head to head · open source
devdocs vs gollum
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars, 2,656 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gollum has 14,338 stars, 1,560 forks, 91 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. devdocs leads on adoption by 176% (39,596 vs 14,338 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; gollum is written in Ruby under MIT. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, gollum 11%. devdocs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (documentation, documentation-tool), 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 | gollum | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 14K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2025-11-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| 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 gollum if
- You want the gollum feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and gollum 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 gollum
gollum A git based Wiki Gollum is a simple wiki system built on top of Git. A Gollum Wiki is simply a git repository of a specific nature: A Gollum repository's contents are human editable text or markup files. Pages may be organized into directories any way you choose. Other content can also be included, for example images, PDFs and headers/footers for your pages. Gollum pages: May be written in a variety of markups. Can be edited with your favourite editor (changes will be visible after committing) or with the built in web interface. Can be displayed in all versions, reverted, etc. Gollum strives to be…
read the full gollum overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or gollum more popular?
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars and gollum has 14,338. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and gollum free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and gollum under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and gollum?
devdocs is written in Ruby and gollum in Ruby. 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 gollum?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,596 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose gollum if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.