# Docszero vs MkDocs: the same site, without the pipeline

MkDocs is free and always will be. What costs is the hosting, the CI job and the afternoons. Docszero builds with Zensical, the Material for MkDocs team’s own successor, and publishes it for you.

_Source: https://docszero.com/compare/mkdocs_
_Comparison · Docszero vs MkDocs_
_Published 10 September 2026, prices checked 10 September 2026_

> **In short:** Self-hosted MkDocs is the better choice if you already have a repository, a CI job and someone who is happy maintaining them — it is free, and it is yours. Docszero is the better choice if you want the site those things produce without being the person who keeps them running.

## what mkdocs hosting costs

Read from https://about.readthedocs.com/pricing/ on 10 September 2026.

- **MkDocs and Material** — Free. Open source. You run the build.
- **GitHub Pages** — Free on public repos. A private repo needs a paid GitHub plan.
- **Read the Docs Community** — Free. Open source projects only, ads supported.
- **Read the Docs Business** — $50 / month and up. Basic $50, Advanced $150, Pro $250.

## The short answer

MkDocs is free software and nothing on this page is going to argue with that. Neither is the price comparison, because there isn’t one: MkDocs costs nothing, Material for MkDocs costs nothing, and as of version 9.7.0 in November 2025 even the features that were once sponsor-only are free to everyone.

What costs something is everything around the build. A repository, a CI job, a Python environment that has to keep working, somewhere to put the output, a DNS record, a certificate, and the person who fixes all of it when a dependency moves. For a team with an engineer who enjoys that, it is close to free. For a team without one, it is the reason the docs are still in a Google Doc.

> Docszero builds sites with [Zensical](https://zensical.org/), which the Material for MkDocs team wrote as their own next generation and released under MIT. Moving here is not leaving the MkDocs family — it is staying in it and skipping the setup. Our **Export source** gives you your Markdown with a config that builds with plain Zensical, so going back to self-hosting is a download.

## What changed in November 2025

If you run Material for MkDocs, this is worth knowing before you plan the next year of your docs. With 9.7.0 the project [made every Insiders feature free](https://squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material/blog/2025/11/11/insiders-now-free-for-everyone/), discontinued the sponsorware model, and entered maintenance mode: bug and security fixes for at least twelve months, and no new features. The team’s attention moved to Zensical.

That is a generous way to wind a project down, and it leaves existing sites working. It also means the theme most MkDocs sites are built on is now a fixed target. Nothing breaks tomorrow. But the roadmap you were on has arrived at its destination, and the next one is Zensical either way — self-hosted, or here.

## What hosting it actually costs

Three routes, and the money is only part of what separates them.

|   | What you pay | What you maintain |
| --- | --- | --- |
| GitHub Pages | Free on a public repo; a private repo needs a paid GitHub plan | A workflow file, the build, Actions minutes, DNS and the theme |
| Read the Docs Community | Free for open source, ads shown to your readers | A config file and the build, plus your project staying open source |
| Read the Docs Business | $50, $150 or $250 a month | A config file and the build |
| Docszero Free | Nothing, one site | Nothing. Write the Markdown |
| Docszero Pro | $19.99 a month, or $199.90 a year, ten sites | Nothing. Write the Markdown |

GitHub Pages on a public repository really is free, and for an open source project it is hard to beat. The cost arrives when the docs are for a product rather than a project: a private repo, a paid plan, a workflow someone owns, and a build that fails on a Friday because a plugin released a major version.

## Where self-hosted MkDocs is the better choice

These are good reasons and we are not going to talk you out of them.

- You want to pay nothing, ever, and you have somewhere to put the output.
- Your docs must build offline, or inside a network that does not reach us.
- You depend on the plugin ecosystem — mkdocstrings, API pages generated from source, a custom hook.
- You want your own theme, or a fork of one, with no limits on what you can change.
- Docs live in the repository and version with the code, reviewed in the same pull requests.
- You would rather own the whole pipeline than trust a service with it.

Docszero does none of that. There are no plugins, no hooks, and no way to fork the theme; you get four themes, a brand colour and a logo. If what you like about MkDocs is that it does exactly what you tell it, you will find this restrictive, and you would be right.

## Where Docszero is the better choice

- Nobody on the team wants to own a docs pipeline, and the docs are late because of it.
- Your writers are not engineers, and a pull request is a wall rather than a workflow.
- You want a private docs site without moving to a $50-a-month plan to get one.
- Some of the source material is a Word document or a PDF rather than Markdown.
- You want reader numbers without adding a third-party script and a cookie banner.
- You run docs for several products and would rather not stand up several pipelines.

### Bringing an MkDocs site over

This is the easiest migration of any on this site, because it is already the right shape. Zip your `docs/` folder and upload it. If `mkdocs.yml` or `zensical.toml` is in the zip we read your site name, description, language and navigation out of it, so your structure survives rather than being rebuilt by hand.

What will not come across is anything a plugin was doing: generated API pages, custom hooks, and theme overrides are not part of a Markdown file, so pages that depend on them need writing out. Ordinary Markdown, images, links and mermaid diagrams all arrive intact.

> The export button means this decision is not permanent in either direction. Try it on the free plan with a copy of your docs folder, and if you would rather keep the pipeline, export the source and carry on as you were.

## So which one

If you have the engineer and the appetite, self-host. It is free, it is completely yours, and the tools are genuinely good. That is not a consolation prize; it is the right answer for a lot of projects.

If the pipeline is the reason your documentation keeps slipping, the honest fix is to stop owning one. Docszero publishes the same family of site, free for one, $19.99 a month for ten, and hands the source back whenever you ask for it.

## Questions

### Where can I host an MkDocs site for free?

GitHub Pages hosts a public repository’s MkDocs build for free, and Read the Docs Community is free for open source projects with ads shown to readers. Both expect you to maintain the build. Docszero’s free plan publishes one site with no build to maintain, though it is not MkDocs itself: it builds with Zensical, written by the Material for MkDocs team as their successor.

### How much does Read the Docs cost?

Read the Docs Community is free for open source projects and is ads supported. Read the Docs Business lists Basic at $50 a month, Advanced at $150 and Pro at $250, with a 30-day trial. Read from about.readthedocs.com/pricing on 10 September 2026.

### Is Material for MkDocs still maintained?

It is in maintenance mode. Version 9.7.0, released in November 2025, made all previously sponsor-only Insiders features free to everyone and discontinued the sponsorware model. The project receives bug and security fixes for at least twelve months and no new features; the team moved on to Zensical, their next-generation generator, released under MIT.

### Can I move an existing MkDocs site to Docszero?

Yes, and it is the simplest import we handle. Zip your docs folder and upload it. An mkdocs.yml or zensical.toml in the zip is read for your site name, description, language and navigation, so the structure comes with it. Plugin-generated pages, custom hooks and theme overrides do not transfer, since none of them live in a Markdown file.

### Can I go back to self-hosting later?

Yes, on every plan including the free one. Export source gives you your Markdown with a generated config that builds with plain Zensical, no Docszero involved. That is the whole point of the button existing on the free plan.

---

Published by Docszero (https://docszero.com) — docs, minus the setup. Upload Markdown, a Word document or a PDF and get a searchable documentation site. Free for one site; export the source on every plan.