head to head · open source
devdocs vs md-to-pdf
devdocs has 39,462 GitHub stars, 2,643 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. md-to-pdf has 1,952 stars, 161 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. devdocs leads on adoption by 1,922% (39,462 vs 1,952 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; md-to-pdf is written in TypeScript under MIT. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, md-to-pdf 8%. 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 | md-to-pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2025-12-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 161 |
| 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 md-to-pdf if
- You want the md-to-pdf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and md-to-pdf 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 md-to-pdf
Markdown to PDF A simple and hackable CLI tool for converting markdown to pdf . It uses Marked to convert markdown to html and Puppeteer (headless Chromium) to further convert the html to pdf . It also uses highlight.js for code highlighting. The whole source code of this tool is only \ 250 lines of JS 500 lines of Typescript and 100 lines of CSS, so it is easy to clone and customize. Highlights: Concurrently convert multiple Markdown files Watch mode Use your own or remote stylesheets/scripts Front matter for configuration Headers and Footers Page Breaks Syntax highlighting in code blocks Extend the options of t…
read the full md-to-pdf overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or md-to-pdf more popular?
devdocs has 39,462 GitHub stars and md-to-pdf has 1,952. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and md-to-pdf free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and md-to-pdf under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and md-to-pdf?
devdocs is written in Ruby and md-to-pdf 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 md-to-pdf?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,462 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose md-to-pdf if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.