Read the Docs vs ReadMe.io vs Swagger UI

Overview

Read the Docs

Stacks72

Followers289

Votes22

ReadMe.io

Stacks114

Followers365

Votes69

Swagger UI

Stacks2.1K

Followers1.8K

Votes207

GitHub Stars28.3K

Forks9.2K

Read the Docs vs ReadMe.io vs Swagger UI: What are the differences?

Introduction:

In the realm of documentation management, tools like Read the Docs, ReadMe.io, and Swagger UI play vital roles. Each of these tools has unique features and functionalities that cater to different needs and preferences.

Hosting Platform: Read the Docs primarily focuses on hosting documentation for open-source projects and is community-driven, allowing easy collaboration and version control. In contrast, ReadMe.io offers a platform for hosting API documentation, creating interactive API explorers, and managing developer portals, making it ideal for companies with multiple APIs. On the other hand, Swagger UI is more of a design-driven tool that helps to auto-generate interactive API documentation from OpenAPI Specification files, making it suitable for showcasing RESTful APIs.
Customization Options: Read the Docs provides a template-based system to customize the look and feel of documentation websites, offering control over branding and layout design. In comparison, ReadMe.io offers extensive customization options, including themes, styles, and layouts, allowing users to create visually appealing and user-friendly documentation. Swagger UI, being more focused on API documentation, provides customization options for displaying API endpoints and parameters in a structured and interactive manner.
Feature Set: Read the Docs is renowned for its version control capabilities, automatic builds, and built-in search functionality, making it a preferred choice for open-source projects with frequent updates. ReadMe.io, on the other hand, emphasizes features such as interactive API explorers, API key management, and metrics for tracking API usage, catering to the needs of companies providing APIs. Swagger UI is recognized for its ability to render API documentation dynamically from OpenAPI Specification files, facilitating developers in understanding and interacting with APIs seamlessly.
Collaboration Tools: While Read the Docs offers basic collaboration features like multiple contributors and version control through Git integration, ReadMe.io provides advanced collaboration tools such as comment threads, feedback collection, and user roles, enhancing communication and feedback loops among team members and external users. Swagger UI is more oriented towards showcasing API functionality and structure, lacking extensive collaboration features beyond basic documentation updates.
Integration Capabilities: Read the Docs seamlessly integrates with popular version control systems like GitHub and Bitbucket, streamlining the documentation update process and ensuring synchronization with code changes. ReadMe.io offers integrations with various tools and platforms, including Slack, GitHub, and Jira, enabling seamless collaboration and workflow automation for API documentation management. Swagger UI focuses on integration with OpenAPI Specification files, allowing developers to auto-generate interactive API documentation from standard API description formats.

In Summary, the key differences between Read the Docs, ReadMe.io, and Swagger UI lie in their hosting platform focus, customization options, feature sets, collaboration tools, and integration capabilities, catering to diverse needs in documentation management.

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Advice on Read the Docs, ReadMe.io, Swagger UI

StackShare

May 1, 2019

Needs advice

From a StackShare Community member: "I just started working for a start-up and we are in desperate need of better documentation for our API. Currently our API docs is in a README.md file. We are evaluating Postman and Swagger UI. Since there are many options and I was wondering what other StackSharers would recommend?"

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Detailed Comparison

Read the Docs	ReadMe.io	Swagger UI
It 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.	It is an easy-to-use tool to help you build out documentation! Each documentation site that you publish is a project where there is space for documentation, interactive API reference guides, a changelog, and much more.	Swagger UI is a dependency-free collection of HTML, Javascript, and CSS assets that dynamically generate beautiful documentation and sandbox from a Swagger-compliant API
Github and Bitbucket Integration;Auto-updating;Internationalization;Canonical URLs; Versions;Version Control Support Matrix;PDF Generation;Search;Alternate Domains	Collaboration - Crowdsource your docs! Users can keep docs current by suggesting changes.;API Explorer - Let users play with your API right inside the documentation.;GitHub Sync - Keep auto-generated reference docs synced with your actual code.;Editor - Markdown-based drag-and-drop editor makes documentation almost fun.;Theme Builder - Easily create a beautiful dev community that matches your brand.;Support - Let users ask questions and request features in the support forums.;Versioning - Maintaining old or testing beta versions of your docs is a breeze!;Application Keys - Your users can view their application keys embedded right in the docs.	The UI works in any development environment, be it locally or in the web;Allow end developers to effortlessly interact and try out every single operation your API exposes for easy consumption;Quickly find and work with resources and endpoints with neatly categorized documentation;Cater to every possible scenario with Swagger UI working in all major browsers
Statistics
GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars -	GitHub Stars 28.3K
GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks -	GitHub Forks 9.2K
Stacks 72	Stacks 114	Stacks 2.1K
Followers 289	Followers 365	Followers 1.8K
Votes 22	Votes 69	Votes 207
Pros & Cons
Pros 13 GitHub integration 7 Free for public repos 2 Automated Builds	Pros 18 Great UI 15 Easy 10 Customizable 10 Cute mascot 8 Looks great and is fun to use Cons 4 Support is awful 3 No backup and restore capability 2 No notifications of edits by other users 2 Full of bugs 2 Document structure is severely restricted	Pros 49 Open Source 34 Can execute api calls from the documentation 29 Free to use 19 Customizable 14 Easy to implement in .Net Cons 3 Need to learn YAML and RAML 2 Documentation doesn't look that good 1 Doesn't generate code snippets in different languages 1 You don’t actually get in-line error highlighting 1 Does not support hypermedia
Integrations
GitHub Bitbucket Evernote Dropbox	GitHub	Node.js Git Microsoft Edge Safari Firefox Google Chrome

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Apiary

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MireDot

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Gitbook

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Slate

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jsdoc

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Ardoq

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