Read the Docs
Documentation hosting for you.
Overview
Read the Docs is a platform that automates the process of building, versioning, and hosting technical documentation for the open-source community and commercial projects. It pulls content from source control repositories like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket, and uses popular toolchains like Sphinx or MkDocs to generate a documentation website. It is the de facto standard for documentation in the Python community and widely used across the software development world.
✨ Key Features
- Automated builds from Git repositories
- Hosting for multiple versions of documentation
- Full-text search
- Custom domain support
- Downloadable documentation (PDF, ePub)
- Traffic analytics
- Pull request previews
🎯 Key Differentiators
- Deeply integrated with the docs-as-code ecosystem (Sphinx, MkDocs)
- Robust versioning support is core to the platform
- Strong reputation and trust within the open-source community
Unique Value: Automates the entire lifecycle of technical documentation, allowing developers to focus on writing content in their preferred format while Read the Docs handles the building, versioning, and hosting.
🎯 Use Cases (4)
✅ Best For
- Hosting the official documentation for a popular open-source software project
- Automatically building and deploying versioned API documentation from a source code repository
💡 Check With Vendor
Verify these considerations match your specific requirements:
- Non-technical team wikis
- Real-time collaborative editing
- MSP client documentation
🏆 Alternatives
More powerful and feature-rich for versioned technical documentation than GitHub Pages, and more developer-centric and automated than GitBook.
💻 Platforms
🔌 Integrations
🛟 Support Options
- ✓ Email Support
- ✓ Dedicated Support (Enterprise tier)
🔒 Compliance & Security
💰 Pricing
✓ 14-day free trial
Free tier: For open source, public projects only
🔄 Similar Tools in Documentation Management
IT Glue
A leading documentation platform for MSPs, centralizing IT assets, passwords, and procedural knowled...
Hudu
A fast-growing IT documentation platform for MSPs, known for its self-hosting option and modern inte...
Confluence
A widely-used team collaboration and wiki tool for creating, organizing, and discussing work....
Notion
An all-in-one workspace for notes, docs, wikis, and project management, known for its flexibility....
Document360
A comprehensive platform for creating self-service knowledge bases for both internal and external au...
Slab
A clean and simple knowledge base and wiki for modern teams, focused on content and ease of use....