head to head · open source
devdocs vs codealmanac
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars, 2,656 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped yesterday. codealmanac has 995 stars, 74 forks, 53 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. devdocs leads on adoption by 3,879% (39,596 vs 995 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; codealmanac is written in TypeScript under Apache-2.0. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, codealmanac 7%. devdocs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (developer-tools, 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 | codealmanac | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 995 |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-07-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 74 |
| 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 codealmanac if
- You want the codealmanac feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and codealmanac 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 codealmanac
CodeAlmanac A living wiki for your codebase, maintained by AI coding agents. CodeAlmanac gives AI agents the context code alone cannot hold: why a system is shaped the way it is, what broke before, which invariants matter, and how workflows cross files and services. The wiki is plain markdown in your repo, indexed locally, and reviewed in Git like any other code change. Supported today: macOS with Codex or Claude Code. Requires Python 3.12+. Quickstart See Setup for configuration options. Once CodeAlmanac is set up: Setup Install global agent instructions for the local tools you use: Setup installs agent…
read the full codealmanac overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or codealmanac more popular?
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars and codealmanac has 995. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and codealmanac free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and codealmanac under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and codealmanac?
devdocs is written in Ruby and codealmanac in TypeScript. 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 codealmanac?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,596 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose codealmanac if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.