Open-source DeepWiki alternative — generate comprehensive wiki documentation for any codebase from your terminal or browser.
| DeepWiki | deepwiki-open | RepoWiki | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Deploy | SaaS only | Docker Compose | pip install repowiki |
| Local repos | No | No | Yes |
| CLI | No | No | Yes |
| Web UI | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Export | Web only | Web only | Markdown / JSON / HTML |
| Reading guide | No | No | PageRank + guided path |
| Terminal Q&A | No | No | repowiki chat |
| Dependencies | N/A | Docker + PostgreSQL | Python + SQLite |
pip install repowiki
# set your API key (DeepSeek, OpenAI, Anthropic, etc.)
export DEEPSEEK_API_KEY=<your-api-key>
# or
repowiki config set api_key <your-api-key>
# scan a local project
repowiki scan ./my-project
# scan a GitHub repo
repowiki scan https://github.com/pallets/flask
# generate self-contained HTML
repowiki scan ./my-project --format html --open
# start the web interface
pip install repowiki[web]
repowiki serveRepoWiki respects .gitignore and .repowikiignore during scans. It also skips common local secret files such as .env, .env.local, .npmrc, .pypirc, and SSH private keys by default.
Automatically generates structured documentation for any codebase:
- Project overview — what it does, tech stack, setup instructions
- Module documentation — purpose, key files, relationships, important functions
- Architecture diagrams — auto-detected architecture type with Mermaid visualizations
- Reading guide — "start here" path based on PageRank file importance ranking
- Import-aware dependency map — resolves Python package-relative imports and JavaScript/TypeScript relative modules before ranking files
- Bundle-aware scanner — skips minified JS/CSS and generated frontend chunks before they burn LLM context
- Markdown — directory of
.mdfiles, ready to commit to your repo - JSON — structured data for API consumption or custom rendering
- HTML — self-contained single file, share with anyone (Mermaid diagrams included)
Three-column wiki viewer with sidebar navigation, Mermaid diagram rendering, and an AI-powered Q&A chat about the codebase.
repowiki chat . opens an interactive Q&A in the terminal. It indexes the repo with built-in TF-IDF retrieval (no embeddings service, no extra dependencies), pulls the most relevant code for each question, and answers grounded in the actual files — citing paths and line ranges.
Everything works from the terminal. No Docker, no database server, no web browser required.
repowiki scan . # generate wiki
repowiki scan . -f html --open # open in browser
repowiki scan . -l zh # Chinese output
repowiki chat . # ask questions about the code (interactive)
repowiki config list # show configurationPython, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go, Rust, Java, Kotlin, C/C++, C#, Ruby, PHP, Swift, Dart, Vue, Svelte, and 30+ more.
Powered by litellm, RepoWiki works with 100+ LLM providers:
| Provider | Model | Alias |
|---|---|---|
| Anthropic | Claude Opus 4.6 | opus |
| Anthropic | Claude Sonnet 4.6 | claude |
| OpenAI | GPT-5.4 | gpt |
| OpenAI | GPT-5.4 Mini | gpt-mini |
| Gemini 3.1 Pro | gemini |
|
| Gemini 2.5 Flash | gemini-flash |
|
| DeepSeek | DeepSeek V3.2 | deepseek |
| Alibaba | Qwen3.5 Plus | qwen |
| Moonshot | Kimi K2.6 | kimi |
| Zhipu | GLM-5 | glm |
| MiniMax | M2.7 | minimax |
repowiki config set model deepseek # use alias
repowiki scan . -m gpt # or pass directlyRepoWiki looks for config in this order:
- CLI flags (
-m,-l,-o) - Environment variables (
REPOWIKI_MODEL,REPOWIKI_API_KEY) - Config file (
~/.repowiki/config.json) - Provider-specific env vars (
DEEPSEEK_API_KEY,OPENAI_API_KEY,ANTHROPIC_API_KEY)
RepoWiki/
├── src/repowiki/
│ ├── cli.py # Click CLI with scan/serve/chat/config commands
│ ├── config.py # Configuration management
│ ├── core/
│ │ ├── scanner.py # File scanning with language detection
│ │ ├── analyzer.py # Multi-step LLM analysis pipeline
│ │ ├── graph.py # Dependency graph + PageRank
│ │ ├── wiki_builder.py # Wiki page assembly
│ │ ├── rag.py # TF-IDF retrieval for Q&A
│ │ └── cache.py # SQLite caching
│ ├── llm/
│ │ ├── client.py # litellm async wrapper
│ │ └── prompts.py # Structured prompt templates
│ ├── ingest/
│ │ ├── local.py # Local directory ingestion
│ │ └── github.py # Git clone with caching
│ ├── export/
│ │ ├── markdown.py # Markdown directory export
│ │ ├── json_export.py # JSON export
│ │ └── html.py # Self-contained HTML export
│ └── server/ # FastAPI web backend
├── frontend/ # React + Vite + TailwindCSS
├── pyproject.toml
└── LICENSE
- Scan — Walk the directory tree, filter out binaries, generated bundles, and oversized files, detect languages and entry points
- Graph — Resolve imports across 6 languages, including Python package-relative and JavaScript/TypeScript relative modules, then run PageRank to rank file importance
- Analyze — Send file tree + key files to LLM in 4 structured passes (overview, modules, architecture, reading guide)
- Cache — Store results in SQLite keyed by content hash, skip unchanged files on re-scan
- Export — Assemble wiki pages with Mermaid diagrams and source links, output in chosen format
git clone https://github.com/he-yufeng/RepoWiki.git
cd RepoWiki
# backend
python -m venv .venv && source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e ".[dev,web]"
# frontend
cd frontend && npm install && npm run dev
# run backend
repowiki serve --port 8000Generation, the web interface, and the diagrams work. The next steps are about keeping a wiki fresh and better connected:
- Incremental re-generation — regenerate only the pages whose source changed since the last run, so updating a wiki on a large repo isn't a full rebuild every time.
- Cross-reference links — link a symbol mentioned on one module page to the page where it's defined, so the wiki reads like connected docs instead of isolated pages.
- More diagram types — a call graph and a data-flow view alongside the dependency graph, since the analysis already walks imports and could surface more.
- Publish to a static site — a one-command export to a GitHub Pages-ready site, so a generated wiki can live as a project's docs, not just a local file.
If RepoWiki helped you find your way around a codebase, a few other things I've built:
- CoreCoder — want to understand how a coding agent really works? Read the whole ~1k-line engine end to end, not a black box.
- FindJobs-Agent — stop sifting job boards by hand: it ranks postings against your resume and runs mock interviews.
- ContractGuard — catch the risky clauses before you sign: it reads contracts and flags the dangerous bits.
- GitSense — want to contribute to open source? It finds issues worth your time and gauges whether your PR will get merged.
- CodeABC — understand any codebase even if you don't code, built for non-programmers.
MIT