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GitHub Pages vs Read the Docs: What are the differences?
GitHub Pages: Public webpages freely hosted and easily published. Public webpages hosted directly from your GitHub repository. Just edit, push, and your changes are live; Read the Docs: Create, host, and browse documentation. Read the Docs 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. We support webhooks so your docs get built when you commit code. There's also support for versioning so you can build docs from tags and branches of your code in your repository.
GitHub Pages can be classified as a tool in the "Static Web Hosting" category, while Read the Docs is grouped under "Documentation as a Service & Tools".
Some of the features offered by GitHub Pages are:
- Blogging with Jekyll
- Custom URLs
- Automatic Page Generator
On the other hand, Read the Docs provides the following key features:
- Github and Bitbucket Integration
- Auto-updating
- Internationalization
"Free" is the top reason why over 283 developers like GitHub Pages, while over 10 developers mention "GitHub integration" as the leading cause for choosing Read the Docs.
Read the Docs is an open source tool with 5.25K GitHub stars and 2.87K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Read the Docs's open source repository on GitHub.
According to the StackShare community, GitHub Pages has a broader approval, being mentioned in 576 company stacks & 683 developers stacks; compared to Read the Docs, which is listed in 9 company stacks and 4 developer stacks.
We use Netlify to host static websites.
The reasons for choosing Netlify over GitHub Pages are as follows:
- Netfily can bind multiple domain names, while GitHub Pages can only bind one domain name
- With Netfily, the original repository can be private, while GitHub Pages free tier requires the original repository to be public
In addition, in order to use CDN, we use Netlify DNS.
Pros of GitHub Pages
- Free290
- Right out of github217
- Quick to set up185
- Instant108
- Easy to learn107
- Great way of setting up your project's website58
- Widely used47
- Quick and easy41
- Great documentation37
- Super easy4
- Easy setup3
- Instant and fast Jekyll builds2
- Great customer support2
- Great integration2
Pros of Read the Docs
- GitHub integration13
- Free for public repos7
- Automated Builds2
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Cons of GitHub Pages
- Not possible to perform HTTP redirects4
- Supports only Jekyll3
- Limited Jekyll plugins3
- Jekyll is bloated1