Last updated: 2026-08-31
Tiptap is an open source, MIT-licensed rich text editor framework built on ProseMirror, with over 38,000 GitHub stars and 12.8 million monthly npm downloads. GitLab, Spotify, and Cursor use it to build custom document editors. Its AI Toolkit lets agents edit documents through callable tools, integrating with LangChain, the Vercel AI SDK, and the OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs.
About Tiptap
Tiptap is a headless, open source rich text editor framework built on ProseMirror, created by a Berlin-based team that went through Y Combinator's Summer 2023 batch. It gives web developers an MIT-licensed foundation with over 100 extensions for building custom document editors instead of wiring up ProseMirror's lower-level API by hand or locking a product into an off-the-shelf app like Google Docs. The open source core has more than 38,000 GitHub stars and over 12.8 million npm downloads a month. The framework separates the free, self-hostable Editor from the paid Tiptap Cloud platform, which adds real-time collaboration with live cursors and offline support, comments and track changes, paginated print-ready page layout, and DOCX and Markdown import and export. Its AI Toolkit is framework-agnostic: it exposes the editor's read and write operations as callable tools that plug into LangChain, the Vercel AI SDK, or the OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs, so an AI agent can navigate a document and make precise, tracked edits instead of regenerating the whole page. Engineering teams building Notion-like workspaces, Google Docs-style collaborative apps, CMS content editors, or AI-native writing tools reach for Tiptap when the editor itself needs to be a product differentiator. Customers named on Tiptap's site include GitLab, Spotify, Cursor, KPMG, Substack, and AxiosHQ, spanning developer tools and enterprises that need SOC 2 Type II and GDPR-compliant, EU-hostable infrastructure. The Editor is free and open source under the MIT license with no usage limits. Tiptap Cloud pricing starts in the tens of dollars a month for a small team and scales into four figures at the Business tier, with a custom Enterprise option above that; exact tiers and document limits are covered in the pricing FAQ below. It ships as JavaScript and TypeScript packages for React, Vue, and vanilla JS, so it runs anywhere a web app runs rather than as its own native desktop or mobile app. Tiptap raised a $2.6 million Series Seed round led by Expa in October 2023, with Y Combinator participating. Since then its roadmap has leaned further into the AI Toolkit's Agent capability, which streams an LLM's edits into a live document under human review instead of replacing the whole editing surface.
Pricing
The Editor is free forever under the MIT license, self-hosted. Tiptap Cloud: Start $59/mo ($49/mo billed annually) for 500 cloud documents and 2 developer seats; Team $179/mo ($149/mo annually) for 5,000 documents and 5 seats; Business $1,199/mo ($999/mo annually) for 50,000 documents and 10 seats; custom-priced Enterprise. Start and Team include a 30-day free trial, no credit card required. Extra developer seats cost $49/dev/month ($39/mo annually); AI Toolkit and Tracked Changes add-ons are priced separately through sales.
Key Features
- Headless ProseMirror foundation: The Editor is MIT-licensed and built directly on ProseMirror, giving developers full control over markup and behavior through more than 100 official extensions.
- AI Toolkit for agent-driven editing: The framework-agnostic AI Toolkit exposes document read and write actions as callable tools for LangChain, the Vercel AI SDK, and the OpenAI and Anthropic SDKs, so an agent can make precise, trackable edits.
- Real-time collaboration: Tiptap Cloud adds live multi-cursor collaborative editing with offline support and per-plan cloud document limits that scale from the Start tier up to Business.
- Track changes and comments: Built-in suggestion mode and inline comment threads let reviewers accept or reject edits without leaving the document, matching workflows in Google Docs and Word.
- Format conversion and page layout: Tiptap imports and exports DOCX, ODT, and Markdown, and supports paginated, print-ready page layout for documents that need to leave the browser as a finished file.
- Pre-built UI templates: Ready-made React templates, including a Notion-like editor and a comments interface, are meant to cut initial editor setup from weeks to days.
Pros
- Full ownership of the editor experience: because the core runs on the MIT license, teams can self-host and modify it freely instead of paying per seat just to change document behavior.
- The AI Toolkit is model-agnostic: it plugs into whichever agent framework or LLM SDK a team has already standardized on, instead of forcing one AI provider.
- Backed by real production usage: GitLab, Spotify, and KPMG are named users on Tiptap's own site, and G2 reviewers rate it 4.6 out of 5, citing fast setup and deep customization.
Cons
- Cloud plans dropped their persistent free tier in mid-2025; new teams now get only a time-limited trial on the Start and Team plans before paid billing starts.
- G2's review base is thin, just 4 verified reviews, so that 4.6 rating carries less statistical weight than editors with hundreds of reviews.
- G2 reviewers flag inconsistent documentation for advanced customization, so teams without prior ProseMirror experience face a steeper ramp than a fully managed editor like Notion.
Data Handling
- Training-data policy
- Not applicable to the Editor itself. The AI Toolkit is a client library that calls the customer's own chosen model provider (OpenAI, Anthropic, or others); Tiptap does not train models on customer documents.
- Compliance
- SOC 2 Type II · GDPR
Frequently Asked Questions
How much do you pay for Tiptap?
The Editor itself is free forever under the MIT license. Tiptap Cloud starts at $59/mo ($49/mo billed annually) for 500 cloud documents and 2 developer seats, rising to Team at $179/mo and Business at $1,199/mo, with a custom-priced Enterprise tier above that. Extra developer seats cost $49/dev/month, and the AI Toolkit and Tracked Changes add-ons are quoted separately by sales.
Is Tiptap free to use?
Yes for the core Editor: it is open source under the MIT license with no document or seat limits if you self-host it. Tiptap Cloud, which adds collaboration, comments, and the AI Toolkit, no longer has a persistent free tier as of mid-2025; new accounts get a 30-day trial on the Start and Team plans instead.
What should you use instead of Tiptap?
CKEditor 5 is the closer like-for-like alternative if you want more built-in features out of the box at a higher price point. Lexical suits teams that need lower-level control for a performance-critical editor. Notion is worth considering instead of building anything at all, if you just need a finished workspace rather than an embeddable editor.
Is Tiptap better than CKEditor?
Tiptap wins on licensing and control: its MIT-licensed ProseMirror core lets you self-host for free and shape the UI completely, while CKEditor 5 bundles more collaboration and AI features by default at a reported cost that reviewers put well above Tiptap's published tiers. CKEditor tends to win when a team wants those features working out of the box without assembling extensions.
How long does it take to get going with Tiptap?
A basic editor with the open source npm packages can be running in a React or Vue app within a day using the official quickstart docs and pre-built templates. Adding Tiptap Cloud features like collaboration or the AI Toolkit means signing up for a Start or Team trial and wiring in an API key, which typically takes longer for teams new to ProseMirror's extension model.
Top Alternatives
- Notion: Pick Notion if you want a finished workspace app; pick Tiptap if you need to embed and control the editor inside your own product.
- LangChain: Pick LangChain if you are orchestrating LLM chains and agents generally; pick Tiptap when the AI needs to read and edit a live rich text document specifically.