head to head · open source
devdocs vs BookStack
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars, 2,656 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped yesterday. BookStack has 19,122 stars, 2,433 forks, 3 open issues and last shipped yesterday. devdocs leads on adoption by 107% (39,596 vs 19,122 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; BookStack is written in PHP under MIT. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, BookStack 13%. BookStack was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (documentation), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| devdocs | BookStack | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 19K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | PHP |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 2.4K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick devdocs if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the MPL-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick BookStack if
- You want the BookStack feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You evaluated both and BookStack fits your workflow better
About devdocs
DevDocs — API Documentation Browser DevDocs combines multiple developer documentations in a clean and organized web UI with instant search, offline support, mobile version, dark theme, keyboard shortcuts, and more. DevDocs was created by Thibaut Courouble and is operated by freeCodeCamp. We are currently searching for maintainers Please reach out to the community on Discord if you would like to join the team! Keep track of development news: Join the contributors chat room on Discord Watch the repository on GitHub Table of Contents: Quick Start · Vision · App · Scraper · Commands · Contributing · Documentation ·…
read the full devdocs overview →
About BookStack
BookStack A platform for storing and organising information and documentation. Details for BookStack can be found on the official website at Installation Instructions Documentation Demo Instance Screenshots BookStack Blog Issue List Community Discussions Support Options 📚 Project Definition BookStack is an opinionated documentation platform that provides a pleasant and simple out of the box experience. New users to an instance should find the experience intuitive and only basic word processing skills should be required to get involved in creating content on BookStack. The platform should provide advanced power…
read the full BookStack overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or BookStack more popular?
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars and BookStack has 19,122. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and BookStack free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and BookStack under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and BookStack?
devdocs is written in Ruby and BookStack in PHP. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, devdocs or BookStack?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,596 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose BookStack if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.