head to head · open source
devdocs vs cheat
devdocs has 39,461 GitHub stars, 2,643 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. cheat has 13,456 stars, 853 forks, 34 open issues and last shipped 4 months ago. devdocs leads on adoption by 193% (39,461 vs 13,456 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; cheat is written in Go under MIT. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, cheat 6%. devdocs 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 | cheat | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 13K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-05-19 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 853 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick devdocs if
- You weight community size — 39K 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 cheat if
- You want the cheat feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and cheat fits your workflow better
About devdocs
DevDocs is an API documentation browser that combines multiple developer documentations into a single, clean and organized web UI with instant search, offline support, a mobile version, a dark theme and keyboard shortcuts, and it is aimed at developers who need to read and search API and reference documentation quickly.
read the full devdocs overview →
About cheat
cheat is an MIT licensed, Go written command line tool for nix system administrators that creates and displays interactive cheatsheets, so that options for commands used frequently but not frequently enough to remember stay one command away.
read the full cheat overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or cheat more popular?
devdocs has 39,461 GitHub stars and cheat has 13,456. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and cheat free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and cheat under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and cheat?
devdocs is written in Ruby and cheat in Go. 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 cheat?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,461 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose cheat if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.