head to head · open source
devdocs vs PandaWiki
devdocs has 39,461 GitHub stars, 2,643 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. PandaWiki has 10,266 stars, 1,024 forks, 324 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. devdocs leads on adoption by 284% (39,461 vs 10,266 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; PandaWiki is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, PandaWiki 10%. devdocs 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.
← all 8884 open source comparisons
Side by side
| devdocs | PandaWiki | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 39K | ★ 10K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.6K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 PandaWiki if
- You want the PandaWiki feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and PandaWiki 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 PandaWiki
PandaWiki is an open source knowledge base system driven by large language models, written in TypeScript and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It lives in the self hosted documentation and knowledge base ecosystem, alongside the AI and LLM tooling that powers its features. The project is designed to build intelligent product documentation, technical documentation, FAQ pages, and blog systems, and it ships as a self hosted application that runs on a Linux server through Docker. Its topic list places it squarely in the ai, docs, documentation, kb, llm, self hosted, and wiki space, and the repository has accumula…
read the full PandaWiki overview →
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Documentation & Knowledge Base projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Documentation & Knowledge Base field.
Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or PandaWiki more popular?
devdocs has 39,461 GitHub stars and PandaWiki has 10,266. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and PandaWiki free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and PandaWiki under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and PandaWiki?
devdocs is written in Ruby and PandaWiki 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 PandaWiki?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,461 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose PandaWiki if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.