head to head · open source
docsify vs md-to-pdf
docsify has 31,575 GitHub stars, 5,785 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. md-to-pdf has 1,984 stars, 166 forks, 47 open issues and last shipped 11 months ago. docsify leads on adoption by 1,491% (31,575 vs 1,984 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 | 2026-11-01 | 2025-12-03 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 166 |
| 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
A magical documentation site generator. Gold Sponsor via Open Collective Docsify turns one or more Markdown files into a Website, with no build process required. Features No statically built HTML files Simple and lightweight Smart full text search plugin Multiple themes Useful plugin API Emoji support Quick Start Get going fast by using a static web server or GitHub Pages with this ready to use Docsify Template, review the quick start tutorial or jump right into a CodeSandbox example site with the button below. Showcase A large collection of showcase projects are included in awesome docsify. Links Documentation…
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…
read the full md-to-pdf overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is docsify or md-to-pdf more popular?
docsify has 31,575 GitHub stars and md-to-pdf has 1,984. 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 (31,575 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose md-to-pdf if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.