head to head · open source
jsdoc vs gollum
jsdoc has 15,463 GitHub stars, 1,492 forks, 459 open issues and last shipped yesterday. gollum has 14,327 stars, 1,560 forks, 91 open issues and last shipped 10 months ago. jsdoc leads on adoption by 8% (15,463 vs 14,327 stars). jsdoc is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0; gollum is written in Ruby under MIT. jsdoc has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, gollum 11%. jsdoc 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
| jsdoc | gollum | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 15K | ★ 14K |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT |
| Written in | JavaScript | Ruby |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2025-11-24 |
| Forks | ⑂ 1.5K | ⑂ 1.6K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick jsdoc if
- You weight community size — 15K stars and counting
- You want the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick gollum if
- You want the gollum feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Ruby
- You evaluated both and gollum fits your workflow better
About jsdoc
JSDoc is an API documentation generator for JavaScript that reads annotations in source comments and produces a browsable documentation site, aimed at JavaScript developers and library maintainers who need reference documentation to stay in sync with code.
read the full jsdoc overview →
About gollum
Gollum is a simple wiki system built on top of Git. A Gollum wiki is simply a Git repository of a specific nature: its contents are human editable text or markup files, pages may be organized into directories in any way the author chooses, and other content such as images, PDFs, and headers or footers for pages can also be included. Pages may be written in a variety of markups, edited either with a favourite editor (changes become visible after committing) or through the built in web interface, and displayed in all versions or reverted. The project lives in the Ruby ecosystem, is distributed under the MIT license…
read the full gollum overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is jsdoc or gollum more popular?
jsdoc has 15,463 GitHub stars and gollum has 14,327. jsdoc has the larger community by that measure.
Are jsdoc and gollum free?
Both are open source. jsdoc is licensed under Apache-2.0 and gollum under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between jsdoc and gollum?
jsdoc is written in JavaScript and gollum 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, jsdoc or gollum?
Choose jsdoc if you want the larger community (15,463 stars) or its Apache-2.0 licence terms. Choose gollum if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.