head to head · open source
docsify vs md-to-pdf
docsify has 31,513 GitHub stars, 5,789 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped yesterday. md-to-pdf has 1,952 stars, 161 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. docsify leads on adoption by 1,514% (31,513 vs 1,952 stars). docsify is written in JavaScript under MIT; md-to-pdf is written in TypeScript under MIT. docsify has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, md-to-pdf 8%. docsify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (documentation, markdown), 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
| docsify | md-to-pdf | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-12-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 161 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick docsify if
- You weight community size — 32K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick md-to-pdf if
- You want the md-to-pdf feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and md-to-pdf fits your workflow better
About docsify
Docsify is a client side documentation site generator that turns one or more Markdown files into a website with no build process, aimed at developers and maintainers who want to publish documentation from a static host such as GitHub Pages.
read the full docsify overview →
About md-to-pdf
Markdown to PDF A simple and hackable CLI tool for converting markdown to pdf . It uses Marked to convert markdown to html and Puppeteer (headless Chromium) to further convert the html to pdf . It also uses highlight.js for code highlighting. The whole source code of this tool is only \ 250 lines of JS 500 lines of Typescript and 100 lines of CSS, so it is easy to clone and customize. Highlights: Concurrently convert multiple Markdown files Watch mode Use your own or remote stylesheets/scripts Front matter for configuration Headers and Footers Page Breaks Syntax highlighting in code blocks Extend the options of t…
read the full md-to-pdf overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is docsify or md-to-pdf more popular?
docsify has 31,513 GitHub stars and md-to-pdf has 1,952. docsify has the larger community by that measure.
Are docsify and md-to-pdf free?
Both are open source. docsify is licensed under MIT and md-to-pdf under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between docsify and md-to-pdf?
docsify is written in JavaScript and md-to-pdf 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, docsify or md-to-pdf?
Choose docsify if you want the larger community (31,513 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose md-to-pdf if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.