gomddoc vs GitBook
GitBook is a hosted documentation platform with a visual editor, collaboration features and Git sync. gomddoc is software you run yourself: it serves Markdown from a local folder or a Git repository to browsers and MCP clients, on your own infrastructure.
At a glance
| gomddoc | GitBook | |
|---|---|---|
| Type | Self-hosted server | Hosted SaaS platform |
| Where content lives | Markdown files in your folder or Git repository | GitBook's platform, optionally synced with GitHub or GitLab |
| Editing | Your editor and Git workflow | Visual editor in the browser, or Git |
| Serve a Git URL | Built in, with #branch:subdir |
Git sync between the platform and your repository |
| Collaboration | Pull requests in your Git host | Built-in comments and change requests |
| MCP server | Built in: stdio and HTTP at /_mcp/, on your infrastructure |
Platform-managed; see GitBook's documentation |
| Search | Server-side TF-IDF with tag: filters |
Platform search |
| Look and feel | 8 themes, fully editable Go templates and CSS | Platform customization options |
| Access control | HTTP Basic Auth, or your own proxy | Platform-managed |
| Metrics and health checks | Prometheus /metrics, /health/live, /health/ready |
Platform-managed |
| Data location | Your servers | GitBook's infrastructure |
| Pricing model | Free for noncommercial use; commercial licence per deployment | Free tier and paid plans |
| Licence | PolyForm Noncommercial 1.0.0 + commercial licence | Proprietary |
Both cost money for business use. gomddoc's commercial licence is priced per deployment; see licensing.
Where gomddoc differs
Your files stay the source of truth
With gomddoc, the Markdown in your repository is what gets served. There is no import step, no platform copy of the content and no sync to configure. The files render sensibly on GitHub and in any editor, and moving to another tool means pointing that tool at the same folder.
You run it
gomddoc runs wherever you run containers or binaries: a laptop, a VM, a Kubernetes cluster or a private network. You choose the domain, the reverse proxy, the authentication and the monitoring. Prometheus metrics, health endpoints, gzip, ETags, security headers and Basic Auth against a bcrypt htpasswd file are built in.
docker run --rm -p 8080:8080 -v "$PWD/docs:/content:ro" \
ghcr.io/monolithiclab/gomddoc serve /content
Serve straight from Git
gomddoc accepts a Git URL wherever it accepts a directory. The fragment selects a branch and a subdirectory, and private repositories work over SSH with a deploy key:
gomddoc serve "git+https://github.com/your-org/repo.git#main:docs"
gomddoc serve "git+ssh://git@github.com/your-org/docs.git" --git-key-file ~/.ssh/id_ed25519
The repository is shallow-cloned at startup and served as that snapshot. Restart the server to publish new commits.
MCP on your own infrastructure
gomddoc includes an MCP server with six tools, four resources and three prompts. Clients can search, read a page or a single section, list pages, get a table of contents and find related pages. Remote clients connect to /_mcp/ on your server. Local clients such as Claude Code or Cursor can run gomddoc mcp ./docs over stdio against a local working copy.
Any page URL also answers in Markdown, with a generated frontmatter block holding the page's metadata, related pages and previous/next links:
curl -H "Accept: text/markdown" https://docs.example.com/handbook/onboarding
Priced per deployment
gomddoc is free for personal projects, hobby work, education, research and noncommercial organizations. Business use needs a commercial licence from Monolithic Lab, priced per deployment. Adding readers or writers does not change the price. The licensing page has the details.
When GitBook is the better choice
- Non-technical contributors need a visual editor and should never touch Git.
- You want comments, change requests and review in the documentation tool itself.
- You prefer a managed service over running and monitoring a server.
- You need fine-grained team permissions or single sign-on beyond what Basic Auth and a proxy give you.
- You want analytics and other platform features without assembling them yourself.
Get started
brew install monolithiclab/tap/gomddoc
gomddoc preview --open ./docs
The getting started guide covers the other install options and the first configuration steps.