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The open-source Mintlify alternative for docs you own
Last updated September 9, 2026
Mintlify is a genuinely strong AI documentation platform — a real browser editor with live cursors, an assistant that cites its sources, automatic llms.txt, and an admin MCP that lets agents edit your pages. So the honest contrast is not "they have no AI". It is ownership and purpose: Mintlify is proprietary, self-hosting starts at Enterprise as a scoped engagement with their team, its AI is billed from a credit balance, and what it produces is a public docs site. tela is AGPL, self-hostable for free, and is the internal wiki your team works in.
tela vs Mintlify, at a glance
| Feature | tela | Mintlify |
|---|---|---|
| License | Open source (AGPL-3.0) | Proprietary SaaS |
| Self-hostable | Yes — self-host free, plus a free cloud tier | Enterprise only — a scoped deployment with their account team |
| Ask your docs (AI) | Built in — ranked full-text always, plus semantic Ask that cites its sources (self-host brings its own model) | Assistant with citations — Pro and above, billed in credits |
| Agents read & write (MCP) | Built in — agents read and write, scoped per token, over a hosted endpoint | Admin MCP writes; the docs MCP your readers get is read-only |
| What agent use costs | Unmetered on every tier — an agent driving tela over MCP runs on your model and your tokens | The assistant and the agent draw on a shared credit balance |
| Generate docs from your code | Yes — Atlas builds a cited, coverage-checked wiki from git repos and Jira | Agent drafts pull requests from repos and PRs (Pro and above) |
| Built for | An internal team wiki | Public, branded product documentation |
Why teams switch to tela
- Self-host for free under AGPL — Mintlify self-hosting begins at Enterprise and runs through their account team.
- Asking your own docs a question is not metered; Mintlify draws the assistant and the agent from a shared credit balance. Driving tela from your own agent over MCP costs nothing at all, because it runs on your tokens.
- Atlas does not stop at a draft: it audits what it wrote against an inventory of the code's real surface — routes, flags, env vars, models — and reports the fraction still undocumented.
- It is a wiki for the whole team’s knowledge, not a publishing pipeline for a customer-facing docs site — runbooks, meeting notes, a budget spreadsheet and a deck live in the same space, and any space can still be published to the open web.
When Mintlify is the better choice
For public product and API documentation, Mintlify is excellent and ahead of tela: a polished branded docs site, OpenAPI-driven API playgrounds, preview deployments on every pull request, real-time collaborative editing with live cursors, and an AI agent that opens documentation PRs off your commits. If your job is shipping developer docs to customers rather than running an internal wiki, Mintlify is the better tool.
Frequently asked questions
Is tela a good Mintlify alternative?
Yes. Self-host for free under AGPL — Mintlify self-hosting begins at Enterprise and runs through their account team. tela is open-source (AGPL-3.0), self-hostable, and markdown-native, with a built-in MCP server so AI agents read and write your docs.
Can I self-host tela and connect AI agents to it?
Yes. Self-host tela for free (AGPL-3.0) or start on the free cloud tier. Its built-in MCP server lets agents like Claude search, read and write your wiki directly, on tools scoped by the token you give them.
When is Mintlify the better choice?
For public product and API documentation, Mintlify is excellent and ahead of tela: a polished branded docs site, OpenAPI-driven API playgrounds, preview deployments on every pull request, real-time collaborative editing with live cursors, and an AI agent that opens documentation PRs off your commits. If your job is shipping developer docs to customers rather than running an internal wiki, Mintlify is the better tool.
Try tela
tela is an open-source (AGPL), self-hostable team wiki. Self-host it, or start on the free cloud tier at telawiki.com. See the MCP server docs for connecting your agents, or compare tela with other tools.
mintlify.com/docs — self-host, editor, assistant, agent and MCP pages; mintlify.com/pricing (verified 2026). tela facts current as of September 9, 2026.