A lightweight self-hosted alternative to Overleaf for small, trusted research teams. Use your existing LaTeX distribution, with no heavyweight service stack.
Documentation: English (this file) · Operations · Design · 简体中文
Website: TexLite GitHub Pages
- Own the writing environment. Use the host's TeX installation and keep sources, history, and compiled output in one local data directory.
- Collaborate without a large stack. The default deployment is one Node.js process, SQLite, and local files—plus real-time editing and source-level comments for a small trusted team.
Overleaf is a strong choice when its hosted product or broader ecosystem is the right fit. TexLite addresses a narrower self-hosted use case:
- A shared hosted service can queue, slow down, or time out at usage peaks.
- Overleaf's open-source Community Edition follows a more involved Docker deployment path, and several functionalities, such as source comments, are Server Pro features. If you do not mind a heftier Docker image, we have one ready too :)
Self-hosting does not make every document compile faster: that still depends on the host and the document. It does give the team control over capacity, TeX updates, data location, and the collaboration workflow.
For a desktop-first, individual workflow, start with VS Code + LaTeX Workshop or TeXstudio instead. TexLite is purpose-built for shared browser writing, not a replacement for a personal IDE.
- Projects with folders, ZIP import/export, tags, sharing, ownership transfer, archiving, and a private per-user citation library.
- CodeMirror editing with LaTeX/BibTeX highlighting, folding, completion, optional Vim mode, formatting, spelling/grammar assistance, search/replace, and source/PDF SyncTeX navigation.
- Yjs-based collaborative source editing, active-session presence, comments anchored to source text, replies, resolution, and permissions that let reviewers comment without changing source.
latexmkcompilation with selectable engines, project settings, structured diagnostics, cached successful PDFs, downloadable artifacts, and optional project-levellatexmkrc.- Per-project history and owner-only Git/GitHub backup. Git is optional and is checked only when its integration is used.
Install Node.js 24 or newer, latexmk, and at least one TeX engine such as
pdflatex, xelatex, or lualatex. Git is needed only for the optional
Git/GitHub integration.
After installation, texlite requirements checks the relevant host software
and versions before initialization.
npm install --global texlite
texlite requirements
texlite init
texlite start
texlite statusOpen http://127.0.0.1:3000. texlite init creates the configuration and the
first administrator; public registration is deliberately unavailable.
For upgrades and routine management:
npm update --global texlite
texlite restart
texlite logstexlite serve runs in the foreground for debugging, Docker, or systemd.
start, stop, restart, status, and logs use the PM2 runtime bundled
with the npm package. Run texlite help for the complete command list.
If the host does not have—or you do not want to maintain—Node.js, TeX Live, Git, and Harper locally, use the heavier TexLite-Docker deployment. Its published image bundles those runtime dependencies for you.
git clone https://github.com/SWUFE-DB-Group/TexLite-Docker.git
cd texlite-docker
cp deployment.example.json deployment.json
# Edit deployment.json before the first start.
./scripts/compose.sh pull
./scripts/compose.sh up -d
# Open <http://127.0.0.1:3040>See the TexLite-Docker README for its user-facing configuration and operations guide.
| Need | Read |
|---|---|
| Installation, configuration paths, effective defaults, environment overrides, service management, backups, and security boundaries | Operations guide |
| Collaboration, source persistence, compilation isolation, history, and design trade-offs | Design |
| Testing an npm package before publication | NPM testing guide |
| Complete configuration starting point | texlite.config.example.json |
TexLite is a single-host application for trusted users. It is not a compiler
sandbox: LaTeX and an enabled project latexmkrc can execute powerful local
behaviour. Keep the default 127.0.0.1 bind unless you add the authentication,
network controls, and isolated compiler environment appropriate for an
untrusted deployment.
TexLite is licensed under the GNU Affero General Public License v3.0; see LICENSE. For proprietary modifications or commercial terms that differ from AGPL-3.0, contact the copyright holder.