head to head · open source
OpenViking vs Docs
OpenViking has 39,947 GitHub stars, 3,177 forks, 999 open issues and last shipped today. Docs has 16,927 stars, 668 forks, 370 open issues and last shipped yesterday. OpenViking leads on adoption by 136% (39,947 vs 16,927 stars). OpenViking is written in Python under AGPL-3.0; Docs is written in Python under MIT. OpenViking has attracted 8% as many forks as stars, Docs 4%. OpenViking was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 1 topic tag (knowledge-base), 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.
← all 20902 open source comparisons
Side by side
| OpenViking | Docs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 40K | ★ 17K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | MIT |
| Written in | Python | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-15 | 2026-10-14 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.2K | ⑂ 668 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick OpenViking if
- You weight community size — 40K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick Docs if
- You want the Docs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and Docs fits your workflow better
About OpenViking
OpenViking is an open source context database for AI agents that keeps everything an agent knows — knowledge, memory, and skills — in one virtual filesystem, built for developers and teams who need to inspect and edit what their agent actually stored instead of trusting an opaque embedding index.
read the full OpenViking overview →
About Docs
Docs is an open source collaborative text editor for creating, editing, and sharing documents in real time. It lives in the open source documentation and knowledge base ecosystem, and it is built with Django and React for web native use. The repository describes Docs as a web native editor made for teams that need clean documents and sub documents without surrendering data to a hosted service.
More in Content & Publishing
Related comparisons
More Documentation & Knowledge Base projects
Compare either of these against the rest of the Documentation & Knowledge Base field.
Frequently asked questions
Is OpenViking or Docs more popular?
OpenViking has 39,947 GitHub stars and Docs has 16,927. OpenViking has the larger community by that measure.
Are OpenViking and Docs free?
Both are open source. OpenViking is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and Docs under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between OpenViking and Docs?
OpenViking is written in Python and Docs in Python. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, OpenViking or Docs?
Choose OpenViking if you want the larger community (39,947 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose Docs if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.