We love gitbook, but hate the fact the pricing is unpredictable + it's not FOSS :(, so we built something that we could use for our documentation needs. We were big fans of docusaurus and RsPress (like docusaurus but built with rust based tools) but onboarding non-technical people to use it was a pain.

Introducing kalmia! It's free (as in freedom with AGPLv3), it's pretty, it's blazingly fast. If you want to know more details about it you can read about it on our blog or just go straight to the github/docs.

PS: It's a very early stage product so there might be a few bugs/breaking changes!

We have a process that extracts documentation from repos on gitlab which works very nicely.

The last part of that process uses mdbook (rust) to display the documentation and it looks great.

Mdbook was initially used due to its simplicity. However, access to rust crates is currently blocked from a security perspective so I started wondering what alternatives there might be.

I’ve successfully started to replicate mdbook into a Go version that uses the mdbook format so I don’t have to change the output etc and it works pretty well so far, but there’s a fair bit of work left to do.

Before I do that, I wondered what other alternatives people might be using before I go down that path.

I should mention that Hugo maybe seems over complicated for this use case and none of the available templates that I’ve seen look particularly great. I’ve also played with Astro too but keen to avoid JavaScript frameworks.

Sorry for the long post but any feedback appreciated. Thanks.

Hey everyone,

I’m exploring options for publishing API documentation and trying to decide between self-hosting tools like Docusaurus or Redoc, versus using third-party platforms like GitBook, ReadMe, or somthing else.

For those with experience:

- Why did you choose one over the other?

- What are the key trade-offs in terms of customization, cost, collaboration, and maintenance?

- Any regrets or strong recommendations?

Hey everyone,

I’m exploring options for publishing API documentation, help me to decide between self-hosting tools like Docusaurus or Redoc, or using third-party platforms like GitBook, ReadMe, or somthing else.

For those with experience:

- Why did you choose one over the other?

- What are the key trade-offs in terms of customization, cost, collaboration, and maintenance?

- Any regrets or strong recommendations?

Hey folks!

Our team is in documentation hell right now and I'm hoping someone here has found something that actually works. We've got internal processes, user guides, and API stuff all scattered across different tools and it's driving me nuts.

Right now we're using Confluence which feels like fighting with Microsoft Word from 2005 every time I need to format something. The collaboration is okay but god help you if you need to do anything beyond basic text and images.

I tried Notion for a while and it's pretty flexible but honestly it feels more like a productivity app than a real documentation platform. Good for quick notes and databases but when I need to write actual technical documentation it gets weird fast.

GitBook looked promising and the output is clean but they changed their pricing and now it's expensive for what we need. Plus customization options are pretty limited.

For API documentation specifically I've been playing around with Apidog lately. What's nice about it is that I can design the API, test it, and generate documentation all in the same place instead of bouncing between Swagger and Postman and then trying to keep everything in sync. The collaboration features are decent and the learning curve isn't terrible. Actually keeps the docs updated when the API changes which is huge because our old setup was always out of date.

But I'm curious what everyone else is using. Are you happy with your current setup or just tolerating it? How do you handle keeping everything organized when you're documenting different types of content?

And if anyone else is dealing with API documentation, how do you keep it from getting stale? That's been our biggest headache.

Really want to hear about actual day to day experience rather than just what looks good on paper. What makes your life easier vs what makes you want to throw your laptop out the window?

Thanks!

Hi r/selfhosted,

I'm counting on this community's hivemind knowledge :)

I came across the documentation on Docker and it looked pretty familiar. I had seen this "style" when I used Microsoft's Documentation

For example, compare the styles of 2 sample posts:

• MS Power Apps

• Docker - Getting started

Would anyone be able to identify what software/service is behind both implementations?

At my company we recently made the switch from Gitbook to Readme.io. Unfortunately, I'm starting to regret this decision because of the limited formatting options available in Readme.io. One big problem is the difficulty of adding images within a paragraph. I have to resort to using HTML blocks and inline CSS styling, which is quite frustrating. Another annoying limitation is the inability to align images, like aligning them to the left. These are just a couple of examples out of several important formatting features that seem to be missing in Readme.io.

I was wondering if any of you have come across alternative documentation platforms that offer more flexibility and customization in terms of formatting? I'd really appreciate any recommendations or insights you might have based on your own experiences.

Looking forward to hearing your thoughts!

I've been using GitBook for documentation in some of my projects, but I'm increasingly running into limitations with their free tier, and I'm not a fan of relying on their cloud service. I'd prefer to self-host a similar solution for better control and customization.

Ideally, I'm looking for a self-hosted alternative that offers:

• Markdown support

• Clean, modern UI like GitBook

• Easy navigation/sidebar structure

• Version control integration (Git preferably)

• Good search functionality

Ability to collaborate with others I know there are options like BookStack, DokuWiki, and MDBook out there, but I'd love to hear from anyone who's made the switch from GitBook to a self-hosted solution. What worked well for you? Any implementation challenges I should be aware of?

Thanks in advance!

UPDATE: Thanks for all the suggestions—super helpful!

Just wanted to mention that I ended up trying out Apidog's self-hosted docs and it’s been a really solid alternative to GitBook for my needs. It supports Markdown, has a clean and modern UI, and the sidebar/navigation setup feels very familiar.

It also integrates with Git for version control, which was important for me, and the search has been decent so far. I’ve been using it for about 6 months now after hitting the limits of GitBook’s free tier, and I’ve been really happy with it. The self-hosting setup was pretty straightforward if you follow their guide.

If you’re looking for something GitBook-like but with more control, it’s definitely worth a look.

Documentation is critical for a well-oiled engineering team. How have you managed documentation? Do you enforce your developers to update documentation? Do you use google docs, notion, or both?

I've been using Gitbook for a long time to write my documentation and I wanted to go for a free self-hosted option that works in a similar way (markdown files). I was looking for something with a dark/light theme toggle and multiple languages selection too, as well as a minimal design. Any recommendations?

Looking for a simple tool I can use to create a documentation section for my SaaS - Not API reference just simple pages for integrations and getting started and whatnot - Mintlify and Gitbook are expensive - anyone using anything else?

Hey guys,

Just wondering if there is any good documentation tool, where we can put our SaaS knowledgebase, how it works, and all with the API documentation.

Or do guys suggest keeping both different? API Documentation and Normal documentation.

Thanks