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Gitbook

219
349
+ 1
10
MkDocs

130
151
+ 1
14
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Gitbook vs MkDocs: What are the differences?

Introduction

Gitbook and MkDocs are two popular documentation platforms used for building and hosting documentation websites. While they serve a similar purpose, there are key differences between the two.

  1. Template Customization: Gitbook provides a range of customizable templates to choose from, allowing users to create visually appealing documentation websites. On the other hand, MkDocs offers a limited number of themes and customization options, making it less flexible in terms of design.

  2. Markdown Support: Gitbook supports an extended version of Markdown, known as Gitbook Markdown, which includes additional features like footnotes, emojis, and code blocks with syntax highlighting. MkDocs, on the other hand, uses standard Markdown with limited support for these additional features.

  3. Versioning and Collaboration: Gitbook offers robust versioning capabilities, allowing multiple contributors to work on different branches and merge changes seamlessly. It also provides built-in collaboration features like comments and discussions. MkDocs, however, lacks these versioning and collaboration features, making it better suited for smaller teams or individual projects.

  4. Search Functionality: Gitbook provides advanced search capabilities, enabling users to search and filter through large documentation repositories easily. MkDocs, on the other hand, has limited search functionality and relies on third-party extensions or plugins to implement advanced search features.

  5. Integration with External Tools: Gitbook offers integrations with various tools and platforms like GitHub, Slack, and Google Analytics, providing a seamless workflow for documentation management. MkDocs, on the other hand, has limited integrations and may require additional setup or customization to integrate with external tools.

  6. Hosting Options: Gitbook provides a cloud-based hosting solution, allowing users to host their documentation websites on Gitbook's servers. MkDocs, on the other hand, is a static site generator, which means users need to host the generated site on their own servers or use a third-party hosting service.

Summary

In summary, Gitbook offers more template customization options, supports an extended version of Markdown, provides robust versioning and collaboration features, advanced search functionality, and various integrations, while MkDocs offers a simpler setup process and the flexibility to host the generated site anywhere, making it a good choice for smaller projects or individuals seeking simplicity.

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Pros of Gitbook
Pros of MkDocs
  • 6
    Prueba
  • 4
    Integrated high-quality editor
  • 5
    Speed
  • 4
    Gitlab integration
  • 3
    Extensibility
  • 2
    Themes

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Cons of Gitbook
Cons of MkDocs
  • 1
    No longer Git or Open
  • 1
    Just sync with GitHub
  • 1
    Build time increases exponentially as site grows

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What is 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.

What is MkDocs?

It builds completely static HTML sites that you can host on GitHub pages, Amazon S3, or anywhere else you choose. There's a stack of good looking themes available. The built-in dev-server allows you to preview your documentation as you're writing it. It will even auto-reload and refresh your browser whenever you save your changes.

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What companies use Gitbook?
What companies use MkDocs?
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What tools integrate with Gitbook?
What tools integrate with MkDocs?
What are some alternatives to Gitbook and MkDocs?
Sphinx
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.
Confluence
Capture the knowledge that's too often lost in email inboxes and shared network drives in Confluence instead – where it's easy to find, use, and update.
Jekyll
Think of Jekyll as a file-based CMS, without all the complexity. Jekyll takes your content, renders Markdown and Liquid templates, and spits out a complete, static website ready to be served by Apache, Nginx or another web server. Jekyll is the engine behind GitHub Pages, which you can use to host sites right from your GitHub repositories.
Google Docs
It is a word processor included as part of a free, web-based software office suite offered by Google. It brings your documents to life with smart editing and styling tools to help you easily format text and paragraphs.
GitHub Pages
Public webpages hosted directly from your GitHub repository. Just edit, push, and your changes are live.
See all alternatives