The Read the Docs
alternative for
builders on a budget.
Open-source documentation hosting. Dokly is a visual MDX editor with AI that generates whole doc sites, custom domains, auto-generated llms.txt, and flat pricing starting at $0.
Free forever · No credit card · Ship in 5 minutes
What is Dokly?
Dokly is a documentation platform for shipping beautiful MDX docs without git. Visual editor, AI writing, auto-generated llms.txt, and custom domains from $19/month. Built as a simpler, cheaper Read the Docs alternative — Dokly Pro is $49/month vs Read the Docs's $150.
Teams switching from Read the Docs to Dokly typically migrate in an afternoon. Pages are written in a WYSIWYG editor with slash commands and AI inline edits, with full MDX components — callouts, tabs, steps, code groups, accordions. Every published site is server-side rendered, ships with a machine-readable llms.txt manifest, and is indexed by ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor, and Perplexity. Pricing is flat: Free $0, Starter $19, Pro $49, Scale $99 — no per-seat surprises. Built with Next.js 15 and Supabase, deployed on Vercel, with sub-100ms page loads via static generation and on-demand revalidation. Most teams ship their first docs site in under 10 minutes.
Read the Docs is a legend. Free hosting for open-source, Sphinx/MkDocs support, generations of Python docs live there. Respect.
Business tiers run $50–$250/month and the content format is still RST or Markdown-via-Sphinx. For modern frontend teams who want MDX and React, it's a rough fit.
Why teams pick Dokly over Read the Docs
Docs that write themselves.
Docs AI agents can actually read.
Start with a paragraph describing your product. Dokly AI scaffolds the whole site. Every page ships with llms.txt so ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Cursor can cite you.
Generate a whole doc site from a brief
Describe your product in a paragraph. Dokly drafts the full site structure — quickstart, guides, API reference — as real MDX pages you can edit.
Generate individual pages on demand
Need a new page? Hit 'Generate with AI' in the editor, describe what it should cover, and get a draft in seconds. Edit in place — it's just MDX.
Improve writing in place
Rewrite for clarity, tighten prose, fix tone. Highlight a paragraph and the AI edits exactly that — not the whole page.
llms.txt, auto-generated
Every Dokly site exposes an llms.txt so ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, and Cursor can parse and cite your docs. No config, no plugin.
AI-powered search for readers
Pro tier gives readers an AI answer box on top of fuzzy search. Ask a question, get a cited answer pulled from your pages.
More coming
Semantic linking between pages, AI-drafted changelogs from git diffs, automated translation, and an /llms-full.txt endpoint. Shipping through Q2.
Dokly vs Read the Docs
We call the wins honestly — and the places Read the Docs is still stronger.
| Feature |  Dokly | Read the Docs |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Forever | Community (ads, OSS-only) |
| Entry paid plan | $49/mo (Pro) | $50/mo (Basic) |
| Mid paid plan | $99/mo (Scale) | $150/mo (Advanced) |
| Top paid plan | Custom | $250/mo (Pro) |
| Content format | MDX | RST / Markdown (via Sphinx / MkDocs) |
| Build step | None | Sphinx build required |
| Visual editor | WYSIWYG MDX | None (edit in repo) |
| React components | Limited | |
| Default design | Modern 2026 | Sphinx classic / Furo |
| Custom domains | Unlimited on Pro | 2–15 per tier |
| Versioned docsEmail support@dokly.co for beta access | Beta (contact us) | |
| Open-source project fitRTD wins for OSS | Paid | Free Community tier |
| llms.txt | Auto-generated | Manual |
The six features you'll use every day
Moving from Read the Docs
Honest take: there's no magic importer. It's a copy-paste job today. For most sites it takes an afternoon.
Convert RST to Markdown
Tools like pandoc or rst2md convert .rst to Markdown. Run it over your docs/ tree to get a clean Markdown base.
Paste into Dokly
Create a project and paste Markdown pages into the editor. Admonitions, code blocks, and links carry over cleanly.
Customize + launch
Pick a brand color, attach a domain on Pro, publish. Your docs look like 2026 instead of 2016.
Moving a large site? Email support@dokly.co — we'll help you move it.
Real numbers. No footnotes.
Pricing pulled from Read the Docs's own pricing page on Apr 24, 2026.
Dokly ProDokly Pro vs RTD Advanced. Against RTD Basic ($50/mo) savings are minimal; against Pro ($250/mo) savings are $2,412/yr.
DoklyFlat ratePrices verified Apr 24, 2026 from about.readthedocs.com/pricing/.
Questions we actually get
Ready to ship docs in an afternoon?
Start free, bring your MDX, flip your domain when you're ready. No sales call. No credit card.