head to head · open source
devdocs vs nb
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars, 2,656 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nb has 8,462 stars, 258 forks, 153 open issues and last shipped yesterday. devdocs leads on adoption by 368% (39,596 vs 8,462 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; nb is written in Shell under AGPL-3.0. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, nb 3%. devdocs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
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 | nb | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 8.5K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | Shell |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 258 |
| 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 nb if
- You want the nb feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Shell
- You evaluated both and nb 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 nb
nb is a command line and local web note‑taking, bookmarking, archiving, and knowledge base application with: plain text data storage, encryption, filtering, pinning, tagging, and search, Git backed versioning and syncing, Pandoc backed conversion, [[wiki style linking]] , terminal and GUI web browsing, inline images, todos with tasks, global and local notebooks, organization with folders, customizable color themes, extensibility through plugins, and more, in a single portable script. nb creates notes in text based formats like Markdown, Org, LaTeX, and AsciiDoc, can work with files in any format, can import and…
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or nb more popular?
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars and nb has 8,462. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and nb free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and nb under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and nb?
devdocs is written in Ruby and nb in Shell. 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 nb?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,596 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose nb if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.