head to head · open source
devdocs vs jsdoc
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars, 2,656 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jsdoc has 15,471 stars, 1,493 forks, 459 open issues and last shipped yesterday. devdocs leads on adoption by 156% (39,596 vs 15,471 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; jsdoc is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, jsdoc 10%. jsdoc was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (docs, 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 | jsdoc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 15K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| 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 jsdoc if
- You want the jsdoc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and jsdoc 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 jsdoc
JSDoc An API documentation generator for JavaScript. Want to contribute to JSDoc? Please read CONTRIBUTING.md . Installation and Usage JSDoc supports stable versions of Node.js 8.15.0 and later. You can install JSDoc globally or in your project's node modules folder. To install the latest version on npm globally (might require sudo ; learn how to fix this): npm install g jsdoc To install the latest version on npm locally and save it in your package's package.json file: npm install save dev jsdoc Note : By default, npm adds your package using the caret operator in front of the version number (for example, ^3.6.3…
read the full jsdoc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or jsdoc more popular?
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars and jsdoc has 15,471. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and jsdoc free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and jsdoc under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and jsdoc?
devdocs is written in Ruby and jsdoc in JavaScript. 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 jsdoc?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,596 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose jsdoc if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.