You picked a documentation tool before. You’ll pick one again. Here’s what actually matters - and where docmd stands.

Start writing in 3 seconds, not 30 minutes

docmd
Docusaurus
VitePress
MkDocs
npx @docmd/core dev

Done. Your docs are live. No config files, no project scaffolding, no dependency maze.

npx create-docusaurus@latest my-site classic
cd my-site
npm install
npm start

Four commands, a generated project with ~250MB in node_modules, and a docusaurus.config.js you’ll need to edit before anything useful happens.

npx vitepress init

Asks you 5 questions, generates a config file, then you run vitepress dev. Clean - but still requires scaffolding.

pip install mkdocs-material
mkdocs new my-site && cd my-site
mkdocs serve

Python ecosystem. You’ll need pip, a virtual environment, and a mkdocs.yml before the first page renders.

The payload gap is real

Your readers shouldn’t download a React app just to read a paragraph. Here’s what the browser actually receives on a 50-page site:

Generator Total initial load JS payload CSS payload
docmd ~18 KB ~12 KB ~6 KB
MkDocs Material ~40 KB ~25 KB ~15 KB
VitePress ~50 KB ~35 KB ~15 KB
Mintlify ~120 KB ~80 KB ~40 KB
Docusaurus ~250 KB ~200 KB ~50 KB
Why this matters

Every 100 KB of JavaScript costs ~50ms of parse time on a mid-range phone. docmd’s 12 KB JS means your docs load instantly, even on 3G. Docusaurus ships 16× more JavaScript for the same content.

Build speed

Building the same 50-page site on an M1 MacBook Air:

Generator Cold build Hot rebuild (dev)
docmd ~1.2s ~80ms
VitePress ~2.5s ~150ms
MkDocs Material ~3.0s ~500ms
Docusaurus ~15s ~2s

docmd rebuilds are fast enough that the page refreshes before you switch windows.

i18n that actually works

This is where most tools fall apart. You add 6 languages, translate 3 pages in Hindi, and suddenly your users hit 404s on every untranslated page.

Capability docmd VitePress Docusaurus Starlight
Per-page fallback to default locale ✅ ❌ (404) ❌ (404) ✅
Localised “not translated” warning ✅ ❌ ❌ ✅
Auto-disable missing locales in switcher ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌
Instant page-existence check (no network) ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌
Versioning + i18n combined ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌
Zero-config (no custom React/Vue) ✅ Partial ❌ ✅
What happens in VitePress and Docusaurus

If a reader switches to Hindi and that page isn’t translated, they get a 404 error. The only workaround is server-side redirects or writing a custom React/Vue component. docmd handles this at build time - unavailable locales show an “N/A” badge, and untranslated pages fall back silently with a localised warning callout.

Workspace

Organisations maintaining multiple tools under one domain need separate docs for each - different versions, different navigation, different release cycles. Most generators force you to either maintain separate sites or hack around plugin systems.

Capability docmd Docusaurus VitePress MkDocs Starlight
Native workspace support ✅ Plugin ❌ Plugin ❌
Single config line per project ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
Independent versioning per project ✅ ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌
Independent i18n per project ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
Shared assets across projects ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
Single site/ output (no proxy needed) ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
Zero-config detection ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
How docmd does it
{
  "workspace": {
    "projects": [
      { "prefix": "/", "src": "main-docs", "title": "Docs" },
      { "prefix": "/sdk", "src": "sdk-docs", "title": "SDK" }
    ]
  }
}

Each project folder has its own docmd.config.json with independent configuration. One npx @docmd/core build produces a single deployable directory - no reverse proxy, no nginx, no separate CI pipelines.

Docusaurus achieves something similar with multi-instance plugins, but requires complex configuration - each instance needs separate plugin entries, sidebar files, and manual route configuration. MkDocs requires the third-party mkdocs-monorepo-plugin. VitePress, Starlight, and Mintlify have no native workspace support.

Full feature matrix

Feature docmd Docusaurus VitePress MkDocs Material Starlight Mintlify
Zero-config start ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
Config required None docusaurus.config.js config.mts mkdocs.yml astro.config.mjs mint.json
Workspace ✅ Plugin ❌ Plugin ❌ ❌
SPA navigation ✅ ✅ ✅ ❌ ✅ ✅
Native versioning ✅ ✅ ❌ Plugin ❌ ✅
Native i18n ✅ ✅ Manual Plugin ✅ ✅
Built-in search ✅ ❌ (Algolia) ✅ ✅ ✅ Cloud
llms.txt ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
Inline discussions ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
PWA support ✅ Community ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
Self-hosted ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ❌
Deploy config generator ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌ N/A

Configuration overhead

Lines of config required for a site with versioning, i18n, search, and sitemap:

Generator Config lines Files required
docmd ~15 lines 1 (docmd.config.json)
MkDocs Material ~50 lines 1 + plugins
VitePress ~80 lines 1 + theme dir
Docusaurus ~120 lines 3+ config files

Quality assurance

docmd ships with a brute test suite that validates 25 distinct scenarios across 85 assertions - covering every feature in isolation and in combination. Every release must pass all 85 assertions and 13 internal failsafe checks before shipping.

Run the tests yourself
git clone https://github.com/docmd-io/docmd.git
cd docmd && node scripts/brute-test.js

No other documentation generator in this class publishes a comparable end-to-end feature test suite as part of its source.

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