head to head · open source
storybook vs pdoc
storybook has 91,081 GitHub stars, 10,452 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pdoc has 1,181 stars, 146 forks, 109 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. storybook leads on adoption by 7,612% (91,081 vs 1,181 stars). storybook is written in TypeScript under MIT; pdoc is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. storybook has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, pdoc 12%. storybook 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
| storybook | pdoc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | MIT | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 146 |
| 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 pdoc if
- You want the pdoc feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and pdoc fits your workflow better
About storybook
Storybook is an open source, MIT licensed frontend workshop, written in TypeScript, for building, documenting, and testing UI components and pages in isolation, aimed at frontend engineers and design system teams working in React, Angular, Vue, Svelte, React Native, HTML, and other supported renderers.
read the full storybook overview →
About pdoc
pdoc is an API documentation generator for Python 3+ projects, published to PyPI as the package pdoc3 and maintained under the AGPL 3.0 license. It lives in the Python ecosystem, and it is itself a Python tool: it accepts a Python module file, a package directory, or an import path, then produces documentation. The project has existed for eight years, carries 1,181 stars and 145 forks, and its own documentation site is generated with pdoc.
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Frequently asked questions
Is storybook or pdoc more popular?
storybook has 91,081 GitHub stars and pdoc has 1,181. storybook has the larger community by that measure.
Are storybook and pdoc free?
Both are open source. storybook is licensed under MIT and pdoc under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between storybook and pdoc?
storybook is written in TypeScript and pdoc 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, storybook or pdoc?
Choose storybook if you want the larger community (91,081 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pdoc if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.