Dr.Explain vs Jupyter Book
Dr.Explain
drexplain.comJupyter Book
jupyterbook.orgSide by side
| Figure | Dr.Explain | Jupyter Book |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $24.17/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 8 | 1 |
| Spec score · Technical Documentation Software | 8.4 (#8) | 8.3 (#10) |
| Publishing audience | both | The project describes itself as built for and by researchers, educators, and data scientists. |
| Support | The maker offers multilingual technical and sales support by email and toll-free voicemail. | The project points users to its Discord community and GitHub Discussions, and directs most Jupyter Book 2 bug reports to the MyST repository. |
Plans
Dr.Explain
- FreeFree
- Business Temporary$290 a year
- Business Perpetual v.7$690, paid once
- Home Perpetual v.7$9,000, paid once
- Free Restricted LicenseFree
- Business License — Temporary$290 a year
- Business License — Perpetual for v.7$690, paid once
- Home License — Perpetual for v.7$9,000, paid once
In their own words
Dr.Explain
Dr.Explain is a Windows help authoring tool for creating user guides, operating instructions, help files, and manuals. It captures application windows or web pages and adds numbered callouts to interface elements. Documentation can be exported as HTML, CHM, PDF, or DOCX; imports include CHM, HLP, HTML, XML, DOC/DOCX, and TXT, with project structure and formatting preserved. For software integration, it supports Help Context IDs and creates map files in.h,.vb, and.inc formats. Multiple authors can work on a project through the free Tiwri.com service or a corporate server on the company's internal network. An in-program AI Assistant offers generation, translation, and proofreading. The desktop application requires 64-bit Windows 11, 10, 8, or 7. The free license has no time limit but restricts project size and watermarks exported images; it includes 20 topics. Business Temporary costs $290 a year for five users, and Business Perpetual v.7 costs $690, paid once for five users. Home Perpetual v.7 costs $9,000, paid once for one user and excludes commercial use.
Jupyter Book
Jupyter Book is an open-source tool for publishing reusable, reproducible computational narratives. Authors can build websites, PDFs, and other formats using MyST Markdown and Jupyter notebooks, with cross-references, citations, figures, tables, equations, and executable code blocks. Code may run during a build to produce computed figures, tables, and values, although execution is off by default. Pages can include interactive widgets, browser execution through a remote kernel, or launch buttons for Binder and JupyterHub. Deployment options include GitHub Pages, ReadTheDocs, Netlify, Vercel, CurveNote, GitLab Pages, and custom hosting. Plugins can add directives, roles, and content transforms. Installation is available through PyPI, conda-forge, and npm, with several package-manager routes. Jupyter Book 2 uses the MyST Document Engine; version 1 is mostly in maintenance mode. The free plan costs nothing.