs next to the official PostgreSQL image.

  1. Download the example Compose file:

    curl -fsSLo docker-compose.yml \
  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/ak4duy/inkspace/master/docker/docker-compose.example.yml

  2. Put a database password and a long random secret in it, then create the uploads folder:

    mkdir -p uploads && sudo chown -R 1000:1000 uploads

  3. Start it:

    docker compose up -d

Open http://localhost:6767 and sign up. The first account is the admin. HTTPS, backups and upgrades are covered in the docs.

Where it's at

Inkspace is young and changes often. Every release so far has been a nightly build, so expect rough edges and back up before you upgrade.

  • 0.0.5-nightly.1October 23, 2026

    Nightly update focused on protecting your drafts and data, account security, and a startup schema sync that now applies and fails safely.

  • 0.0.4-nightly.1October 17, 2026

    Nightly update with story discovery, ratings and reviews, image uploads, flexible reading controls, and account security improvements.

  • 0.0.3-nightly.1June 26, 2026

    Nightly update with bargraph support, theme customization, expanded notifications, comment improvements, story feed search, Docker migration cleanup, and account deletion.

See the full changelog. If something breaks or you have an idea, open an issue.

Chipping in

Inkspace is free and there's nothing to buy. If you'd like to support it, there's GitHub Sponsors and Buy Me a Coffee. Bug reports and feedback help just as much.