head to head · open source
docsify vs yard
docsify has 31,575 GitHub stars, 5,785 forks, 94 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. yard has 2,011 stars, 435 forks, 14 open issues and last shipped 2 months ago. docsify leads on adoption by 1,470% (31,575 vs 2,011 stars). docsify is written in JavaScript under MIT; yard is written in Ruby under MIT. docsify has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, yard 22%. 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 | yard | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 32K | ★ 2.0K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-11-01 | 2026-08-25 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.8K | ⑂ 435 |
| 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 yard if
- You want the yard feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and yard 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 yard
YARD: Yay! A Ruby Documentation Tool Synopsis YARD is a documentation generation tool for the Ruby programming language. It enables the user to generate consistent, usable documentation that can be exported to a number of formats very easily, and also supports extending for custom Ruby constructs such as custom class level definitions. Below is a summary of some of YARD's notable features. Feature List 1. Builtin RDoc/Markdown Hybrid Support : YARD ships with a builtin markup renderer that supports both RDoc and Markdown formatting out of the box—no external gem required. You can freely mix RDoc style and…
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Frequently asked questions
Is docsify or yard more popular?
docsify has 31,575 GitHub stars and yard has 2,011. docsify has the larger community by that measure.
Are docsify and yard free?
Both are open source. docsify is licensed under MIT and yard under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between docsify and yard?
docsify is written in JavaScript and yard in Ruby. 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 yard?
Choose docsify if you want the larger community (31,575 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose yard if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.