Best Self Hosted Alternatives to Mintlify

Docusaurus is an open source tool for building documentation and project websites. It turns Markdown/MDX content into a static site and provides a React-based framework to customize layouts and extend functionality.

Key Features

• Docs and blog content authored in Markdown and MDX (with embedded React components)
• Built-in documentation versioning to keep multiple product versions in sync
• Internationalization (i18n) support for localized documentation sites
• Pluggable architecture with themes and plugins for extensibility
• Static HTML output suitable for simple hosting and deployments
• Search integration support (commonly used with external doc-search providers)

Use Cases

• Product and API documentation portals for open source or internal projects
• Versioned release documentation for libraries, SDKs, and platforms
• Lightweight project websites that combine docs, blog posts, and landing pages

Docusaurus is a strong fit when you want content-first docs with modern UI customization via React, while still generating a fast static website that is easy to deploy and maintain.

MkDocs is a static site generator focused on building project documentation. It converts Markdown source files into a themed HTML site using a single YAML configuration file, and includes a built-in development server for fast preview while you write.

Key Features

• Builds static HTML documentation sites from Markdown
• Simple YAML configuration for navigation, theme settings, and build options
• Built-in development server with live preview and auto-reload
• Extensible via third-party themes, plugins, and Markdown extensions
• Output can be hosted anywhere static files can be served

Use Cases

• Publishing documentation for software libraries, APIs, and internal tools
• Creating version-controlled docs sites for teams and open source projects
• Generating lightweight help sites that can be deployed to static hosting

MkDocs is a good fit when you want a straightforward documentation workflow with minimal setup, while still having an ecosystem of themes and plugins to extend functionality. Because it produces static output, it is easy to deploy and run on a wide range of infrastructure.

EventCatalog is an open source documentation tool that helps teams model and document distributed software architecture. It focuses on making domains, services, events, schemas, and their relationships discoverable and searchable across event-driven and microservice systems.

Key Features

• Markdown- and MDX-driven content for documenting domains, services, messages/events, and schemas
• Generation and synchronization of catalog content from OpenAPI and AsyncAPI inputs
• Schema and architecture primitives designed to capture ownership, dependencies, and relationships
• Diagram support (including versioned diagrams stored with your repository) to document system views and flows
• CLI-driven workflows suitable for local use and CI/CD automation
• Extensible via SDK/API to integrate with custom brokers, registries, or internal systems
• AI-oriented capabilities such as querying structured architecture knowledge and MCP server integration

Use Cases

• Create a searchable source of truth for event-driven architectures across teams and repositories
• Keep architecture documentation aligned with API/spec changes by regenerating catalog content in CI/CD
• Improve onboarding and incident response by making owners, dependencies, and event flows easy to discover

EventCatalog works well for organizations adopting DDD, microservices, and event-driven architecture who want documentation to evolve with their system rather than drift over time. It is especially useful when architecture knowledge is fragmented across multiple tools and teams.

DOCAT is a lightweight server for hosting static documentation projects (MkDocs, Sphinx, mdBook, etc.) and multiple versions of those projects. It provides a simple HTTP API and a companion CLI to push, tag and serve documented sites from a single instance.

Key Features

• Host multiple documentation projects with multiple versions and per-version tagging (e.g., latest).
• Push documentation archives via an HTTP API or the provided CLI tool (docatl) for CI/CD integration.
• Built-in static file serving with a web frontend and full-text search for hosted docs.
• Docker-first distribution (container image) and Dockerfile for easy deployment and updates.
• Frontend is configurable via a simple JSON config (header/footer HTML) and supports serving static files from a mounted volume.
• Simple project claiming and token-based control for modification actions; README recommends protecting write endpoints (e.g., HTTP basic auth).
• Designed to be minimal and easy to operate: focuses on hosting and versioning only, not authoring.

Use Cases

• Host internal or public product documentation with versioned releases for software teams.
• Integrate documentation publishing into CI pipelines to automatically deploy new versions of docs.
• Provide a single, self-hosted docs portal for multiple projects where users can switch between released versions.

Limitations and Considerations

• By default the server allows unauthenticated uploads and modifications until a project is claimed; administrators should secure the API (README recommends HTTP basic auth for POST/PUT/DELETE).
• DOCAT is a host for static documentation only — it does not provide authoring, rendering pipelines, or dynamic content generation.
• There is limited built-in access control and no advanced role-based permissions; for public deployments additional reverse-proxy authentication or network controls are recommended.

DOCAT is a focused, pragmatic tool for teams that need a simple, versioned documentation host with easy CI integration. It emphasizes ease of deployment and minimal configuration while leaving authoring and build workflows to established static documentation tools.

Markopolis is a web application and API server that publishes Markdown notes as websites while exposing a REST API to manage and interact with those notes programmatically. It is designed for personal knowledge bases and simple documentation sites, with an emphasis on Obsidian-compatible Markdown and easy self-hosting.

Key Features

• Publish a folder of Markdown files as a website with instant rendering and theme support
• REST API to upload, list, and retrieve Markdown content and document sections
• Obsidian-flavored Markdown compatibility (callouts, equations, code highlighting)
• Full-text fuzzy search across the notes vault
• CLI and Python package for automating uploads and publishing workflows
• Docker images and docker-compose examples for simple deployment
• API key protection for endpoints and simple site configuration via environment variables

Use Cases

• Host and publish a personal notes vault or Obsidian vault as a searchable website
• Drive static sites or custom frontends by consuming Markdown content through the REST API
• Lightweight documentation site for projects or teams that prefer Markdown-first workflows

Limitations and Considerations

• Relies on a PocketBase-backed datastore (SQLite by default), which may limit scalability for very large deployments
• CLI requires Python 3.12 or newer for some tooling and automation features
• Focused on personal/technical documentation use cases; advanced multi-tenant user management and enterprise access controls are limited

Markopolis is intended for users who want a simple, extensible Markdown publishing platform with an API-first approach. It balances quick setup and practical API access for building custom frontends or automations around Markdown notes.

eziwiki is a minimal, static wiki and documentation site generator that builds documentation sites from Markdown content. It uses TypeScript for site configuration and outputs static files suitable for deployment to common static hosts.

Key Features

• Write content in plain Markdown with optional frontmatter for pages
• Configure site metadata, navigation, and theme via a TypeScript payload/config file
• Built with Next.js and TypeScript, exports a static site for deployment
• Hash-based URLs for page privacy and stable internal linking
• Customizable navigation structure (folders, hidden pages, colored folder entries)
• Simple developer workflow: local dev server, build, and commands to validate payload and list generated URLs

Use Cases

• Personal knowledge base or notes site authored in Markdown
• Project or API documentation site with configurable navigation and themes
• Lightweight internal docs portal that can be exported and hosted as static files

Limitations and Considerations

• Uses hash-based URLs which can hinder conventional SEO and direct pretty-linking
• No built-in server-side features, user accounts, or in-browser editing; content must be authored and built from source
• Lacks an integrated full-text search out of the box (requires adding search/indexing separately)

eziwiki is suited for users who want a simple, code-first documentation generator that produces static output and is easy to customize via TypeScript. It emphasizes minimalism, Markdown-first content, and straightforward deployment.