Host Etherpad without installing anything
One link, and everybody writes in the same document at the same time — no account to create, no application to install.
Starting at €4.99/month
Introduction
Etherpad installed, updated and backed up by us, on a machine in France. Write together in real time in the browser, with no account and no installation. Every participant has their own colour, the history is replayable, and the document stays with you. You install nothing and configure no server: the application is online a few minutes after you order, under your own name.
The plan that suits it is App Essentiel at €4.99/month incl. VAT — 2 GB of memory. Etherpad holds every open pad in memory, and not just its text: it keeps the sequence of elementary edits that lets the timeslider replay the writing second by second. A workshop where twenty people type into the same document produces a continuous stream of those edits, broadcast to everyone live. The 2 GB are there for those busy moments; the rest of the time the application is very light.
What gets replaced here is a document shared at an American vendor, or you simply give yourself a pad of your own rather than use a crowded public service. The difference is the cost of entry: a participant receives a link, types a first name, and writes — no account, no password, no installation, which matters when you are running a meeting with outside contributors. On the way out, the text exports as plain text, HTML and Markdown; office formats go through a converter, and an HTTP API lets other software create pads.
What managed hosting changes
One colour per author, live
Every participant is given a hue, and the text they type carries it. On review you immediately know who wrote what, which settles half the arguments about a set of meeting minutes. Other people's cursors are visible as they type.
A timeslider that replays everything
The history is not a list of versions: it is a slider you drag to watch the document being built. That is how you recover a paragraph deleted by mistake halfway through the session, and restore the state you wanted.
A chat inside the pad
A conversation panel sits beside the document: you ask a question there without polluting the text, and the exchange stays attached to the writing session. Useful when half the participants are remote.
Plugins for what is missing
The plugin ecosystem adds hierarchical headings, tables, Markdown syntax, margin comments, an automatic table of contents and text colours. You install what you need without weighing down the rest.
Why hand it over rather than install it
Minutes taken by three people during the meeting
One follows the discussion, another records decisions, the third corrects. The minutes are finished when the meeting ends, instead of being promised for next week and never written.
A workshop with outside participants
You send a link, they write. Nobody has an account to create or software to install, and the facilitator does not open a technical support session before starting.
A statement written by two hands
Two writers work on the same text at once, each watching the other's corrections arrive. Author colours save you wondering who changed the wording of the second paragraph.
A general meeting
The agenda is in the pad, resolutions are written as the vote proceeds, and the record of decisions is projected on screen while it is being drafted. Nobody disputes wording they watched appear.
A team that refuses to open vendor accounts
Making a contractor create an account for two hours of work is friction, and sometimes a compliance problem. Here the link is enough, and nothing is kept at a third party.
Hosted in France
A meeting pad holds names, figures and decisions before they become public. Yours stays in our own infrastructure in Nouvelle-Aquitaine, which we operate ourselves.
Frequently asked questions
You gain the absence of accounts: outside contributors come in through a link, which no office suite really allows. You also gain the hosting, and therefore control of the document. You lose rich layout: Etherpad is made for text written by several hands, not for an illustrated report. In practice you draft in the pad and format elsewhere once the content is settled.
For both import and export, plain text, HTML and Markdown work directly — pasting from a word processor keeps most of the structure. DOCX, ODT and PDF need an office converter installed alongside; without it, the usual route is to export HTML and open it in a word processor, which is enough in most cases.
The default access model is the link: whoever knows the pad address can open it. For sensitive content you either use long unguessable addresses or go through the group API, which requires a session. It is not a word processor: no columns, no freely placed images, no elaborate numbering. And a pad of several hundred pages with a year of history eventually slows the browser down — one pad per meeting beats one pad for the year.
App Essentiel, at €4.99/month incl. VAT. It provides 2 GB of memory where the application asks for 768 MB at minimum: the headroom serves the system, not the decor. You can change plan later without reinstalling.
Yes, they are part of the service. An application that anyone can open with a link deserves to be kept current: it is the most exposed surface of a hosting arrangement, and version upgrades are applied and checked by us.