head to head · open source
Docs vs zeal
Docs has 16,829 GitHub stars, 634 forks, 370 open issues and last shipped yesterday. zeal has 12,796 stars, 844 forks, 107 open issues and last shipped 9 days ago. Docs leads on adoption by 32% (16,829 vs 12,796 stars). Docs is written in Python under MIT; zeal is written in C++ under GPL-3.0. Docs has attracted 4% as many forks as stars, zeal 7%. 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
| Docs | zeal | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 17K | ★ 13K |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Python | C++ |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-09 |
| Forks | ⑂ 634 | ⑂ 844 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Docs if
- You weight community size — 17K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- 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 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.
About zeal
Zeal is an offline documentation browser: a personal reference library of API and language documentation that is searchable in an instant and available without a connection, built in C++ on Qt and released under the GPL 3.0.
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Frequently asked questions
Is Docs or zeal more popular?
Docs has 16,829 GitHub stars and zeal has 12,796. Docs has the larger community by that measure.
Are Docs and zeal free?
Both are open source. Docs is licensed under MIT and zeal under GPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Docs and zeal?
Docs is written in Python 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, Docs or zeal?
Choose Docs if you want the larger community (16,829 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose zeal if its feature set, stack or GPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.