MkDocs vs Sphinx

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In the landscape of libraries for generating automatic documentation and static sites, we cannot fail to mention Sphinx, which perhaps represented the Python standard until a few years ago.

You can already find a reference to Sphinx and its features within this article.

In this section, instead, we will schematically compare the characteristics of Sphinx and MkDocs to highlight the strengths of both.

	MkDocs	Sphinx
Supported Formats	Markdown	reStructuredText (rST) but with the myst-parser extension supports Markdown
Startup	Easy with the command poetry run mkdocs .	Simple with the command sphinx-quickstart
Configuration	Utilizes a YAML file mkdocs.yml	Utilizes a Python file conf.py
Layout	Elegant and appealing, also navigable	Somewhat dated. The Read the Docs theme is iconic
Build	Provides a local server to fully test the site. Convenient command poetry run mkdocs serve	Generates the site build but the user must then test it in their browser. This is done with make html
Extensions	There are many but not all are maintained	There are many extensions but the community is less active compared to MkDocs
Customization	Infinite possibilities thanks to CSS integration and available themes	Decidedly less customizable
Third-party Integration	Integration with Confluence with this extension	Integration with Confluence with this extension