head to head · open source
devdocs vs zeal
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars, 2,656 forks, 196 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zeal has 12,865 stars, 852 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. devdocs leads on adoption by 208% (39,596 vs 12,865 stars). devdocs is written in Ruby under MPL-2.0; zeal is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. devdocs has attracted 7% as many forks as stars, zeal 7%. devdocs was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 6 topic tags (api-documentation, developer-tools, 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 | zeal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 13K |
| License | MPL-2.0 | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Ruby | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-10-31 |
| Forks | ⑂ 2.7K | ⑂ 852 |
| 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 zeal if
- You want the zeal feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the GPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches C++
- You evaluated both and zeal 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 zeal
Zeal Zeal is an offline documentation browser: your personal reference library, searchable in an instant and available without a connection. Originally inspired by Dash, it supports the same docset format. Download Binary builds for Windows and other installation options are available on the download page. Windows builds require Windows 10 version 1809 or later. How to use After installing Zeal, go to File → Docset Library , select the docsets you want, and click the Download button. Query and filter docsets Limit the search scope by prefixing your query with a docset name and a colon: cpp:vector To search…
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Frequently asked questions
Is devdocs or zeal more popular?
devdocs has 39,596 GitHub stars and zeal has 12,865. devdocs has the larger community by that measure.
Are devdocs and zeal free?
Both are open source. devdocs is licensed under MPL-2.0 and zeal under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between devdocs and zeal?
devdocs is written in Ruby and zeal in C++. 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 zeal?
Choose devdocs if you want the larger community (39,596 stars) or its MPL-2.0 licence terms. Choose zeal if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.