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Sphinx vs mdBook: catalog facts
Sphinx	mdBook
Free Free and open source under the BSD 2-Clause licence.	Free Free and open source.
Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line	Windows, macOS, Linux, Command line
Strong cross-referencing, including across projects Outputs HTML, PDF via LaTeX, ePub and Texinfo	Builds a complete static site from plain Markdown Maintained by the Rust project with an active history
reStructuredText has a learning curve Requires a Python environment	Command line only Aimed at web output rather than EPUB or print
Downloadable app	Downloadable app
Open source	Open source
License: BSD-2-Clause	License: MPL-2.0
No account needed	No account needed
Works offline	Works offline
Official website Full listing and sources Checked October 1, 2026	Official website Full listing and sources Checked September 24, 2026

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