blume

Blume turns a folder of Markdown files into a full docs website: navigation, search, themes, API reference pages, social images, and an llms.txt so AI tools can read your docs too. It's MIT licensed and there's no paid version. The pricing page literally says "Blume is free."

Run npx blume init, write Markdown, build, and you get static files you can drop on Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, GitHub Pages or any CDN. Under the hood it generates a hidden Astro project, and npx blume eject hands that project to you when you outgrow the defaults. Search runs locally with Orama, so there's no Algolia bill. The optional AI assistant and MCP server need a server deployment and your own model API key.

This is the free answer to Mintlify, whose Pro plan runs $450 a month. Solo devs and small teams that write docs in Git get most of what Mintlify sells. Teams with non-technical writers should look harder, because there's no web editor. Docusaurus (facebook/docusaurus) is the safe, boring default; Fumadocs and Starlight are the closest newer options.

The catch: one main maintainer, launched in mid-2026 and already on version 2, so expect breaking config changes. Turn on the assistant and you own the token bill and the rate limiting.