Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Doxygen VS Apache Velocity

Compare Doxygen VS Apache Velocity 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.

Doxygen logo Doxygen

Generate documentation from source code

Apache Velocity logo Apache Velocity

Velocity is a Java-based template engine.
  • Doxygen Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-30
  • Apache Velocity Landing page
    Landing page //
    2019-04-21

Doxygen features and specs

  • Comprehensive Documentation
    Doxygen supports a wide range of languages and can generate detailed, organized documentation for various types of codebases, including class hierarchies, collaboration diagrams, and more.
  • Automatic Code Parsing
    Doxygen automatically parses the code and extracts relevant comments, which helps in creating accurate and up-to-date documentation without much manual intervention.
  • Customizable Output
    Doxygen allows customization of the output format with several templates, enabling developers to generate documentation in HTML, LaTeX, RTF, and other formats.
  • Integration with Other Tools
    Doxygen integrates well with other tools such as Graphviz for generating diagrams, and it can be incorporated into continuous integration pipelines to ensure documentation is always current.
  • Open Source
    Doxygen is open-source software, meaning it is free to use and has a community of contributors that may add features or fix issues over time.

Possible disadvantages of Doxygen

  • Steep Learning Curve
    Due to its extensive features and customization options, Doxygen can be quite complex to set up and use effectively, especially for beginners.
  • Performance Issues
    For very large codebases, Doxygen can be slow in processing and generating the documentation, which might be a limitation for some projects.
  • Limited Support for Non-Standard Code Constructs
    Doxygen may have difficulties interpreting non-standard code constructs or highly complex code, which could lead to incomplete or inaccurate documentation.
  • Dependency on Code Comments
    The quality and usefulness of the generated documentation heavily depend on the thoroughness and clarity of the comments within the code, requiring disciplined commenting practices.
  • Outdated Documentation
    If not regularly maintained and regenerated, the produced documentation can become outdated as the codebase evolves, leading to potential misinformation.

Apache Velocity features and specs

  • Simplicity
    Apache Velocity is known for its simple syntax, making it easy for developers to create templates and generate dynamic web content without a steep learning curve.
  • Separation of Concerns
    Velocity promotes a clear separation between the presentation layer and business logic, allowing developers to maintain cleaner and more organized code.
  • Java Integration
    Velocity is written in Java and integrates well with Java applications, making it a suitable choice for projects that are already using the Java ecosystem.
  • Customizable
    Developers can extend and customize Apache Velocity to match specific needs, offering flexibility in template design and rendering.
  • Lightweight
    Velocity is a lightweight framework, with minimal overhead, which can lead to better performance and faster template rendering times.

Possible disadvantages of Apache Velocity

  • Limited Features
    Compared to more modern templating engines, Apache Velocity lacks some advanced features and functionality, which may limit its use in more complex scenarios.
  • Legacy Status
    Velocity has not seen as much active development in recent years, meaning it may not benefit from newer web technologies, improvements, or active community support.
  • Verbose Syntax
    For some developers, the Velocity template syntax can be seen as verbose and cumbersome compared to other templating systems, potentially making code harder to maintain.
  • Performance Overhead
    While lightweight, in specific scenarios, the way Velocity processes templates might introduce a minor performance overhead, especially in very large and complex templates.
  • Security Concerns
    As with many templating systems, improper use of Velocity could expose an application to security risks, such as template injection, if not handled correctly.

Analysis of Doxygen

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Doxygen is considered a good tool, especially for projects where maintaining documentation is crucial. Its ability to integrate with various development environments and version control systems, along with its configurability and range of output formats, makes it a robust choice for automatically generating up-to-date project documentation.

Why this product is good

  • Doxygen is a widely used tool for generating documentation from annotated C++ sources, and it supports other programming languages including C, Objective-C, C#, PHP, Java, Python, IDL (Corba and Microsoft flavors), Fortran, VHDL, and D. It is valuable for its ability to extract code structure and comments to produce comprehensive documentation in various formats like HTML, LaTeX, and RTF. It also has support for generating diagrams and cross-references, which improves documentation readability and navigation.

Recommended for

  • Developers working in medium to large codebases that need robust documentation.
  • Teams using C++ or any of the supported languages who want to ensure their code documentation is consistently updated and accessible.
  • Projects where it is crucial to have an easily navigable documentation site with features like search, diagrams, and cross-references.
  • Open source projects that want to maintain high-quality, automatically generated documentation.

Doxygen videos

Doxygen

Apache Velocity videos

Apache Velocity Template Tutorial | Build Web Application

More videos:

  • Review - Using Apache Velocity For Generating Xojo Code From An Existing Database

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Doxygen and Apache Velocity)
Documentation
100 100%
0% 0
Javascript UI Libraries
0 0%
100% 100
Documentation As A Service & Tools
Development
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Doxygen and Apache Velocity

Doxygen Reviews

Best 25 Software Documentation Tools 2023
Doxygen is a popular documentation generator tool that is commonly used in software development projects to automatically generate documentation from source code comments.
Source: www.uphint.com
Introduction to Doxygen Alternatives In 2021
Doxygen is the software application for developing paperwork from illustrated C++ sources, but other programming languages like C, C#, Objective-C, UNO/OpenOffice, PHP, Java, IDL of Corba, Python, and Microsoft, VHDL, Fortran are also supported. From a collection of recorded source files, user can develop an HTML online documents web browser and an offline referral manual....
Source: www.webku.net
Doxygen Alternatives
Doxygen is the software for creating documentation from illustrated C++ sources, but other programming languages like C, C#, Objective-C, UNO/OpenOffice, PHP, Java, IDL of Corba, Python, and Microsoft, VHDL, Fortran are also supported. From a collection of documented source files, user can create an HTML online documentation browser and an offline reference manual. It also...
Source: www.educba.com
Doxygen Alternatives
Since the documentation is directly extracted from the sources, it is a lot less difficult to maintain the compatibility between the source code and the documentation. Having said that, this tax has a few problems with it. Therefore, I have compiled a list of some of the other options available to you besides Doxygen.

Apache Velocity Reviews

We have no reviews of Apache Velocity yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apache Velocity seems to be more popular. It has been mentiond 1 time 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.

Doxygen mentions (0)

We have not tracked any mentions of Doxygen yet. Tracking of Doxygen recommendations started around Mar 2021.

Apache Velocity mentions (1)

  • Where can I learn to automate ?
    Create a template that can generate source code (like one of these systems: https://freemarker.sourceforge.io/ http://velocity.apache.org/ https://www.stringtemplate.org/ http://www.telosys.org/). Source: about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Doxygen and Apache Velocity, you can also consider the following products

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

Jinja2 - Jinja2 is a template engine written in Python.

DocFX - A documentation generation tool for API reference and Markdown files!

Handlebars - Handlebars is a JavaScript template library that is, more or less, based on ...

MkDocs - Project documentation with Markdown.

Mako - Mako is a lightweight templating library for the Python platform.