On your hardware.
Not ours.
AskDocs ships as a Docker Compose stack. You clone it, set two values, and bring it up. There is no account to create and no licence to request — the self-hosted edition is the whole product.
Self-hosting is a real commitment.
Running AskDocs yourself means running a database, an object store and a web service, keeping them patched, and owning your own backups. Nobody is paged when it goes down at 2am except you.
That is the trade. In exchange, your documents never leave your network, there is no per-seat bill, and no vendor can change the terms underneath you.
If nobody on your team is comfortable with Docker and a terminal, self-hosting will cost you more than it saves. That is a real answer, and we would rather give it here than after you have spent a weekend on it.
Everything below is what it actually takes.
What you need.
| Requirement | Detail |
|---|---|
| Docker | Version 24 or newer, with Compose |
| Memory | 8 GB is the floor; 16 GB is comfortable |
| Disk | About 8 GB for the stack, plus room for your documents |
| GPU | Not required |
| Network | None outbound, if you run a local chat model |
Four commands.
-
Clone
Pull the repository onto the host that will run it.
$ git clone <repo-url> askdocs $ cd askdocs
-
Configure
Copy the example environment file and set two values: a secret key and the address the app will be served from.
$ cp .env.example .env -
Bring it up
The stack builds and starts. First run pulls the local embedding model, so give it a few minutes.
$ make up -
Sign in
Open the app over HTTPS, create the first account — it becomes the owner — and upload a document to confirm indexing works end to end.
Health checks are exposed for monitoring, including a deep check that reports each component separately and fails loudly when one is degraded.
What runs where.
One tenant, one database, one index. Nothing is shared with anyone else, because there is no one else on your instance.
The instance boundary
It runs on a NAS.
A documented, first-class path — not a hack. If your documents already live on a Synology, QNAP, TrueNAS or Asustor box, AskDocs can run on the same machine and never move them off it.
Capacity
Plan storage per thousand documents rather than per user. The deployment guide gives the arithmetic.
Backups
A database dump plus an object-store mirror, with a documented restore drill. A backup you have never restored is a hope.
Monitoring
Health endpoints and Prometheus-format metrics are exposed, so it plugs into whatever you already run.
Reporting a vulnerability.
Please do not open a public issue for a security problem. Report it privately first so there is time to ship a fix before it is public.
Email info@idefender.io with Security in the subject, or use the contact form. Machine-readable contact details are published at /.well-known/security.txt. We aim to acknowledge a report within 7 days.
What is protected
- Workspace isolation is enforced in the query path, not in the interface
- Document permissions are applied before retrieval runs
- Rate limiting is active at the application layer
- Uploads, deletions, permission changes and membership changes are recorded in an append-only audit log
What is not, yet
AskDocs holds no formal certifications, and the current release does not log which user queried which document. If either matters to your compliance position, say so before you deploy rather than after.
Still deciding?
The FAQ answers the questions that come up before the first install.