MDX

MDX lets you put React components inside Markdown. Write prose in Markdown, drop in an interactive chart, a live code editor, or a custom callout box — all in the same file. It's the bridge between content and code that documentation sites and blogs have been waiting for.

If you're building docs, a blog, or a content-heavy site with Next.js or Astro, MDX lets your content do more than static text. Regular Markdown is the baseline — universal but limited. Markdoc (Stripe) offers similar extensibility with a different syntax. AsciiDoc is powerful but niche. Contentlayer was great for typed content but is abandoned.

Best for developer-focused sites where content needs interactive elements — documentation with live examples, blog posts with embedded demos, landing pages with dynamic components.

The catch: MDX adds build complexity. Error messages when your JSX is malformed inside Markdown are confusing. Performance can suffer with heavy components in content. And your content is no longer portable — MDX files only work in MDX-compatible systems, unlike plain Markdown that works everywhere.