Comparison of documentation generators

The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of documentation generators. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs. Note that many of the generators listed are no longer maintained.

General information

Basic general information about the generators, including: creator or company, license, and price.

Name	Creator	Input format	Languages (alphabet order)	OS support	First public release date	Latest stable version	Software license
Ddoc	Walter Bright	Text	D	Windows, OS X, Linux and BSD	2005/09/19	DMD 2.078.3	Template:Free
docToolchain	Ralph D. Müller	Text	Java	Windows, OS X, Linux and BSD	2018/08/31	v3.4.2	Template:Free
Document! X	Innovasys	Text, Binary	C++/CLI only, C#, IDL, Java, VB, VBScript, PL/SQL	Windows only	1998	2014.1	Template:Nonfree
Doxygen	Dimitri van Heesch	Text	C/C++, C#, D, IDL, Fortran, Java, PHP, Python	Any	1997/10/26	1.13.2	Template:Free
Epydoc	Edward Loper	Text	Python	Any	2002/01/—	3.0 (2008)	Template:Free
fpdoc (Free Pascal Documentation Generator)	Sebastian Guenther and Free Pascal Core	Text	(Object)Pascal/Delphi	FPC tier 1 targets	2005	3.2.2	Template:Free reusable parts are GPL with static linking exception
Haddock	Simon Marlow	Text	Haskell	Any	2002	2.15.0 (2014)	Template:Free
HeaderDoc	Apple Inc.	Text	AppleScript, Bash, Csh, C, C++, Delphi, IDL, Java, JavaScript, MIG, Pascal, Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, Tcl	Any Unix-like	2000/09/—	8.9.28 (2013)	Template:Free
Imagix 4D	Imagix Corp.	Text	C, C++, Java	Windows, Linux, Unix	1995	7.3	Template:Nonfree
Javadoc	Sun Microsystems	Text	Java	Any	1995	1.6	Template:Free
JSDoc	Michael Mathews	Text	JavaScript	Any	2001/07/—	1.10.2	Template:Free
JsDoc Toolkit	Michael Mathews	Text	JavaScript	Any	2007?	2.0.0	Template:Free
mkd	Jean-Paul Louyot	Text	Any with comments	Unix, Linux, Windows	1989	2015	Template:Free
MkDocs	Tom Christie	Text	Python	Any	2014/10/29	1.5.3	Template:Free
Natural Docs	Greg Valure	Text	Any with comments	Any	2003/05/26	2.0.2	Template:Free
NDoc	Jason Diamond, Jean-Claude Manoli, Kral Ferch	Binary	C#	Windows only	2003/07/27	1.3.1	Template:Free
pdoc	Andrew Gallant	Text	Python	Any	2013	1.0.1 (2021)	Template:Free
perldoc	Larry Wall	Text	Perl	Any	1994	5.16.3	Template:Free
phpDocumentor	Joshua Eichorn	Text	PHP	Any	2000	3.0.0	Template:Free
pydoc	citation	CitationClass=web }}</ref>	Text	Python	Any	2000	in Python core	Template:Free
RDoc	Dave Thomas	Text	C, C++, Ruby	Any	2001/12/14	in Ruby core	Template:Free
ROBODoc	Frans Slothouber	Text	Any with comments	Any	1995/01/19	4.99.36 (2015)	Template:Free
Sandcastle	Microsoft	Text	.NET	Windows only	2008/05/—	2.4.10520 (2016)	Template:Free
Sphinx	Georg Brandl	Text	Ada, C, C++, Chapel, CMake, Fortran, GraphQL, JavaScript, Matlab, PHP, Python, reStructuredText, Ruby, Rust, VB	Any	2008/03/21	8.2.1	Template:Free
Visual Expert	Novalys	Text, Binary	C#, PL/SQL, Transact-SQL, PowerBuilder	Windows only	1995	2017	Template:Nonfree
VSdocman	Helixoft	Text	VB, VBScript, C#	Windows only	2003 Oct 2	9.0	Template:Nonfree
YARD	Loren Segal	Text	Ruby	Any	2007/02/24	0.7.3	Template:Free
Name	Creator	Input format	Languages (alphabet order)	OS support	First public release date	Latest stable version	Software license

Supported formats

The output formats the generators can write.

Generator name	HTML	CHM	RTF	PDF	LaTeX	PostScript	man pages	DocBook	XML	EPUB
Ddoc	Template:Yes	Template:YesTemplate:Efn	Template:No	Template:YesTemplate:Efn	Template:YesTemplate:Efn	Template:YesTemplate:Efn	Template:YesTemplate:Efn	Template:No	Template:YesTemplate:Efn	Template:No
docToolchain	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes
Document! X	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
Epydoc	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
fpdoc	Template:Yes	Native	Template:Yes	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
Haddock	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Partial	Template:No	Template:No
HeaderDoc	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
Imagix 4D	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
Javadoc	Template:Yes	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	Template:No
JSDoc	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
JsDoc Toolkit	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes+JSON	Template:No
MkDocs	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
Natural Docs	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
NDoc	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
pdoc	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
phpDocumentor	Template:Yes	Template:Yes (1.x only)	Template:No	Template:Yes (1.x only)	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes (1.x only)	Template:Yes (1.x only)	Template:No
pydoc	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
RDoc	Template:Yes	Template:YesTemplate:Efn	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	Template:No	Template:YesTemplate:Efn	Template:No
ROBODoc	Template:Yes	Indirectly	Template:Yes	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	Template:Yes	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No
Sandcastle	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
Sphinx	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	IndirectlyTemplate:Efn	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:Yes
Visual Expert	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
VSdocman	Template:Yes	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:Yes	Template:No
YARD	Template:Yes	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No	Template:No
Generator name	HTML	CHM	RTF	PDF	LaTeX	PostScript	man pages	DocBook	XML	EPUB

Other features

	possibility of extended customization	generated diagrams	highlighting and linking of generated doc	parameter types extracted
Ddoc	with macros
docToolchain	customizable themes, custom tasks	many diagram plugins (plantUML, mermaid, ...)	automatic and manual references, table of contents, bibliography, ...
Document! X	customizable HTML based templates, custom comment tags	linked graphical object relationship diagrams	internal links and links to .NET framework documentation	types extracted and linked
Doxygen	with XSLT	caller and callee graphs, dependency graphs, inheritance diagrams, collaboration diagrams
Epydoc
Haddock			Template:Yes	Template:Yes
HeaderDoc	Custom headers, footers, code coloring, and other CSS styles in individual pages. Project-wide TOC is generated from a user-defined template.		Configurable syntax highlighting/coloring with automatic linking to symbols in declaration, ability to manually link to symbols in discussion, etc.	Provides warnings if tagged parameters do not match code, parsed parameters included in XML output and Doxygen-style tagfile (-D flag in 8.7). Partial C preprocessor support with -p flag. Support for #if/#ifdef control over documentation inclusion using the -D and -U command-line flags.
Imagix 4D	customizable through style sheets and CSS	linked hierarchy and dependency graphs for function calls, variable sets and reads, class inheritance and interface, and file includes and interface, intra-function flow charts	fully cross-linked project-wide, including all hierarchy and dependency graphs, metrics tables, source code snippets, and source files	full semantic analysis of source code, including parameter types, conditional compilation directives, macro expansions
Javadoc
JSDoc				Template:Yes
JsDoc Toolkit				Template:Yes
mkd	Customisable for all type of comments	'as-is' in comments	all general documentation; references, manual, organigrams, ... Including the binary codes included in the comments.	all coded comments
MkDocs
Natural Docs
NDoc
perldoc	Extend the generator classes through Perl programming.		Only linking
pdoc	overridable Jinja2 templates		source code syntax highlighting, automatic cross-linking to symbol declarations	Template:Yes
phpDocumentor	Smarty-based templates (1.x), Twig-based templates (2+)	class inheritance diagrams	cross reference to generated documentation, and to php.net function reference	Template:Yes
pydoc
RDoc
ROBODoc
Sphinx	Customizable themes (10 first-party); Jinja templating; Python plugins	class inheritance diagrams, graphviz, third party (e.g. using aafigure, actdiag, Google Chart, gnuplot, mermaid)	Automatic cross-referencing (including between projects), Index; Table of Contents, Syntax highlighting with Pygments	custom objects (such as functions and classes)
Visual Expert	documentation content and styles customizable	Class inheritance, call trees, dependencies (impact analysis)	internal links between classes, methods, variables, tables, columns...	all types extracted
VSdocman	full customization for all output formats, templates for MSDN-like output, custom XML comment tags	linked graphical class diagrams, class inheritance tree	internal links and links to .NET framework documentation	types extracted and linked
YARD	customizable Ruby templates	class diagrams with extra tool	internal classes/modules cross-referenced and Ruby source highlighted

See also

• Code readability
• Documentation generator
• Literate programming
• Self-documenting code