Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Sphinx Documentation Generator VS Outline Wiki

Compare Sphinx Documentation Generator VS Outline Wiki and see what are their differences

Sphinx Documentation Generator logo Sphinx Documentation Generator

Sphinx is a tool that makes it easy to create intelligent and beautiful documentation, written by...

Outline Wiki logo Outline Wiki

A modern team knowledge base for your documentation, support answers, sales process, meeting notes, & more…
  • Sphinx Documentation Generator Landing page
    Landing page //
    2018-09-29
  • Outline Wiki Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-09-16

Fast & modern

Outline is built from the ground up to be fast, easy to use, and beautiful. Our editor lets you write documents that look great without even trying, search across your teams knowledge base in seconds, and structure information to make browsing a pleasure.

Integrations

Outline is integrated with the tools you already use, search from within Slack, sign-in with GSuite, setup webhooks with Zapier, and many more.

Permissions

Outline is ready for larger teams with user permissions, groups, read/write access to collections and user provisioning via GSuite or Slack SSO.

Sphinx Documentation Generator features and specs

  • Versatile Output Formats
    Sphinx can generate documentation in various formats, including HTML, LaTeX (for PDF), ePub, and more, making it adaptable to different needs.
  • Extensive Extensions and Themes
    Sphinx supports numerous extensions and themes, allowing for high customization and enabling additional features to suit specific project requirements.
  • Strong Integration with reStructuredText
    Sphinx uses reStructuredText as its markup language, which is powerful and flexible, helping to create clear and precise documentation.
  • Automatic API Documentation
    Sphinx can automatically generate API documentation from code docstrings, which saves time and ensures consistency between code and documentation.
  • Active Community and Comprehensive Documentation
    Supported by an active community, Sphinx offers extensive documentation and community support, which facilitates ease of use and problem resolution.

Possible disadvantages of Sphinx Documentation Generator

  • Steep Learning Curve
    For beginners, getting familiar with Sphinx and reStructuredText can be challenging due to its extensive capabilities and initial setup.
  • Complex Configuration
    The Sphinx configuration file can become complex, especially for larger projects with more customization, which can be daunting for new users.
  • Limited Markdown Support
    Sphinx primarily supports reStructuredText, and while there is some support for Markdown, it is not as comprehensive, which can limit its attractiveness to users preferring Markdown.
  • Dependency Overhead
    Sphinx's many plugins and extensions can result in significant dependency overhead, potentially complicating installation and maintenance.
  • Build Performance
    For very large projects, Sphinx build times can be slow, requiring optimizations or incremental builds to efficiently manage documentation generation.

Outline Wiki features and specs

  • User-Friendly Interface
    Outline Wiki offers a clean and intuitive interface that makes it easy for users to navigate and manage their knowledge base with minimal learning curve.
  • Collaboration Features
    The platform supports real-time collaboration, allowing multiple users to work on documents simultaneously and enhancing team productivity.
  • Rich Integration Options
    Outline integrates with various third-party applications such as Slack, Google Drive, and Microsoft Office, facilitating seamless workflows and data sharing.
  • Open Source Flexibility
    As an open-source software, Outline Wiki allows for customization and adaptability to suit specific organizational needs and encourages community-contributed enhancements.
  • Version Control
    Outline provides robust version control, enabling users to track changes, revert to previous document versions, and maintain a history of edits.

Possible disadvantages of Outline Wiki

  • Hosting and Maintenance
    Being open-source may require additional resources for self-hosting and maintenance, which could be challenging for organizations without dedicated IT support.
  • Limited Feature Set Compared to Enterprise Solutions
    While Outline is effective for basic knowledge management, it may lack some of the advanced features found in more comprehensive enterprise solutions.
  • Scaling Issues
    Users have reported potential performance issues when scaling Outline for very large teams or extensive document repositories.
  • Reliance on Third-Party Authentication
    Outline relies on third-party authentication services like Google and Slack, which may not align with the security policies of highly regulated industries.
  • Occasional Update Delays
    As an open-source project, there might be delays in updates or new feature releases compared to commercial software with dedicated development teams.

Sphinx Documentation Generator videos

Python Sphinx Documentation Generator Complete Tutorial Part-1

More videos:

  • Tutorial - Python Sphinx Documentation Generator Complete Tutorial Part-2

Outline Wiki videos

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

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Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Sphinx Documentation Generator and Outline Wiki)
Documentation As A Service & Tools
Knowledge Base
37 37%
63% 63
Documentation
47 47%
53% 53
Note Taking
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 Sphinx Documentation Generator and Outline Wiki

Sphinx Documentation Generator Reviews

Introduction to Doxygen Alternatives In 2021
Sphinx is an open-source full-text search server, constructed with simpleness for performance, significance search quality, and combination. Sphinx makes both batch index & database search data, SQL database, NoSQL storage, etc
Source: www.webku.net
Doxygen Alternatives
Sphinx is an open-source full-text search server, built with simplicity for efficiency, relevance search quality, and integration. Sphinx makes both batch index and database search data, SQL database, NoSQL storage, etc.
Source: www.educba.com
Doxygen Alternatives
Extensive cross-references, automatic linkages of glossary terms, citations, and other information that is analogous to one another are all possible with Sphinx. Additionally, semantic markup is supported by this content management system.

Outline Wiki Reviews

Best 11 Open-source Free Wiki Engines for teams and enterprise in 2022
Outline is a fairly new Wiki engine for teams which built on top of Node.JS, React and PostgreSQL.
Source: medevel.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Outline Wiki seems to be a lot more popular than Sphinx Documentation Generator. While we know about 18 links to Outline Wiki, we've tracked only 1 mention of Sphinx Documentation Generator. 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.

Sphinx Documentation Generator mentions (1)

  • How can i replace/substitute a certain block of code in a file in Python?
    You should really look at a proper documentation system like Sphinx. Source: almost 3 years ago

Outline Wiki mentions (18)

  • French gov's open source alternative to Notion or Outline
    Https://getoutline.com mentioned in the submission title. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 months ago
  • Ask HN: How To: Internal Documentation?
    What we did as a team is we discuss and agree documentation should be made as part of our OKR, add doc as part of our process, and where we should put it; in hope of making it easier to share knowledge for older codebase, new joiners, or other team. We use inline doc for engineering, and all other usually we use gdrive for detailed source of truth and for the summary we use https://getoutline.com/. - Source: Hacker News / 8 months ago
  • Ask HN: Side project of more that $2k monthly revenue what's your project?
    Https://getoutline.com – A team knowledge base, hit $2k MRR a couple of months after turning on paid plans, has always been steady growth since then. A few years in and almost reached what I'd consider v1 feature complete. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Slab or Nuclino
    Try Outline. Clean, beautiful interface, fast and snappy, fantastic search and you can create public docs with working internal links with just one button. Source: about 2 years ago
  • IT Glue False Ad.
    I'm the sole IT guy I've been using getoutline.com (a cheaper Notion alternative) and I've been super happy with it. Source: over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Sphinx Documentation Generator and Outline Wiki, you can also consider the following products

Doxygen - Generate documentation from source code

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

Daux.io - Daux.io is a documentation generator that uses a simple folder structure and Markdown files to...

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

Docsify.js - A magical documentation site generator.

Obsidian.md - A second brain, for you, forever. Obsidian is a powerful knowledge base that works on top of a local folder of plain text Markdown files.