Apiary vs Javadoc

Apiary is a hosted web platform for designing, documenting, prototyping, and testing APIs. Its editor supports API Blueprint and OpenAPI (Swagger), with instant validation and a live preview as descriptions are written. Publishing a description creates a mock server that returns the responses specified in it; the default limit is 120 requests per minute, or 5,000 with authentication. Automated tests compare real API responses with expectations generated from the description. Apiary also supports OpenAPI import, interactive references, code samples, and API versioning. Teams can manage document access with Admin, Editor, and Viewer roles, and sync with GitHub. Branch-based GitHub integration is available on Pro. The free plan costs nothing and permits unlimited API projects and five participants per project, but projects are public and teams are not included. Standard and Pro are deprecated, with plan changes handled by support request for current customers. Embedding interactive documentation is supported on Standard and Pro.

Javadoc creates HTML API documentation from Java source files and is installed with the Java Development Kit (JDK). Its standard doclet describes public and protected Java types and members, including classes, interfaces, constructors, methods, and fields. It can process packages, individual source files, or both, with an option to include subpackages recursively. Alternate doclets can change the content and format of the generated output, while taglets add support for custom tags in documentation comments. The standard doclet includes DocLint to help identify common comment problems, but DocLint does not check conformance or repair errors. Oracle cautions that generated output may pose issues if it is non-conformant or contains executable content such as JavaScript. JDK 25 downloads are listed for Linux, macOS, and Windows. JDK 25 binaries are free under Oracle No-Fee Terms and Conditions through September 2028; later updates use a license that may require fees for production use beyond limited free grants.