head to head · open source
docsify vs mkdocs-material
docsify has 31,513 GitHub stars, 5,789 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mkdocs-material has 27,452 stars, 4,147 forks, 1 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. docsify leads on adoption by 15% (31,513 vs 27,452 stars). docsify is written in JavaScript under MIT; mkdocs-material is written in Python under MIT. docsify has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, mkdocs-material 15%. docsify 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
| docsify | mkdocs-material | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 27K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 4.1K |
| 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 mkdocs-material if
- You want the mkdocs-material feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and mkdocs-material 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 mkdocs-material
Material for MkDocs is a documentation framework built on top of MkDocs, the static site generator for project documentation. It lives in the Python ecosystem and is distributed as a theme plus an accompanying set of plugins, so authors write documentation in Markdown and MkDocs builds it into a static site that the theme renders. The project is licensed under MIT, has existed for eleven years, and is maintained as an open source project with more than 27,000 stars and over 4,000 forks on GitHub.
read the full mkdocs-material overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is docsify or mkdocs-material more popular?
docsify has 31,513 GitHub stars and mkdocs-material has 27,452. docsify has the larger community by that measure.
Are docsify and mkdocs-material free?
Both are open source. docsify is licensed under MIT and mkdocs-material under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between docsify and mkdocs-material?
docsify is written in JavaScript and mkdocs-material 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, docsify or mkdocs-material?
Choose docsify if you want the larger community (31,513 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose mkdocs-material if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.