head to head · open source
storybook vs react-docgen
storybook has 91,089 GitHub stars, 10,452 forks, 1,831 open issues and last shipped today. react-docgen has 3,820 stars, 315 forks, 104 open issues and last shipped today. storybook leads on adoption by 2,285% (91,089 vs 3,820 stars). storybook is written in TypeScript under MIT; react-docgen is written in TypeScript under MIT. storybook has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, react-docgen 8%. 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, react), 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 | react-docgen | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 91K | ★ 3.8K |
| License | MIT | MIT |
| Written in | TypeScript | TypeScript |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-18 |
| Forks | ⑂ 10K | ⑂ 315 |
| 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 react-docgen if
- You want the react-docgen feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You evaluated both and react-docgen 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 react-docgen
react docgen react docgen is a highly customizable library that extracts information from React components and returns this information in a structured machine readable format from which documentations can be generated. @react docgen/cli is a cli wrapper around the library allowing using react docgen on the command line. Typescript See this issue about the status of TypeScript. Documentation For version 5.x please checkout the README.md on the 5.x branch For version 6.x and newer please visit react docgen.dev License This project is licensed under the MIT License.
read the full react-docgen overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is storybook or react-docgen more popular?
storybook has 91,089 GitHub stars and react-docgen has 3,820. storybook has the larger community by that measure.
Are storybook and react-docgen free?
Both are open source. storybook is licensed under MIT and react-docgen under MIT. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between storybook and react-docgen?
storybook is written in TypeScript and react-docgen in TypeScript. 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 react-docgen?
Choose storybook if you want the larger community (91,089 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose react-docgen if its feature set, stack or MIT licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.