Doctave vs zk
A side-by-side comparison of two self-hosted wikis & documentation options — licensing, setup difficulty, resource needs, and what each one replaces.
Not the right match-up?
Doctave
Markdown documentation site generator with search
VS
zk
Plain-text note-taking and Zettelkasten assistant
| Feature | Doctave | zk |
|---|---|---|
| Category | Wikis & Documentation | Wikis & Documentation |
| License | MIT | GPL-3.0 |
| Language | Rust | Go |
| Setup difficulty | Easy | Easy |
| Min. RAM | 128 MB | 64 MB |
| Deployment | binary, source | binary, source |
| GitHub stars | ★ 669 | ★ 2,748 |
| First released | 2021 | 2021 |
| Replaces | Confluence, GitBook | Roam Research, Obsidian |
Why pick each one
Choose Doctave if…
- Released under the MIT license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Written in Rust
- Tiny footprint — runs in 128 MB RAM
Choose zk if…
- Released under the GPL-3.0 license
- Easy to set up — beginner-friendly
- Active community (2.7k GitHub stars)
- Written in Go
Frequently asked questions
Is Doctave or zk better?
Neither is universally better. zk has the larger community; both share a easy setup difficulty, so the decision comes down to features and licensing.
Are Doctave and zk free and open-source?
Yes. Doctave is licensed under MIT and zk under GPL-3.0. Both can be self-hosted at no software cost.
Can I run Doctave and zk with Docker?
Doctave: check the project docs for container support. zk: check the project docs for container support.