Frequently Asked Questions

Lito is an open-source documentation site generator that turns Markdown and MDX files into beautiful, production-ready documentation websites. It’s designed as a free alternative to tools like Mintlify, with a CLI-first workflow and support for multiple frontend frameworks. Learn more on the What is Lito? page.

Yes, Lito is completely free and open-source under the MIT license. There are no paid tiers, usage limits, or vendor lock-in. You own your documentation and can deploy it anywhere.

Mintlify is a hosted, closed-source documentation platform with a monthly subscription. Lito is open-source, self-hosted, and free. You get similar features — beautiful design, MDX components, API documentation, search — without the ongoing cost or vendor dependency. Lito also supports multiple frontend frameworks, not just one.

Docusaurus is a great tool, but it’s tightly coupled to React and requires more configuration to achieve a polished look. Lito is designed to work with multiple frameworks (Astro, React, Next.js, Vue, Nuxt), comes with a professional design system out of the box, and has a simpler CLI-driven workflow. You write Markdown and get a beautiful site with zero config.

You need Node.js 18.0.0 or higher and a package manager (npm, yarn, pnpm, or bun). That’s it. Lito works on macOS, Linux, and Windows. See the Installation guide for details.

Yes. Lito auto-detects your package manager. While the project itself uses pnpm for development, the CLI works with npm, yarn, pnpm, and bun. Use whichever you prefer — npx @litodocs/cli dev works without installing anything globally.

No. You can use npx @litodocs/cli to run any command without a global install. If you prefer having the lito command available everywhere, install globally with npm install -g @litodocs/cli. Both approaches work the same way.

Lito supports five frameworks: Astro, React (React Router), Next.js, Vue, and Nuxt. The Astro template is production-ready with 20+ MDX components, full search, and API documentation. The other templates are in active development and welcome community contributions. See the Roadmap for current status.

You can, but be aware that the React, Next.js, Vue, and Nuxt templates are not yet at feature parity with the Astro template. They are community-driven efforts that need contributors. If you want the most complete experience today, use the default Astro template. If you’d like to help build a template for your preferred framework, check the Contributing guide.

Yes. You can use any Git repository or local directory as a template with the --template flag: lito dev -i ./docs --template github:owner/repo or --template ./local-path. Custom templates need a framework config file, a package.json, and a src/ or app/ directory. See the CLI Commands reference for details.

Astro is ideal for documentation because it ships zero JavaScript by default, resulting in extremely fast page loads. It has first-class MDX support, an excellent content layer, and a mature ecosystem. Since documentation sites are primarily static content, Astro’s architecture is a natural fit.

Add a branding.colors section to your docs-config.json with primary, secondary, accent, background, and text color values. Lito uses these to generate a complete OKLCH color palette automatically. See the Customizing Theme guide for all available options.

Yes. Place CSS files in a _css folder within your docs directory and they will be included in your site. You can override any theme variable or add entirely new styles. The design system uses CSS custom properties so you can target specific tokens without fighting the framework.

Navigation is configured in the navigation.sidebar array in docs-config.json. Each group has a label and an items array of pages. You can nest groups, add icons, and configure the navbar, anchors, and footer separately. See the Configuration reference for the full schema.

Create a _landing/ folder in your docs directory with an index.html file and optional styles.css and script.js. Set "landing": { "type": "custom", "source": "_landing" } in your docs-config.json. You can also use section-based landing pages that mix custom HTML with default components. See the Custom Landing Pages guide.

Anywhere that hosts static sites. Lito generates plain HTML, CSS, and JS files. Popular options include Vercel, Netlify, Cloudflare Pages, and GitHub Pages. Lito has built-in provider optimizations for Vercel, Netlify, and Cloudflare that generate the correct configuration files automatically. See the Deployment guide.

Add a build step to your CI pipeline that runs npx @litodocs/cli build -i ./docs. The output goes to a dist folder by default. For GitHub Actions, use the workflow example in the Deployment guide. For other CI providers, the process is similar — install Node.js, run the build command, and deploy the output directory.

By default, Lito generates a fully static site. However, if you need SSR (for example, on Cloudflare Workers), you can use the --rendering server flag with the Cloudflare provider: lito build -i ./docs --provider cloudflare --rendering server. The Astro template supports both static and server output modes.

Yes. Since Mintlify uses MDX, most of your content will work with Lito directly. You’ll need to update your configuration from mint.json to docs-config.json and replace Mintlify-specific components with Lito equivalents (they are very similar). Navigation structure, frontmatter, and most MDX components map closely between the two. Automated migration tooling is on the Roadmap.

Yes, with some manual adjustments. Docusaurus MDX files are compatible, but you’ll need to convert sidebars.js to docs-config.json navigation format and replace Docusaurus-specific components (like @theme/Tabs) with Lito’s auto-imported equivalents. The frontmatter is mostly compatible. Automated migration scripts are planned — see the Roadmap.

If your existing tool uses Markdown or MDX, migration is straightforward. Copy your content files, create a docs-config.json for navigation and branding, and run lito dev. For tools that use proprietary formats, you may need to export to Markdown first. Join the Discord if you need help with a specific migration path.