Comparisons
How is Fumadocs different from other existing frameworks?
Nextra
Fumadocs is highly inspired by Nextra. For example, the Routing Conventions. That is why
meta.json also exists in Fumadocs.
Nextra is more opinionated than Fumadocs. Fumadocs is accelerated by App Router. As a result, It provides many server-side functions, and you have to configure things manually compared to simply editing a configuration file.
Fumadocs works great if you want more control over everything, such as adding it to an existing codebase or implementing advanced routing.
Feature Table
| Feature | Fumadocs | Nextra |
|---|---|---|
| Static Generation | Yes | Yes |
| Cached | Yes | Yes |
| Light/Dark Mode | Yes | Yes |
| Syntax Highlighting | Yes | Yes |
| Table of Contents | Yes | Yes |
| Full-text Search | Yes | Yes |
| i18n | Yes | Yes |
| Last Git Edit Time | Yes | Yes |
| Page Icons | Yes | Yes, via _meta.js files |
| RSC | Yes | Yes |
| Remote Source | Yes | Yes |
| SEO | Via Metadata | Yes |
| Built-in Components | Yes | Yes |
| RTL Layout | Yes | Yes |
Additional Features
Features supported via 3rd party libraries like TypeDoc will not be listed here.
| Feature | Fumadocs | Nextra |
|---|---|---|
| OpenAPI Integration | Yes | No |
| TypeScript Docs Generation | Yes | No |
| TypeScript Twoslash | Yes | Yes |
Mintlify
Mintlify is a documentation service, as compared to Fumadocs, it offers a free tier but isn't completely free and open source.
Fumadocs is not as powerful as Mintlify, for example, the OpenAPI integration of Mintlify. As the creator of Fumadocs, I wouldn't recommend switching to Fumadocs from Mintlify if you're satisfied with the current way you build docs. However, I believe Fumadocs is a suitable tool for all Next.js developers who want to have elegant docs.
Docusaurus
Docusaurus is a powerful framework based on React.js. It offers many cool features with plugins and custom themes.
Better DX
Since Fumadocs is built on the top of Next.js, you'll have to start the Next.js dev server every time to review changes, and initial boilerplate code is relatively more compared to Docusaurus.
For a simple docs, Docusaurus might be a better choice if you don't need any Next.js specific functionality.
However, when you want to use Next.js, or seek extra customizability like tuning default UI components, Fumadocs could be a better choice.
Plugins
You can easily achieve many things with plugins, their ecosystem is indeed larger and maintained by many contributors.
In comparison, the flexibility of Fumadocs allows you to implement them on your own, it may take longer to tune it to your satisfaction.
