Read the Docs

Read the Docs is the world’s most popular documentation hosting platform, serving over 55 million pages monthly for projects like Django, Requests, and thousands of open source projects. It revolutionizes technical documentation by automatically building and hosting docs directly from your Git repositories.

What makes Read the Docs indispensable is its zero-configuration approach to documentation hosting - connect your repository and it handles building, versioning, and deployment automatically. The platform supports multiple documentation formats and provides professional features like custom domains and analytics.

Open source maintainers and technical teams choose Read the Docs because it eliminates the complexity of documentation deployment. With automatic builds on every commit, multi-version support, and integrated search, it ensures documentation stays current and discoverable.

Key Features

• Automated Git Integration - Automatic builds triggered by Git commits with support for GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket • Multi-Version Documentation - Host multiple versions simultaneously with easy switching between releases and branches • Universal Format Support - Sphinx, MkDocs, Jupyter Book, and other popular documentation generators • Professional Search - Full-text search across all documentation versions with advanced filtering • Custom Domain Support - Use your own branded domain names with SSL certificates included • Multi-Format Export - Automatic PDF, EPUB, and downloadable documentation generation • Analytics & Insights - Detailed usage statistics, popular pages, and search query analytics • Internationalization Ready - Complete multi-language documentation support with translation workflows

Pros and Cons

Pros

• Completely free for open source projects with generous limits • Zero-configuration setup with automatic building and deployment • Excellent integration with popular documentation tools • Professional features like analytics and custom domains • Strong community support and extensive documentation

Cons

• Limited customization options for advanced branding needs • Build times can be slow for large documentation sites • Pricing for private projects may be expensive for small teams • Limited control over build environment and dependencies • Some advanced features require paid plans

Get Started with Read the Docs

Transform your documentation workflow with automatic building and professional hosting. Visit readthedocs.org to connect your repository and publish beautiful docs in minutes.