head to head · open source
storybook vs jsdoc
storybook has 91,428 GitHub stars, 10,495 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. jsdoc has 15,471 stars, 1,493 forks, 459 open issues and last shipped yesterday. storybook leads on adoption by 491% (91,428 vs 15,471 stars). storybook is written in TypeScript under MIT; jsdoc is written in JavaScript under Apache-2.0. storybook has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, jsdoc 10%. storybook was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (documentation, javascript), 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
| storybook | jsdoc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 15K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | JavaScript |
| Last push | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-02 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 1.5K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick storybook if
- You weight community size — 91K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick jsdoc if
- You want the jsdoc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches JavaScript
- You evaluated both and jsdoc fits your workflow better
About storybook
Build bulletproof UI components faster Storybook is a frontend workshop for building UI components and pages in isolation. Thousands of teams use it for UI development, testing, and documentation. Find out more at storybook.js.org ! View README for: Table of contents 🚀 Getting Started 📒 Projects 🛠 Supported Frameworks & Examples 🔗Addons 🏅 Badges & Presentation materials 👥 Community 👏 Contributing 👨💻 Development scripts 💸 Sponsors 💵 Backers :memo: License Getting Started Visit Storybook's website to learn more about Storybook and to get started. Documentation Documentation can be found on Storybook's…
read the full storybook overview →
About jsdoc
JSDoc An API documentation generator for JavaScript. Want to contribute to JSDoc? Please read CONTRIBUTING.md . Installation and Usage JSDoc supports stable versions of Node.js 8.15.0 and later. You can install JSDoc globally or in your project's node modules folder. To install the latest version on npm globally (might require sudo ; learn how to fix this): npm install g jsdoc To install the latest version on npm locally and save it in your package's package.json file: npm install save dev jsdoc Note : By default, npm adds your package using the caret operator in front of the version number (for example, ^3.6.3…
read the full jsdoc overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is storybook or jsdoc more popular?
storybook has 91,428 GitHub stars and jsdoc has 15,471. storybook has the larger community by that measure.
Are storybook and jsdoc free?
Both are open source. storybook is licensed under MIT and jsdoc under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between storybook and jsdoc?
storybook is written in TypeScript and jsdoc in JavaScript. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, storybook or jsdoc?
Choose storybook if you want the larger community (91,428 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose jsdoc if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.