Read the Docs vs. ReadMe comparison

ReadMe is a proprietary documentation platform built around a hosted visual editor. If your docs team prefers editing in a browser-based WYSIWYG instead of a Git workflow, ReadMe has a focused story.

Read the Docs takes a different approach: docs as code. Write in any documentation tool your team already uses, versioned in the same Git repository as your code and reviewed in pull requests like any other change. Over 15 years of reliable documentation hosting, trusted by engineering teams at AMD and Canonical, and by open source projects like Jupyter and Flask.

No hosted editor. No per-seat pricing. Business and Enterprise plans for commercial teams, with a free Community tier for open source.


Build your site on the cloud Generate your site's content on the cloud
Deploy previews Solve style issues before deploying
Search Always find what you are looking for
Multiple versions Publish multiple versions of your documentation
Page analytics Understand how people browse your documentation
Private documentation Give access only to trusted people
Translations Serve translated versions of your docs
Interactive API reference Render an API explorer from your OpenAPI spec
Documentation tool agnostic Use the documentation tool your team prefers (Sphinx, MkDocs, Docusaurus, Jupyter Book, etc)
No per-seat pricing Unlimited users on every plan
Open Source Own your content, self-host if you want, contribute back

Try it out

.readthedocs.yaml

# Example for a Node-based doc tool (e.g. Docusaurus).
# Replace the install/build commands with whatever your tool uses
# (mkdocs build, sphinx-build, jupyter-book build, etc).
version: 2

build:
  os: ubuntu-24.04
  tools:
    nodejs: "20"

  commands:
    # Install dependencies and build the site
    - cd docs/ && npm install
    - cd docs/ && npm run build
    # Copy output to Read the Docs
    - mkdir -p $READTHEDOCS_OUTPUT/html/
    - cp -r docs/build/* $READTHEDOCS_OUTPUT/html/

Every commit builds a preview. Every release publishes a new version. No separate editor, no docs drifting out of sync with the code they document.

Get started for free

Docs as code, on an open platform

Upgrade your documentation with Read the Docs

Your docs belong next to your code