Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

DocFX VS GitHub Gist

Compare DocFX VS GitHub Gist and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

DocFX logo DocFX

A documentation generation tool for API reference and Markdown files!

GitHub Gist logo GitHub Gist

Gist is a simple way to share snippets and pastes with others.
  • DocFX Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-05-11
  • GitHub Gist Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-07-28

DocFX features and specs

  • Open Source
    DocFX is an open-source project, which allows for community contributions and transparency in development.
  • Multi-platform Support
    It supports generating documentation for .NET projects across different operating systems, including Windows, Linux, and macOS.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    DocFX can generate documentation from source code files as well as markdown files, making it versatile for different types of documentation needs.
  • Customization and Extensibility
    The tool allows for customization of templates and supports plugins, enabling users to tailor the output to their specific requirements.
  • Static Site Generation
    DocFX can generate a full static website from the documentation, which can be easily hosted on platforms like GitHub Pages.
  • Integration with .NET Core
    DocFX integrates well with .NET ecosystem, making it a convenient choice for .NET developers for both code and conceptual documentation.

Possible disadvantages of DocFX

  • Complex Setup
    The initial configuration and setup might be complex for users who are not familiar with the tooling, requiring careful reading of the documentation.
  • Performance Issues
    For large projects, DocFX can be slow during the documentation generation process, which may affect productivity for large-scale documentation.
  • Limited Non-.NET Language Support
    While it is excellent for .NET projects, DocFX offers limited features when applied to projects in other programming languages.
  • Documentation Quality
    Some users might find that the generated documentation lacks polish out-of-the-box, requiring additional effort to meet professional publishing standards.
  • Learning Curve
    There can be a learning curve for new users in understanding how to use DocFX effectively, especially in customizing templates and themes.

GitHub Gist features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    GitHub Gist provides a simple interface for creating and sharing code snippets or textual information. Users can quickly create new gists without needing to set up a full repository.
  • Version Control
    Each gist benefits from built-in version control, allowing users to track changes and roll back to previous versions if necessary.
  • Collaboration
    Gists can be shared with others easily, and collaborators can comment on, suggest changes, and fork the gist for further modification, making it a good tool for code reviews and quick sharing.
  • Embed and Share
    Gists can be embedded into websites and blogs, making it easy to share code in a readable and aesthetically pleasing way.
  • Public or Private
    Users have the option to create public or secret gists, offering flexibility in terms of visibility and accessibility.

Possible disadvantages of GitHub Gist

  • Limited Features
    Gists are not full-fledged repositories and lack many features that GitHub repositories offer, such as project management tools and issue tracking.
  • Search and Organization
    Managing and finding gists can become challenging as there is no internal folder structure or advanced search capability to organize them effectively.
  • Security
    While gists can be made private, they are still accessible by anyone who has the URL. They do not provide the same level of access control as private GitHub repositories.
  • Limited Collaboration
    While gists support basic collaboration through comments and forks, they do not offer the comprehensive collaboration tools available in full GitHub repositories, such as detailed pull requests and issue tracking.
  • File Size Limitation
    Gists have a file size limit, making them unsuitable for larger files or projects. This limits their use for anything beyond simple or small code snippets.

DocFX videos

Generate Java documentation with DocFX

GitHub Gist videos

Deploy Website using GitHub Pages in less than 10 mins

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to DocFX and GitHub Gist)
Documentation
100 100%
0% 0
Design Playground
0 0%
100% 100
Documentation As A Service & Tools
JavaScript
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using DocFX and GitHub Gist. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
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Social recommendations and mentions

GitHub Gist might be a bit more popular than DocFX. We know about 8 links to it since March 2021 and only 7 links to DocFX. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

DocFX mentions (7)

  • TSDocs.dev: type docs for any JavaScript library
    This is a better looking version of what Java and C# have had for a long time (kudos to the author for that!), is that the inspiration for this tool? https://docs.oracle.com/javase/8/docs/technotes/tools/windows/javadoc.html https://dotnet.github.io/docfx/ I saw the author mentioned in another comment that they found themselves peeping inside type declaration files "too often". While I do often use sites generated... - Source: Hacker News / over 1 year ago
  • What Does Microsoft Use to Create their KB Articles?
    Actually, we use it for OptiTune, it's called "docfx" https://dotnet.github.io/docfx/. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Library / Codebase Documentation - Multiple aggregated libraries - How to create? DocFx does not support this?
    We would really prefer to use a somewhat generic pre-made tool for this (such as DocFX) compared to rolling our own solution. We can roll our own solution... But would prefer not to so that we can minimize development and maintenance overhead. Source: over 3 years ago
  • CSharp Docuementation Site
    I use docfx from microsoft to generate documentation for all my oss libraries. Source: over 3 years ago
  • What platform is Microsoft Docs hosted on?
    My best guess would be that there's a CI/CD pipeline in GitHub that utilizes DocFX to convert the Markdown files to HTML. The constructed HTML files are then placed in an Azure Storage account that configured for Static Website Hosting combined with Azure CDN. Source: over 3 years ago
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GitHub Gist mentions (8)

  • Help…I’m slightly embarrassed to post this…but could anyone look at my profile and let me know if there are any “newbie red flags”. I’ve fallen in love with Python and decided to post projects from the classes I’ve taken. I’ve got more advanced projects to post and still have some project cleaning!
    If you are learning things, you could also create github gists. That way your repos will only be coding related, while you can create tutorials / work exercises in gists. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Best Practice for keeping a library of code/functions to reuse in future projects
    I use Github, both for full repos and for short gists. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Flutter Challenges: Challenge 02
    On the other hand, shared DartPads are just gists on GitHub so theoretically they can include code that works with different packages. Of course, such gists will not compile in DartPad and will be displayed as having errors :(. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Best way to make notes about coding?
    Perhaps github gists? https://gist.github.com/discover. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Some information that may be useful on the *nature of the problem* posed by the pandemic and SARS-cov-2 virus
    I looked at Github gists, but they are focused in displaying the markdown sourcecode (so e.g. Hyperlinks won't be clickable [1] ). Options just don't seem to be focused on simply hosting PDFs/information with clickable references. Source: over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing DocFX and GitHub Gist, you can also consider the following products

Doxygen - Generate documentation from source code

Pastebin.com - Pastebin.com is a website where you can store text for a certain period of time.

Docsify.js - A magical documentation site generator.

PrivateBin - PrivateBin is a minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of...

Natural Docs - Natural Docs is an open-source documentation generator for multiple programming languages.

hastebin - Pad editor for source code.