head to head · open source
wiki vs Docs
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars, 3,314 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Docs has 16,829 stars, 634 forks, 370 open issues and last shipped yesterday. wiki leads on adoption by 72% (28,937 vs 16,829 stars). wiki is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0; Docs is written in Python under MIT. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, Docs 4%. Docs 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
| wiki | Docs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 17K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Vue | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 634 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick wiki if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Docs if
- You want the Docs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Docs fits your workflow better
About wiki
Wiki.js is a modern, lightweight wiki application built on NodeJS and distributed as open source under the AGPL 3.0 licence, aimed at teams and organisations that want to publish and maintain their own documentation and knowledge base rather than renting a hosted one.
About Docs
Docs is an open source collaborative text editor for creating, editing, and sharing documents in real time. It lives in the open source documentation and knowledge base ecosystem, and it is built with Django and React for web native use. The repository describes Docs as a web native editor made for teams that need clean documents and sub documents without surrendering data to a hosted service.
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or Docs more popular?
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars and Docs has 16,829. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and Docs free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Docs under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and Docs?
wiki is written in Vue and Docs in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, wiki or Docs?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (28,937 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Docs if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.