Asciidoctor vs Doxygen
Asciidoctor
asciidoctor.org
Doxygen
doxygen.nlSide by side
| Figure | Asciidoctor | Doxygen |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | Yes | — |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Documentation Generators | 8.9 (#1) | 7.8 (#11) |
| License | The processor is open source software available under the MIT license. | Doxygen is licensed under the GNU General Public License and is provided without express or implied warranty. |
| Output formats | The core processor includes HTML 5, DocBook 5 and man page converters; PDF and EPUB 3 converters are provided separately. | Doxygen generates HTML, PDF via LaTeX, Word via RTF and XML documentation. |
| Purpose | Asciidoctor parses AsciiDoc source and converts it into publishable formats such as HTML 5 and PDF. | Doxygen is a documentation generator that creates documentation from source-code comments and parses classes, functions and variables. |
| Support | The documentation directs users seeking real-time community support to the project chat’s #users stream. | Users are directed to Stack Overflow and the doxygen users mailing list, while commercial feature or bug-fix support has limited capacity. |
Plans
In their own words
Asciidoctor
Asciidoctor is a free, open-source text processor and publishing toolchain for converting AsciiDoc files or strings into formats such as HTML5, DocBook, PDF, EPUB 3 and manual pages. Its core includes converters for HTML5, DocBook 5 and man pages; PDF and EPUB 3 conversion comes from separate gems. Documents can be processed through a command-line interface or Ruby API. Asciidoctor runs with Ruby, on the JVM through AsciidoctorJ, or in JavaScript environments through Asciidoctor.js, and supports Linux, macOS and Windows. The wider ecosystem includes Maven and Gradle plugins, browser and editor extensions, and diagram tools. Default HTML output includes a stylesheet and integrations such as Font Awesome, highlight.js, Rouge, Pygments and MathJax. It is distributed as a RubyGem, Docker image, Linux packages and macOS packages, and is licensed under MIT. Its security modes include SECURE, SAFE, SERVER and UNSAFE; safe modes do not sanitize generated output or provide a comprehensive security framework.
Doxygen
Doxygen is a free documentation generator that turns source-code comments into reference material, parsing items such as classes, functions and variables. It supports C/C++, Lex, Java, Python, VHDL, PHP IDL, C#, Fortran, Objective-C 2.0 and some D sources. Output can be generated as HTML, PDF through LaTeX, Word through RTF or structured XML for external tools. Graphviz’s dot tool can add include-dependency, collaboration, call, directory-structure and class-hierarchy diagrams. Doxywizard provides a graphical interface for editing settings and running the generator on Windows, Linux and macOS; Doxygen also works on many Unix flavors. It supports HTML Help, docsets, Qt-Help and Eclipse Help, with more than 100 configurable options. The tool runs without registration and does not collect personal or usage data. It is self-hosted and licensed under the GNU General Public License, without express or implied warranty. Help is listed through Stack Overflow and the doxygen users mailing list; commercial feature and bug-fix support has limited capacity.