Astro Starlight vs Fern: Features, Pricing and User Reviews 2026
Compare features, pricing, reviews, and more to make an informed decision
Astro Starlight
Astro Starlight is a free, open-source documentation theme that helps you build beautiful, fast, and accessible documentation websites.
Fern
Fern generates production-ready SDKs and beautiful API documentation automatically from your OpenAPI specification for multiple programming languages.
Astro Starlight
Astro Starlight is a free, open-source documentation theme that helps you build beautiful, fast, and accessible documentation websites.
Fern
Fern generates production-ready SDKs and beautiful API documentation automatically from your OpenAPI specification for multiple programming languages.
Astro Starlight
Fast static site generation with minimal JavaScript
Built-in search with Pagefind
Full internationalization support
Automatic navigation generation
Dark and light themes included
Markdown, MDX, and Markdoc support
Multiple framework integration (React, Vue, Svelte)
Accessibility-focused design
Mobile responsive layout
Customizable themes and colors
Edit page links
Social media integration
SEO optimized
Fern
Automatic SDK generation in 8+ programming languages
Stripe-style API documentation websites
Direct publishing to package registries
OpenAPI and AsyncAPI support
Interactive API playground with live testing
Custom branding and domain support
Built-in OAuth 2.0 and authentication
Automatic pagination and retry logic
WebSocket and SSE support
Version control with Git
AI-powered search assistant
Open source on GitHub
Astro Starlight
Astro Starlight is completely free and open source. There are no pricing tiers, subscriptions, or hidden costs. You can use Starlight for personal projects, commercial websites, or large enterprise documentation without paying anything.
The project is released under the MIT license, which means you have full freedom to use, modify, and distribute it. You can customize every aspect of Starlight to match your needs. Hosting costs depend on where you choose to deploy your documentation. Many hosting services like Netlify, Vercel, and GitHub Pages offer free tiers that work perfectly with Starlight sites.
Since Starlight is open source, you also benefit from community contributions and regular updates from the Astro team. Support is available through the active Astro Discord community and GitHub discussions.
Fern
Fern offers separate pricing for SDKs and documentation to fit different team needs.
For SDK generation, there are three tiers available:
Basic Plan ($250/month per SDK): Supports up to 50 endpoints with REST API support, automated publishing, and schema validation. Billed annually.
Pro Plan ($600/month per SDK): Includes up to 150 endpoints, WebSockets, webhooks, dedicated Slack support, and advanced features like pagination and OAuth. Billed annually.
Enterprise Plan (Custom pricing): Offers unlimited endpoints, SDK migration services, enterprise support with SLAs, GitHub issue monitoring, and custom code maintenance.
For documentation, pricing includes:
Basic Plan ($400/month): Stripe-like API reference, API playground, custom domain, and built-in components. Billed annually.
Pro Plan ($1,000/month): Everything in Basic plus custom React components, authenticated docs, role-based access control, and AI search capabilities. Billed annually.
Enterprise Plan (Custom pricing): Includes white-glove content migration, custom integrations, SSO authentication, design services, and enterprise support.