Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Docsify.js VS highlight.js

Compare Docsify.js VS highlight.js and see what are their differences

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Docsify.js logo Docsify.js

A magical documentation site generator.

highlight.js logo highlight.js

Highlight.js is a syntax highlighter written in JavaScript. It works in the browser as well as on the server.
  • Docsify.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-10-28
  • highlight.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-25

Docsify.js features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Docsify.js is simple to set up and use. It allows for the creation of documentation directly from Markdown files without the need for a complicated build process.
  • Real-time Update
    With Docsify.js, changes to documentation can be seen in real-time. This is particularly useful for collaborative work where updates need to be immediately reflected.
  • Customizable
    Docsify offers a high degree of customization, allowing users to tweak the look and feel of their documentation through themes, plugins, and custom scripts.
  • No Build Process
    Unlike many other documentation tools, Docsify renders Markdown files on the fly, which means you don't need a separate build step to see changes.
  • Lightweight
    Docsify is lightweight and doesn't require much in terms of dependencies, making it fast and efficient to use.
  • SPA Architecture
    Docsify uses a Single Page Application (SPA) architecture, which provides smooth navigation and a better user experience.

Possible disadvantages of Docsify.js

  • SEO Challenges
    Since Docsify relies on client-side rendering, it can be more challenging to ensure that search engines properly index the content of your documentation.
  • Performance
    For very large documentation projects, the lack of a static site generation can lead to performance issues, especially on initial load.
  • Less Suitable for Complex Docs
    Docsify might not be the best choice for very complex or large-scale documentation projects due to its simple and lightweight nature.
  • Limited Built-in Features
    While Docsify is customizable, it has limited built-in features compared to more comprehensive documentation tools like Docusaurus or GitBook.
  • Dependency on JavaScript
    Docsify is heavily reliant on JavaScript, which means that users with JavaScript disabled won't be able to view the documentation properly.

highlight.js features and specs

  • Wide Language Support
    Highlight.js supports a comprehensive range of programming languages out of the box, making it versatile for various projects.
  • Automatic Language Detection
    It can automatically detect the programming language of a code block, reducing the setup time and effort for developers.
  • Customization
    Highlight.js offers numerous themes and customization options, allowing developers to easily tailor the syntax highlighting to match their application's aesthetic.
  • Lightweight and Fast
    The library is lightweight and performs efficiently, ensuring quick load times and a seamless user experience.
  • Open Source
    As an open-source project, Highlight.js benefits from community contributions and is free to use, modify, and distribute.

Possible disadvantages of highlight.js

  • Limited Dynamic Features
    Highlight.js is primarily used for static code block highlighting and lacks advanced features like real-time editing or complex code analysis.
  • Manual Updates
    New languages or updates may not be immediately available, requiring users to manually update the library or find alternatives for less common languages.
  • Performance Degradation on Large Files
    Highlight.js may experience performance issues when rendering very large code files, potentially slowing down page load times.
  • Dependency Management
    As with many JavaScript libraries, managing dependencies and ensuring compatibility with other libraries or frameworks can be challenging.

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Docsify.js and highlight.js)
Documentation
100 100%
0% 0
App Reviews
0 0%
100% 100
Documentation As A Service & Tools
Customer Feedback
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, highlight.js should be more popular than Docsify.js. It has been mentiond 55 times since March 2021. 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.

Docsify.js mentions (18)

  • ๐Ÿš€ Fast Static Site Deployment on AWS with Pulumi YAML
    I built a fast, responsive, and lightweight static documentation site powered by Docsify, hosted on AWS S3 with a CloudFront CDN for global distribution. The entire infrastructure is managed using Pulumi YAML, allowing me to declaratively define and deploy resources without writing any imperative code. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Cookbook for SH-Beginners. Any interest? (building one)
    Okay new plan, does anyone know how to do this docsify on github? I obviously am a noob on github and recently on reddit. I'd like to help where I can but my knowlegde seems to be my handycap. I could provide you a trash-mail, if you need one, but I need a PO (product owner) to manage the git... I have no clue about this yet (pages and functions and stuff). Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Cookbook for SH-Beginners. Any interest? (building one)
    Good idea. Instead of bookstack, I recommend something like Docsify The content is all in Markdown and can be managed in a git repo. Easy to deploy the whole website to any simple static HTTP server - or even Github pages. This way you can review contributions and have good version control. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Ask HN: Any Sugestions for Proceures Documentation?
    The tools to author it aren't that important, frankly. Ask your audience what they're most comfortable using and try to meet them there. If the stakeholders are technical, you have more options. If they aren't, I hope you like Google Docs or Word, because if you give them anything other than that or a PDF, they'll probably complain. At worst, yeah, write it in a long Markdown text file and use tools like pandoc to... - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • How to Build a Personal Webpage from Scratch (In 2022)
    Big fan of https://docsify.js.org since theres no need to compile your static site. A small amount of js just renders markdown. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
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highlight.js mentions (55)

  • A better pkg.go.dev
    Every time a request come in, we forward it to the pkg.go.dev server, then append the highlight.js script to the response before sending it back to the client. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Day 19: Highlight'em up! ๐Ÿ”–
    It supports 192 languages, just like a browser highlighter:. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • YouTube Embeds Are Bananas Heavy and It's Fixable
    Now we only need to force bloggers to stop using GitHub Gist embeds. Hugo (and probably other static site generators) has built-in support for code snippets with syntax highlighting, and more dynamic sites can rely on highlight.js which removes dependence on third-party services. It's just insane, using heavy iframes for small code snippets. https://gohugo.io/content-management/syntax-highlighting/... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Glimmer DSL for Web Ruby Integration with JavaScript Libraries
    Glimmer DSL for Web is a Ruby-in-the-Browser Web Frontend Framework that enables Rubyists to finally have Ruby productivity and happiness in the Frontend via a simpler, more intuitive, more straightforward, and more productive library than all JavaScript libraries like React, Angular, Ember, Vue, Svelte, etc.... Glimmer DSL for Web's Rails sample app "Sample Selector" has been upgraded with Code Syntax... - Source: dev.to / 12 months ago
  • Code Syntax highlighting in Next Js
    Let's get started by installing the highlight js. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Docsify.js and highlight.js, you can also consider the following products

GitBook - Modern Publishing, Simply taking your books from ideas to finished, polished books.

Asklayer - Get real answers from your customers with Asklayers surveys, quizzes, polls and more. Works on any website with zero code and includes enterprise level features such auto-segmentation, user tagging, branching, NPS & CSAT calculation.

Doxygen - Generate documentation from source code

Apache Archiva - Apache Archiva is an extensible repository management software.

Docusaurus - Easy to maintain open source documentation websites

Apache Tika - Apache Tika toolkit detects and extracts metadata and text from different file types.