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  5. Apiary vs ReadMe.io

Apiary vs ReadMe.io

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Apiary
Apiary
Stacks241
Followers325
Votes109
ReadMe.io
ReadMe.io
Stacks114
Followers365
Votes69

Apiary vs ReadMe.io: What are the differences?

Introduction

Apiary and ReadMe.io are both popular tools used for API documentation. Despite having similar functionalities, there are key differences between the two platforms.

  1. Design and Customization: Apiary focuses more on providing a structured and standardized way to document APIs, with limited customization options for the visual design. On the other hand, ReadMe.io offers extensive customization options, allowing users to style and brand their API documentation to better suit their needs and branding requirements.

  2. Collaboration Features: Apiary excels in collaboration features, offering tools for teams to work together on API documentation, create mock servers, and automate testing. In contrast, ReadMe.io places a stronger emphasis on user engagement, providing features like interactive API consoles, feedback forms, and community forums to enhance the user experience.

  3. Pricing Structure: Apiary follows a subscription-based pricing model, where users pay based on the number of team members and access to advanced features. In contrast, ReadMe.io offers a more flexible pricing structure, allowing users to choose from different plans based on their specific needs and budget.

  4. Integrations: Apiary integrates well with other development tools and platforms like GitHub, JIRA, and Slack, making it easier for developers to incorporate API documentation into their existing workflows. ReadMe.io also offers a wide range of integrations but focuses more on third-party services like Stripe, AWS, and Google Analytics to enhance the functionality of API documentation.

  5. Support and Documentation: Apiary provides comprehensive documentation and support resources for users, including tutorials, FAQs, and a dedicated support team. ReadMe.io also offers robust support options but emphasizes community-driven support through forums, user-generated content, and a knowledge base.

  6. Focus on Developer Experience: While both platforms prioritize user experience, Apiary tends to focus more on providing a developer-friendly environment for creating and managing API documentation. In contrast, ReadMe.io places a stronger emphasis on creating a seamless experience for both developers and end-users, with features like interactive API consoles, code examples, and SDK generation tools.

In Summary, the key differences between Apiary and ReadMe.io lie in their design and customization options, collaboration features, pricing structure, integrations, support resources, and focus on developer experience.

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Advice on Apiary, ReadMe.io

StackShare
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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Comments

Detailed Comparison

Apiary
Apiary
ReadMe.io
ReadMe.io

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 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.

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.
Collaboration - Crowdsource your docs! Users can keep docs current by suggesting changes.;API Explorer - Let users play with your API right inside the documentation.;GitHub Sync - Keep auto-generated reference docs synced with your actual code.;Editor - Markdown-based drag-and-drop editor makes documentation almost fun.;Theme Builder - Easily create a beautiful dev community that matches your brand.;Support - Let users ask questions and request features in the support forums.;Versioning - Maintaining old or testing beta versions of your docs is a breeze!;Application Keys - Your users can view their application keys embedded right in the docs.
Statistics
Stacks
241
Stacks
114
Followers
325
Followers
365
Votes
109
Votes
69
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 29
    Easy to use
  • 19
    Free to use
  • 12
    Traffic inspector
  • 11
    Free
  • 10
    Collaboration
Pros
  • 18
    Great UI
  • 15
    Easy
  • 10
    Customizable
  • 10
    Cute mascot
  • 8
    Looks great and is fun to use
Cons
  • 4
    Support is awful
  • 3
    No backup and restore capability
  • 2
    Document structure is severely restricted
  • 2
    No notifications of edits by other users
  • 2
    Full of bugs
Integrations
GitHub
GitHub
GitHub
GitHub

What are some alternatives to Apiary, ReadMe.io?

Postman

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

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

Docusaurus

Docusaurus

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

Read the Docs

Read the Docs

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.

Gelato.io

Gelato.io

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

MireDot

MireDot

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

Gitbook

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

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

jsdoc

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

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.

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