head to head · open source
docsify vs PandaWiki
docsify has 31,513 GitHub stars, 5,789 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped yesterday. PandaWiki has 10,266 stars, 1,024 forks, 324 open issues and last shipped 3 days ago. docsify leads on adoption by 207% (31,513 vs 10,266 stars). docsify is written in JavaScript under MIT; PandaWiki is written in TypeScript under AGPL-3.0. docsify has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, PandaWiki 10%. docsify was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (docs, 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 | PandaWiki | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 10K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | JavaScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 1.0K |
| 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 PandaWiki if
- You want the PandaWiki feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and PandaWiki 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 PandaWiki
PandaWiki is an open source knowledge base system driven by large language models, written in TypeScript and released under the AGPL 3.0 license. It lives in the self hosted documentation and knowledge base ecosystem, alongside the AI and LLM tooling that powers its features. The project is designed to build intelligent product documentation, technical documentation, FAQ pages, and blog systems, and it ships as a self hosted application that runs on a Linux server through Docker. Its topic list places it squarely in the ai, docs, documentation, kb, llm, self hosted, and wiki space, and the repository has accumula…
read the full PandaWiki overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is docsify or PandaWiki more popular?
docsify has 31,513 GitHub stars and PandaWiki has 10,266. docsify has the larger community by that measure.
Are docsify and PandaWiki free?
Both are open source. docsify is licensed under MIT and PandaWiki under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between docsify and PandaWiki?
docsify is written in JavaScript and PandaWiki 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 PandaWiki?
Choose docsify if you want the larger community (31,513 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose PandaWiki if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.