head to head · open source
wiki vs pdoc
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars, 3,314 forks, 182 open issues and last shipped yesterday. pdoc has 1,181 stars, 146 forks, 109 open issues and last shipped 1 months ago. wiki leads on adoption by 2,350% (28,937 vs 1,181 stars). wiki is written in Vue under AGPL-3.0; pdoc is written in Python under AGPL-3.0. wiki has attracted 11% as many forks as stars, pdoc 12%. wiki 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
| wiki | pdoc | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 1.2K |
| License | AGPL-3.0 | AGPL-3.0 |
| Written in | Vue | Python |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-08-15 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.3K | ⑂ 146 |
| 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 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 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 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 wiki or pdoc more popular?
wiki has 28,937 GitHub stars and pdoc has 1,181. wiki has the larger community by that measure.
Are wiki and pdoc free?
Both are open source. wiki is licensed under AGPL-3.0 and pdoc under AGPL-3.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between wiki and pdoc?
wiki is written in Vue 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, wiki or pdoc?
Choose wiki if you want the larger community (28,937 stars) or its AGPL-3.0 licence terms. Choose pdoc if its feature set, stack or AGPL-3.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.