Apiary vs Read the Docs

Overview

Apiary

Stacks241

Followers325

Votes109

Read the Docs

Stacks71

Followers289

Votes22

Apiary vs Read the Docs: What are the differences?

Introduction

When comparing Apiary and Read the Docs, there are key differences that distinguish these two documentation platforms for developers and users.

Hosting and Management: Apiary is a platform focused on designing APIs while Read the Docs is primarily used for hosting and managing technical documentation for software projects. Apiary provides tools for API design, testing, and documentation in a centralized platform, while Read the Docs offers a free documentation hosting service with tools for version control and integration with popular version control systems like GitHub.
Collaboration Features: Apiary emphasizes collaboration between team members during the API design and documentation process, allowing for real-time feedback, comments, and version control. In contrast, Read the Docs provides collaboration features through integration with tools like GitHub for documentation updates and version control.
Automated Documentation Generation: While Apiary focuses on API design and documentation, Read the Docs specializes in automatically generating documentation from project repositories. Read the Docs supports multiple formats like HTML, PDF, and ePUB, making it easier for developers to publish and update documentation across different platforms.
Community and Support: Apiary offers a community forum and support for developers using their platform, providing resources for API design best practices and troubleshooting. Read the Docs also has a supportive community and documentation for users, offering help articles, tutorials, and user forums for assistance.
Customization and Theming: In terms of customization, Apiary provides a limited range of theming options for API documentation, focusing on consistency and readability. Read the Docs offers more flexibility in customization with different themes and styling options, enabling users to tailor the look and feel of their documentation to suit their project's branding and design requirements.
Integration Capabilities: Apiary is designed to seamlessly integrate with popular API management platforms and tools for testing, monitoring, and deployment. Read the Docs supports integrations with platforms like GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab for automatic documentation updates, making it easier for developers to maintain and synchronize documentation with their code repositories.

In Summary, Apiary and Read the Docs differ in their primary focus on API design and documentation, automated documentation generation, collaboration features, community support, customization options, and integration capabilities.

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Advice on Apiary, Read the Docs

StackShare

May 1, 2019

Needs advice

From a StackShare Community member: "I just started working for a start-up and we are in desperate need of better documentation for our API. Currently our API docs is in a README.md file. We are evaluating Postman and Swagger UI. Since there are many options and I was wondering what other StackSharers would recommend?"

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Detailed Comparison

Apiary	Read the Docs
It takes more than a simple HTML page to thrill your API users. The right tools take weeks of development. Weeks that apiary.io saves.	It hosts documentation, making it fully searchable and easy to find. You can import your docs using any major version control system, including Mercurial, Git, Subversion, and Bazaar.
Documentation- Organized around resources, code samples with syntax highlight, easy to explore.;Inspector- Users can make API calls through apiary.io, we show them how they differ from documentation.;Community- Opensource your API documentation on GitHub. The right channel between developers on both side of the API.;Always Tested [closed alpha]- The documentation is always watching your real API and tells you whenever it gets out of sync.;Server Mock- The fastest way to static API prototype—just ‘document’ your future API and it’s up. 2 minutes to Hello World.;GitHub Integration- Store the API Blueprint in your repository, everything gets updated as soon as you commit a new version.;I/O Validation- Add a JSON Schema to the API Blueprint and the proxy will help your API users understand implementation of data structures better.;Customization [closed alpha]- The documentation and tools can be seamlessly placed on your website and gray-labeled so the friction is close to none.	Github and Bitbucket Integration;Auto-updating;Internationalization;Canonical URLs; Versions;Version Control Support Matrix;PDF Generation;Search;Alternate Domains
Statistics
Stacks 241	Stacks 71
Followers 325	Followers 289
Votes 109	Votes 22
Pros & Cons
Pros 29 Easy to use 19 Free to use 12 Traffic inspector 11 Free 10 Collaboration	Pros 13 GitHub integration 7 Free for public repos 2 Automated Builds
Integrations
GitHub	GitHub Bitbucket Evernote Dropbox

What are some alternatives to Apiary, Read the Docs?

Postman

It is the only complete API development environment, used by nearly five million developers and more than 100,000 companies worldwide.

Swagger UI

Swagger UI is a dependency-free collection of HTML, Javascript, and CSS assets that dynamically generate beautiful documentation and sandbox from a Swagger-compliant API

ReadMe.io

It is an easy-to-use tool to help you build out documentation! Each documentation site that you publish is a project where there is space for documentation, interactive API reference guides, a changelog, and much more.

Docusaurus

Docusaurus is a project for easily building, deploying, and maintaining open source project websites.

Gelato.io

Gelato.io is a SaaS tool for creating API documentation and developer portals.

MireDot

Generate REST documentation directly from your Java source code. This ensures always up-to-date and accurate documentation with minimal effort.

Gitbook

It is a modern documentation platform where teams can document everything from products, to APIs and internal knowledge-bases. It is a place to think and track ideas for you & your team.

Slate

Slate helps you create beautiful API documentation. Think of it as an intelligent, responsive documentation template for your API.

jsdoc

JSDoc 3 is an API documentation generator for JavaScript, similar to JavaDoc or PHPDoc. You add documentation comments directly to your source code, right along side the code itself. The JSDoc Tool will scan your source code, and generate a complete HTML documentation website for you.

Ardoq

Ardoq's out of the box visualizations are automatically created in real-time. All changes and relationships are visualized simultaneously and are context sensitive. With Ardoq, you can see your documentation in the perspectives that best suit your needs.

Related Comparisons

Apiary vs Read the Docs: What are the differences?

Introduction

When comparing Apiary and Read the Docs, there are key differences that distinguish these two documentation platforms for developers and users.

Hosting and Management: Apiary is a platform focused on designing APIs while Read the Docs is primarily used for hosting and managing technical documentation for software projects. Apiary provides tools for API design, testing, and documentation in a centralized platform, while Read the Docs offers a free documentation hosting service with tools for version control and integration with popular version control systems like GitHub.
Collaboration Features: Apiary emphasizes collaboration between team members during the API design and documentation process, allowing for real-time feedback, comments, and version control. In contrast, Read the Docs provides collaboration features through integration with tools like GitHub for documentation updates and version control.
Automated Documentation Generation: While Apiary focuses on API design and documentation, Read the Docs specializes in automatically generating documentation from project repositories. Read the Docs supports multiple formats like HTML, PDF, and ePUB, making it easier for developers to publish and update documentation across different platforms.
Community and Support: Apiary offers a community forum and support for developers using their platform, providing resources for API design best practices and troubleshooting. Read the Docs also has a supportive community and documentation for users, offering help articles, tutorials, and user forums for assistance.
Customization and Theming: In terms of customization, Apiary provides a limited range of theming options for API documentation, focusing on consistency and readability. Read the Docs offers more flexibility in customization with different themes and styling options, enabling users to tailor the look and feel of their documentation to suit their project's branding and design requirements.
Integration Capabilities: Apiary is designed to seamlessly integrate with popular API management platforms and tools for testing, monitoring, and deployment. Read the Docs supports integrations with platforms like GitHub, Bitbucket, and GitLab for automatic documentation updates, making it easier for developers to maintain and synchronize documentation with their code repositories.

Apiary vs Read the Docs

Overview

Apiary vs Read the Docs: What are the differences?