head to head · open source
storybook vs pdoc
storybook has 91,428 GitHub stars, 10,495 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pdoc has 1,187 stars, 146 forks, 109 open issues and last shipped 3 months ago. storybook leads on adoption by 7,602% (91,428 vs 1,187 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 | 2026-11-02 | 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
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 pdoc
pdoc ==== Auto generate API documentation for Python 3+ projects. Project website [Documentation] [Documentation]: Installation $ pip install pdoc3 Usage Pdoc will accept a Python module file, package directory or an import path. $ pdoc your project See pdoc help for more command line switches and the [documentation] for more usage examples. Features Simple usage. Generate sensible API (+ prose) documentation without any special configuration. Support for common [docstrings formats] (Markdown, numpydoc, Google style docstrings), LaTeX math, and some [reST directives]. Support for [PEP 484] and [PEP 526] type…
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Frequently asked questions
Is storybook or pdoc more popular?
storybook has 91,428 GitHub stars and pdoc has 1,187. 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 (91,428 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose pdoc if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.