Asciidoctor vs Sphinx

Overview

Sphinx

Stacks1.1K

Followers300

Votes32

Asciidoctor

Stacks154

Followers66

Votes2

GitHub Stars0

Forks0

Asciidoctor vs Sphinx: What are the differences?

Asciidoctor and Sphinx are both popular documentation tools used for creating documentation websites. However, there are key differences between the two that set them apart and make them suitable for different use cases.

1. Syntax and Markup Languages: Asciidoctor uses a straightforward and human-friendly syntax based on plain text, making it easy for both developers and non-developers to write and understand. On the other hand, Sphinx uses a more complex reStructuredText markup language, which offers a wider range of features but requires a steeper learning curve.

2. Language Support: Asciidoctor supports a broader range of programming languages out of the box, including but not limited to Ruby, Java, JavaScript, and Python. Sphinx, on the other hand, has excellent integration with the Python ecosystem and is commonly used for documenting Python projects.

3. Document Generation: Asciidoctor generates static HTML files, which makes it easier to deploy and host the documentation. In contrast, Sphinx generates a set of HTML files along with a search index and other resources, allowing for more advanced features like full-text search and cross-referencing.

4. Theming and Customization: Asciidoctor provides a more flexible theming system, allowing users to customize the appearance and layout of their documentation websites to a greater extent. Sphinx, on the other hand, offers a more opinionated theming approach with a wide range of predefined themes.

5. Community and Ecosystem: Asciidoctor has a growing community and ecosystem with various plugins and extensions available for enhancing its functionality. Sphinx, on the other hand, benefits from a well-established Python community and integrates seamlessly with popular Python tools and frameworks.

6. Documentation Output Formats: Asciidoctor can generate output formats beyond HTML, including PDF and EPUB, making it suitable for creating different types of documentation. Sphinx, while mainly focused on generating HTML output, also provides support for PDF generation through LaTeX.

In Summary, Asciidoctor and Sphinx differ in terms of syntax and markup languages, language support, document generation, theming and customization options, community and ecosystem, and documentation output formats.

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Manual

Detailed Comparison

Sphinx	Asciidoctor
It lets you either batch index and search data stored in an SQL database, NoSQL storage, or just files quickly and easily — or index and search data on the fly, working with it pretty much as with a database server.	It is a fast, open source text processor and publishing toolchain for converting AsciiDoc content to HTML5, DocBook, PDF, and other formats. Asciidoctor is written in Ruby and runs on all major operating systems
Output formats: HTML (including Windows HTML Help), LaTeX (for printable PDF versions), ePub, Texinfo, manual pages, plain text;Extensive cross-references: semantic markup and automatic links for functions, classes, citations, glossary terms and similar pieces of information;Hierarchical structure: easy definition of a document tree, with automatic links to siblings, parents and children;Automatic indices: general index as well as a language-specific module indices;Code handling: automatic highlighting using the Pygments highlighter;Extensions: automatic testing of code snippets, inclusion of docstrings from Python modules (API docs), and more	Lightweight markup language for authoring notes; Articles; Documentation; Books, web pages, slide decks and man pages in plain text.
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 0
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 0
Stacks 1.1K	Stacks 154
Followers 300	Followers 66
Votes 32	Votes 2
Pros & Cons
Pros 16 Fast 9 Simple deployment 6 Open source 1 Lots of extentions	Pros 1 GitHub integration 1 Versatile 0 Easy fornatting
Integrations
DevDocs Zapier Google Drive Google Chrome Dropbox	Java JavaScript GitHub Ruby Gradle HTML5 Apache Maven JRuby

What are some alternatives to Sphinx, Asciidoctor?

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.