head to head · open source
wiki vs mkdocs
wiki has 29,033 GitHub stars, 3,321 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. mkdocs has 22,497 stars, 2,658 forks, 192 open issues and last shipped 12 months ago. wiki leads on adoption by 29% (29,033 vs 22,497 stars). wiki is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0; mkdocs is written in Python under BSD-2-Clause. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, mkdocs 12%. wiki was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (documentation, markdown), 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
| wiki | mkdocs | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 22K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | BSD-2-Clause |
| Written in | Vue | Python |
| Last push | 2026-10-11 | 2025-10-20 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 2.7K |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick wiki if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the AGPL-3.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Vue
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick mkdocs if
- You want the mkdocs feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the BSD-2-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches Python
- You evaluated both and mkdocs fits your workflow better
About wiki
Wiki.js is a modern, lightweight wiki application built on NodeJS and distributed as open source under the AGPL 3.0 licence, aimed at teams and organisations that want to publish and maintain their own documentation and knowledge base rather than renting a hosted one.
About mkdocs
MkDocs is a static site generator for Python developers and technical writers who want project documentation written in Markdown and served as plain HTML files.
read the full mkdocs overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is wiki or mkdocs more popular?
wiki has 29,033 GitHub stars and mkdocs has 22,497. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and mkdocs free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and mkdocs under BSD-2-Clause. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and mkdocs?
wiki is written in Vue and mkdocs 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, wiki or mkdocs?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (29,033 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose mkdocs if its feature set, stack or BSD-2-Clause licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.