Docusaurus

Docusaurus is Meta's documentation framework, and it shows — the defaults are opinionated, polished, and get you from zero to published docs in an afternoon. React-based, MDX-powered, with built-in versioning, i18n, and search. It powers docs for React, Jest, Prettier, and hundreds of open-source projects.

VitePress is the Vue-based alternative — faster build times, lighter output, but no versioning or i18n without plugins. Nextra is Next.js-native, ideal if your docs live alongside a Next.js app. Astro's Starlight is the newcomer shipping less JavaScript.

Use Docusaurus if you're documenting an open-source project or API and want versioned docs, multiple language support, and a theme that looks professional out of the box.

The catch: it's React-heavy, which means larger bundles than VitePress or Astro-based alternatives. Build times for large doc sites can be slow compared to VitePress. And the plugin system, while functional, isn't as elegant as you'd expect from a Meta project. If you don't need versioning or i18n, simpler tools ship faster.