Comparison of documentation generators

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The following tables compare general and technical information for a number of documentation generators. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date. Unless otherwise specified in footnotes, comparisons are based on the stable versions without any add-ons, extensions or external programs.

Contents

[edit] General information

Basic general information about the generators: creator/company, license/price etc.

Creator First public release date Latest stable version Cost (USD) Software license
BI Documenter Mienasoft 2006 1.5 Free Proprietary
DB Manual Blue Oceans Ltd 2006 1.3 from $99 Proprietary
DBScribe Leadum Software 2007 1.1 from $99, Free for MySQL Proprietary
classdoc Jens Gulden 2001 1.0 Free GPL
CppDoc Richard Feit November 23, 1998 2.3.1 Free Proprietary
Ddoc Walter Bright September 19, 2005 0.164 Free GPL
Doc-O-Matic toolsfactory software inc Nov. 2000 4.5 from US$499 Proprietary
Doxygen Dimitri van Heesch 1997 1.5.1 Free GPL
Epydoc Edward Loper January 2002 2.1 Free MIT License
HeaderDoc Apple Computer  ? 8 Free APSL
Help Generator Agora Software BV August 2004 3.0 US$299 Proprietary
Javadoc Sun Microsystems  ? 1.5 Free (Part of the Java 2 SDK) Proprietary
JSDoc Michael Mathews July 2001 1.9.3 Free GPL
KDOC Sirtaj Singh Kang 1999 3.0.1 Free  ?
Natural Docs Greg Valure May 26, 2003 1.35 Free GPL
NDoc Kevin Downs - open source July 27, 2003 1.3.1 Free GPL
phpDocumentor Joshua Eichorn 2000 1.3.0 Free LGPL
Project Analyzer Aivosto Oy 8.0 From US$299 Proprietary
RDoc Dave Thomas December 14, 2001 in Ruby core Free Ruby License
ROBODoc Frans Slothouber January 19, 1995 4.99.28 Free GPL
TwinText PTLogica 2002 2.0.325 US$169 Proprietary
VBDOX Mihayl Stamenov October 26, 2001 2.1.0 Free GPL
VSdocman Helixoft Oct. 2000 2.21 from US$58 Proprietary
Creator First public release date Latest stable version Cost (USD) Software license

[edit] Operating system support

The operating systems the generators can run on.

Windows Mac OS X Linux BSD Unix
BI Documenter Yes No No No No
DB Manual Yes No No No No
DBScribe Yes No No No No
classdoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
CppDoc Yes No Yes No No
Ddoc Yes No Yes No No
Doc-O-Matic Yes No No No No
Doxygen Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Epydoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
HeaderDoc No Yes Yes Yes Yes
Help Generator Yes No No No No
Javadoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
JSDoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
KDOC Partial Yes Yes Yes Yes
Natural Docs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
NDoc Yes No No No No
phpDocumentor Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
Project Analyzer Yes No No No No
RDoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
ROBODoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
TwinText Yes No No No No
VBDOX Yes No No No No
VSdocman Yes No No No No
Windows Mac OS X Linux BSD Unix

[edit] Language support

The factual accuracy of this section is disputed.
Please see the relevant discussion on the talk page

The programming languages the generators recognize.

C/C++ Java C# VB / VBScript Delphi / Pascal Ada D IDL .NET1 Access
BI Documenter No No No No No No No No Yes No
DB Manual No No No No No No No No Yes No
DBScribe No No No No No No No No No No
classdoc No Yes No No No No No No No No
CppDoc Yes No No No No No No No No No
Ddoc No No No No No No Yes No No No
Doc-O-Matic Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No Yes Yes No
Doxygen Yes Yes Yes No No No Partial Yes No No
Epydoc No No No No No No No No No No
HeaderDoc Yes Yes No No Yes No No No No No
Help Generator Yes No Yes Yes No No No No Yes Yes
Javadoc No Yes No No No No No No No No
JSDoc No No No No No No No No No No
KDOC Yes No No No No No No Yes No No
Natural Docs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No
NDoc No No Yes No No No No No Yes No
phpDocumentor No No No No No No No No No No
Project Analyzer No No No Yes No No No No Yes No
RDoc No No No No No No No No No No
ROBODoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No No
TwinText Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Partial Yes Yes No
VBDOX No No No Yes No No No No No No
VSdocman No No No Yes No No No No Yes No
C/C++ Java C# VB / VBScript Delphi / Pascal Ada D IDL .NET1
PHP Perl Python Ruby JavaScript ActionScript PL/SQL Tcl Any With Comments2
BI Documenter No No No No No No No No No
DB Manual No No No No No No No No No
DBScribe No No No No No No Yes No No
classdoc No No No No No No No No No
CppDoc No No No No No No No No No
Ddoc No No No No No No No No No
Doc-O-Matic No No No No Yes No No No No
Doxygen Yes No Yes No No No No No No
Epydoc No No Yes No No No No No No
HeaderDoc Yes Yes No No Yes No No No No
Javadoc No No No No No No No No No
JSDoc No No No No Yes No No No No
KDOC No No No No No No No No No
Natural Docs Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
NDoc No No No No No No No No No
phpDocumentor Yes No No No No No No No No
Project Analyzer No No No No No No No No No
RDoc No No No Yes No No No No No
ROBODoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
TwinText Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes
VBDOX No No No No No No No No No
VSdocman No No No No No No No No No
PHP Perl Python Ruby JavaScript ActionScript PL/SQL Tcl Any With Comments2

Note (1): .NET is not a programming language, but is listed here for convenience.

Note (2): Generators listed here can be extended to support any language that has comments.

[edit] Input formats

The input formats the generators can read.

Text Binary
BI Documenter No Yes
DB Manual No Yes
DBScribe No Yes
classdoc No Yes
CppDoc Yes No
Ddoc Yes No
Doc-O-Matic Yes No
Doxygen Yes No
Epydoc Yes No
HeaderDoc Yes No
Help Generator Yes Yes
Javadoc Yes No
JSDoc Yes (n/a)
KDOC Yes No
Natural Docs Yes No
NDoc No Yes
phpDocumentor Yes No
Project Analyzer Yes Yes
RDoc Yes No
ROBODoc Yes No
TwinText Yes Yes
VBDOX Yes No
VSdocman Yes No
Text Binary

[edit] Output formats

The output formats the generators can write.

HTML CHM RTF PDF LaTeX PostScript man pages DocBook XML
BI Documenter Yes Yes No No No No No No No
DB Manual Yes Yes No No No No No No No
DBScribe Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No
classdoc Yes No No No No No No No No
CppDoc Yes No No No No No No No No
Ddoc Yes No No No No No No No No
Doc-O-Matic Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No
Doxygen Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No Yes
Epydoc Yes No No Yes Indirectly3 Indirectly3 No No No
HeaderDoc Yes No No No No No Yes No Yes
Help Generator Yes Yes Yes No No No No No Yes
Javadoc Yes No No No No No No No No
JSDoc Yes No No No No No No No (planned)
KDOC Yes No No No No No No No No
Natural Docs Yes No No No No No No No No
NDoc Yes Yes No No No No No No No
phpDocumentor Yes Yes No Yes No No No Yes Yes
Project Analyzer Yes Yes Yes Yes No No No No No
RDoc Yes No No No No No No No No
ROBODoc Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes Yes No
TwinText Yes Yes No No No No No No No
VBDOX Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No
VSdocman Yes Yes Yes No No No No No No
HTML CHM RTF PDF LaTeX PostScript man pages DocBook XML

Note (3): Though not officially supported as an output format, Epydoc uses LaTeX and PostScript as intermediate steps to produce the final PDF documentation.

[edit] Other features

possibility of extended customization generated diagrams highlighting and linking of generated doc parameter types extracted
BI Documenter
DB Manual
DBScribe
classdoc
CppDoc
Ddoc
Doc-O-Matic
Doxygen with XSLT dependency graphs, inheritance diagrams, collaboration diagrams
Epydoc
HeaderDoc
Help Generator
Javadoc
JSDoc Yes
KDOC
Natural Docs
NDoc
phpDocumentor Smarty-based templates class inheritance diagrams cross reference to generated documentation, and to php.net function reference Yes
Project Analyzer File dependencies, inheritance, control flow, data flow, variable access, class instantiation, data declaration, Form.Show order, procedure calls, project dependencies, file belongs to project, class cohesion. Cross-referenced source code
RDoc
ROBODoc
TwinText
VBDOX
VSdocman
possibility of extended customization generated diagrams highlighting and linking of generated doc parameter types extracted
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