Docs Hosting Trade Study

Tool Name	Licensing	Render Time	VCS Stored Content	Self-Hosting	Managed Hosting	API Actions	Generate API Docs	WYSIWYG Editing	Markdown Support	Embedded Content	Hierarchial Structure	Templating Support	Roles	Comment Support	Search	Import From Other Formats	Export Other Formats	Anchor Links	Draft Content	Version Control	Internationalization	File Uploads	Diagram Editing	Usage Analytics	Extension Support
GitBook	Free for OSS / $$$	Fast	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No
Confluence	Free for OSS / $$	Slow	No	No	Yes	Yes	No (only non-free plugins)	Yes	Partial (for embedded content)	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	No (only non-free plugins)	No (non-free plans only)	Yes
ReadTheDocs	Free (with ads)	Slow	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	Yes	Limited	Yes	Yes	No	Yes including doc packages	Yes	No (embed/links only)	Yes (with plugins)	Yes	Yes
mdBook	Free (Mozilla Public License 2.0)	Fast	Yes	Yes	No (static hosts only)	No	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	Yes	No	No (embed/links only)	Yes (as a preprocessor)	No (third-party only)	Yes
Docusaurus	Free MIT License	Fast	Yes	Yes	Yes (with static site hosts like Vercel, Netlify)	No	Yes (with plugins)	No	Yes	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	Yes	No	No (but can be done with external tools)	Yes	No	No	Yes	No (embed/links only)	Yes (with plugins)	No (third-party only)	Yes
Docsify	Free MIT License	Fast	Yes	Yes	Yes (with static site hosts like GitHub Pages, Netlify)	No	No	No (Markdown-based)	Yes	Yes	Yes	No	No	No	Yes (with plugins)	No	No	Yes	No	No	No	No (embed/links only)	Partial (with plugins)	No (third-party only)	Yes