head to head · open source
gatsby vs docfx
gatsby has 55,939 GitHub stars, 10,115 forks, 450 open issues and last shipped yesterday. docfx has 4,448 stars, 889 forks, 452 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gatsby leads on adoption by 1,158% (55,939 vs 4,448 stars). gatsby is written in JavaScript under MIT; docfx is written in C# under MIT. gatsby has attracted 18% as many forks as stars, docfx 20%. docfx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (static-site-generator), 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
| gatsby | docfx | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 56K | ★ 4.4K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | C# |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 889 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick gatsby if
- You weight community size — 56K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick docfx if
- You want the docfx feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches C#
- You evaluated both and docfx fits your workflow better
About gatsby
Gatsby is a free and open source, React based framework for building websites and applications, released under the MIT license and written primarily in JavaScript. It combines the control and scalability of dynamically rendered sites with the speed of static site generation, and it sits in the JavaScript and React ecosystem as a static site generator, a compiler, and a GraphQL driven build tool. The project has been developed for roughly eleven years, carries 55,939 stars and 10,117 forks on GitHub, and currently has 450 open issues.
read the full gatsby overview →
About docfx
docfx is a static site generator for .NET API documentation, and it lives in the .NET ecosystem. The project is written in C , licensed under MIT, and published at dotnet.github.io/docfx. It is now a .NET Foundation project maintained by the community after Microsoft Learn stopped using it and ended support in November 2022. It builds technical documentation sites from landing pages, Markdown, .NET API reference docs, and REST API content.
read the full docfx overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is gatsby or docfx more popular?
gatsby has 55,939 GitHub stars and docfx has 4,448. gatsby has the larger community by that measure.
Are gatsby and docfx free?
Both are open source. gatsby is licensed under MIT and docfx under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between gatsby and docfx?
gatsby is written in JavaScript and docfx in C#. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, gatsby or docfx?
Choose gatsby if you want the larger community (55,939 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose docfx if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.