head to head · open source
devdocs vs react-docgen
devdocs has 39,594 GitHub stars, 2,657 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped yesterday. react-docgen has 3,818 stars, 317 forks, 104 open issues and last shipped yesterday. devdocs leads on adoption by 937% (39,594 vs 3,818 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; react-docgen is written in TypeScript under MIT. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, react-docgen 8%. react-docgen 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 | react-docgen | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Ruby | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 317 |
| 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 react-docgen if
- You want the react-docgen feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and react-docgen 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 react-docgen
react docgen react docgen is a highly customizable library that extracts information from React components and returns this information in a structured machine readable format from which documentations can be generated. @react docgen/cli is a cli wrapper around the library allowing using react docgen on the command line. Typescript See this issue about the status of TypeScript. Documentation For version 5.x please checkout the README.md on the 5.x branch For version 6.x and newer please visit react docgen.dev License This project is licensed under the MIT License.
read the full react-docgen overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or react-docgen more popular?
devdocs has 39,594 GitHub stars and react-docgen has 3,818. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and react-docgen free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and react-docgen under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and react-docgen?
devdocs is written in Ruby and react-docgen 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 react-docgen?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,594 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose react-docgen if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.