Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

ReadTheDocs VS Foswiki

Compare ReadTheDocs VS Foswiki 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.

ReadTheDocs logo ReadTheDocs

Spend your time on writing high quality documentation, not on the tools to make your documentation work.

Foswiki logo Foswiki

Foswiki is the free and open source enterprise collaboration platform.
  • ReadTheDocs Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-10-09
  • Foswiki Landing page
    Landing page //
    2022-01-28

ReadTheDocs features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    ReadTheDocs simplifies the process of generating and hosting documentation. It integrates easily with various version control systems like GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket, making it straightforward to deploy and update documentation.
  • Automatic Builds
    Documentation is automatically built and updated each time changes are pushed to the repository. This ensures that the docs are always in sync with the codebase.
  • Search Functionality
    Search functionality is built-in, providing users with the ability to quickly find information within the documentation.
  • Custom Themability
    ReadTheDocs supports theming and custom CSS, allowing users to personalize the look and feel of their documentation.
  • Multi-Version Support
    It supports multiple versions of documentation, making it easy to maintain and access different versions of your project’s documentation.
  • Multi-Language Support
    ReadTheDocs provides support for multiple languages, enabling users to create and manage documentation in various languages.
  • Integration with Sphinx
    As ReadTheDocs relies on Sphinx, it offers powerful extensions and integrations, enhancing the documentation capabilities with code syntax highlighting, inline citations, and API documentation generation.

Possible disadvantages of ReadTheDocs

  • Limited Customization
    While ReadTheDocs offers theming capabilities, it is still relatively limited compared to custom-built documentation sites. Customizing beyond basic theming can be challenging.
  • Performance Issues
    For very large projects, the build times can be longer, and occasional performance issues might arise, especially with extensive documentation.
  • Learning Curve
    Although it is designed to be user-friendly, integrating with Sphinx and setting up the initial configuration for complex projects can have a learning curve.
  • Dependency on Sphinx
    As ReadTheDocs relies heavily on Sphinx, any limitations or bugs within Sphinx can directly affect the documentation site's functionality.
  • Limited Control Over Hosting
    Because it's a hosted service, users have limited control over the hosting environment, which could be a limitation for some companies requiring specific deployment configurations.
  • Potential Downtime
    Since it’s a cloud service, ReadTheDocs may experience downtime or outages, which could temporarily affect the availability of the documentation.
  • Inconsistent Build Environments
    Differences between local development and the ReadTheDocs build environment can sometimes lead to inconsistencies and unexpected issues in the rendered documentation.

Foswiki features and specs

  • Open Source
    Foswiki is an open-source platform, meaning that it is free to use and its source code can be modified and customized to meet specific needs.
  • Extensible
    Foswiki offers a flexible plugin architecture, allowing users to extend its functionality with a wide variety of available plugins.
  • Robust Permissions
    It provides robust access control and permissions settings, enabling secure management of user roles and content access.
  • Version Control
    Versioning capabilities allow tracking changes over time, making it easy to revert to previous states of a document or page.
  • Active Community
    There is a supportive and active community around Foswiki, offering help, extensions, and regular updates.
  • Platform Independent
    Foswiki can be installed on any server that supports Perl, making it platform-independent and versatile for different environments.

Possible disadvantages of Foswiki

  • Complex Setup
    The installation and setup process can be complex, especially for users not familiar with Perl or server configurations.
  • Steep Learning Curve
    Users may encounter a steep learning curve due to its broad feature set and extensive customization options.
  • Outdated Interface
    Some users find the default user interface outdated and not as intuitive or modern as other wiki solutions.
  • Performance Issues
    There might be performance issues with large-scale deployments, requiring optimization or additional resources.
  • Limited Built-in Features
    While extensible, Foswiki's core installation has fewer built-in features compared to competitors, relying heavily on plugins.
  • Maintenance Overhead
    Regular maintenance is required to ensure security and compatibility with plugins, which can be resource-intensive.

ReadTheDocs videos

No ReadTheDocs videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

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Foswiki videos

Lonely Data vs Linked Data (with Foswiki)

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Foswiki Tutorial - How to create a new user
  • Tutorial - Vadim Belman - "Foswiki, And How To Redesign 20 Years Old Code"
  • Review - Introduction to Foswiki - The free and open source Wiki
  • Tutorial - Foswiki Tutorial on how to create, edit and control a new topic
  • Tutorial - Foswiki Tutorial on how to create, edit and control a new topic

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to ReadTheDocs and Foswiki)
Documentation
100 100%
0% 0
Note Taking
0 0%
100% 100
Task Management
100 100%
0% 0
WiKis
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 ReadTheDocs and Foswiki

ReadTheDocs Reviews

Best Gitbook Alternatives You Need to Try in 2023
ReadTheDocs is a web-based platform for building, hosting, and versioning documentation. It supports multiple languages and has built-in versioning, so you can easily switch between different versions of your documentation. It also integrates with various version control systems, including GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket. Additionally, ReadTheDocs provides a hosting service...
Source: www.archbee.com

Foswiki Reviews

We have no reviews of Foswiki yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Foswiki should be more popular than ReadTheDocs. It has been mentiond 5 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.

ReadTheDocs mentions (2)

Foswiki mentions (5)

  • Otter Wiki: A minimalistic wiki powered by Python, Markdown and git
    Do you know a wiki where one can add metadata to the pages? I used https://foswiki.org and it was great for combining structured and non structured information. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Making a Company Directory
    Use FOSWiki. It's best suited for a corporate intranet, but has a learning curve. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Software for an organization, think 'teams' and 'sharepoint'
    The best software around is FOSWiki, which is an enterprise wiki with numerous plugins, eg for taking meeting notes, setting up workflows, searching, appending files to wiki pages, etc. The only drawback is that it comes as a blank page, but there are foswiki consultants available for this job. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Does anyone else create cooking "plans" before a large meal? What's that called?
    I host my own instance of https://foswiki.org/ on my home linux box. Source: over 3 years ago
  • Recommendations: Standard Compliance Audit software
    Use an enterprise wiki with forms and workflows. A lot of work to customise the system, but if you use FOSwiki, you can use pattern matching queries to extract the standards from the text of a page (eg from documentation), having the advantage that whenever you edit the documentation, the standards (and questions) change automatically ;-) You should think about versioning, though. Source: almost 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing ReadTheDocs and Foswiki, you can also consider the following products

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

WackoWiki - WackoWiki is a light and easy to install multilingual Wiki-engine.

Documize - Enterprise-grade wiki and knowledge management platform

DokuWiki - DokuWiki is a simple to use and highly versatile Open Source wiki software that doesn't require a database.

HackMD - Fast and flexible, real-time collaborative markdown, inspired by Hackpad.

TiddlyWiki - a non-linear personal web notebook