Ingest
Website source
Crawl one page or the whole site, from its sitemap or by following links, and keep it in sync on a schedule.
sitemap · links · scheduled sync
A kapa.ai alternative that runs on your own infrastructure
kapa.ai and DocsGPT both answer questions on your docs site with citations and show you what your docs are missing. kapa.ai is a hosted service, quoted after a 14-day trial. DocsGPT is open source: run it in our cloud or on your own servers, with any model, and pay only for what you use.
Last updated: · Facts checked on
kapa.ai and DocsGPT at a glance
Licence, hosting, models, price, contract and data access, side by side.
kapa.ai is a proprietary service that runs only in its own cloud, on models it selects. Pricing is by quote after a 14-day trial; public reporting puts a typical contract at about $25,200 a year. Docs-gap analytics come with its Growth plan, and single sign-on with Enterprise. DocsGPT is MIT-licensed, widgets included, runs anywhere from Arc53's cloud to an air-gapped network, works with any model, and includes single sign-on and Insights on every plan.
| kapa.ai | DocsGPT | |
|---|---|---|
| Licence | Proprietary1 | MIT (platform, CLI and widget)2 |
| Self-host and air-gap | No: hosted only, in kapa.ai's cloud (US; EU or regional hosting on Enterprise); no air-gapped mode1 | Yes — Self-hosted (community), On-premises and Air-gapped (zero external egress), from one seat2 |
| Model choice / BYOM | Vendor-selected (OpenAI, Anthropic, Cohere, Voyage); no bring-your-own model documented1 | Any cloud provider or local engine (Ollama, vLLM, llama.cpp and others); BYOM2 |
| Transparent pricing | Quote-based, after a 14-day free trial; ~$25,200/yr median contract reported1 | Yes, per posture: Cloud $20/seat/month; Managed from $2,000/month, flat; On-premises and Air-gapped from $10,000, one-time or recurring2 |
| Seat minimum / contract | No seat pricing: a platform fee plus committed answers1 | None; self-hosting has no licence fee2 |
| Vendor access to data | Yes (kapa.ai's service indexes your content and answers through its LLM providers)1 | Yes on Cloud and Managed — Arc53 operates both, Managed as a dedicated instance in your region; No on On-premises and Air-gapped, which you operate2 |
| Docs widgets | A hosted chat widget with a search mode1 | A chat widget and a search bar, MIT-licensed, from one npm package2 |
| Docs-gap analytics | Coverage Gaps, on the Growth plan, in kapa.ai's cloud1 | Insights on every plan, scored by arc-decide inside your deployment, air-gapped too2 |
| Single sign-on, SCIM, roles | SSO, SCIM and roles on the Enterprise plan only1 | Every plan, in the MIT code: OIDC single sign-on, SCIM 2.0, roles2 |
¹ kapa.ai facts checked on . ·² Sources: docs.docsgpt.cloud and the public repository.
Everything your docs site needs, open source
DocsGPT covers the same loop as kapa.ai, from crawling the site to finding its gaps, in one MIT project you can run anywhere.
Answer
Chat widget
Cited answers in a floating bubble or a docked sidebar, in 8 languages, driven from a JavaScript API.
floating · sidebar · 8 languages · js api
Search
Search bar
A search bar for your docs header, with voice search and a one-click hand-off to the AI chat.
voice search · ask the ai
Improve
Docs gaps
Insights groups the questions your docs do not answer by page, with the change since the last period.
by page · source · topic · csv
Where kapa.ai is the better fit
- Your vendor review requires a SOC 2 Type II report.
- You want a product built only for developer docs and support, with a written recommendation on each coverage gap.
- You would rather the vendor choose and tune the models for you.
Where DocsGPT is the better fit
- You pay only for what you use: start free with API credit included and pay for usage past it, or take Cloud seats at a published price. No platform fee and no sales call.
- It runs where you choose: Arc53's cloud, a dedicated instance in your region, your own servers, or air-gapped from one seat.
- Models are yours: any cloud provider with your own key, or a local engine such as Ollama or vLLM.
- Everything on your docs site is MIT-licensed, the chat widget and the search bar included: read the code, restyle it, self-host it.
- Single sign-on, SCIM and roles on every plan, not only on an Enterprise contract.
- Docs gaps and prompt-injection scanning come from
arc-decide, a small model inside your deployment, so conversations are not sent to another service to be analysed. - The same platform goes past the docs site: internal knowledge across Google Drive, SharePoint and Confluence, agents that act in connected services, and workflows.
What each costs
DocsGPT has no platform fee: start free and pay only for usage, or choose a published plan.
| kapa.ai | DocsGPT | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing | Quote-based, after the trial | Pay as you go; Cloud $20/seat/month; Managed from $2,000/month; On-premises and Air-gapped from $10,000 |
| Free start | 14-day free trial, up to 1,000 answers; the workspace then pauses unless you upgrade | A free account with API credit included, or self-host free under MIT |
| What you pay for | A platform fee plus committed answers (Growth), or a custom contract (Enterprise) | API usage past the free credit, with no plan; or Cloud seats with credit included; or a flat fee on Managed and self-hosted |
| Typical annual spend | ~$25,200 median contract, reported | Your API usage alone; $2,400 a year for 10 Cloud seats |
| Run it yourself | Not offered | Free under MIT, or from $10,000 with Arc53 implementation and support |
kapa.ai figures checked on 2026-10-26. The median contract comes from Vendr purchase data as reported by a third party, not from a price list.
Frequently asked questions
Is kapa.ai open source?
- No. kapa.ai is a proprietary hosted service; its public GitHub repositories hold integrations and examples, not the platform (checked 2026-10-26). DocsGPT is MIT-licensed, the chat widget and search bar included, at github.com/arc53/DocsGPT.
How much does kapa.ai cost?
- kapa.ai is priced by quote. After a 14-day free trial of up to 1,000 answers, plans are quoted: Growth bills a platform fee plus committed answers, and Enterprise is custom. Public reporting puts a typical contract at about $25,200 a year (checked 2026-10-26). DocsGPT starts free and can be paid purely by usage; see pricing.
Can kapa.ai be self-hosted?
- No. kapa.ai runs only in its own cloud, in the US by default, with EU or regional hosting on the Enterprise plan; no self-hosted or air-gapped option is documented (checked 2026-10-26). DocsGPT self-hosts free under MIT, runs on-premises with Arc53, or air-gapped from one seat.
Is there an open-source alternative to Algolia DocSearch with AI answers?
- DocsGPT's search bar ships in the same MIT npm package as its chat widget. It searches your docs, takes voice input and hands a question to the AI chat in one click, so one project gives your docs both search and cited answers. See chat and search widgets.
Can DocsGPT show which questions my docs don't answer?
- Yes. Insights labels every conversation with DocsGPT's decision model and groups the questions your documents do not cover by page, source or topic, with the change against the previous period, an example question and a CSV export. It covers widget and API traffic, and runs inside your deployment.
How do I add DocsGPT to my docs site?
- Add your docs as a Website source: one page or the whole site, found from its sitemap or by following links, and kept up to date on a schedule. Create an agent on that source, then embed the chat widget and the search bar from npm. See the chat widget and search widget docs.
Alex Tushynski
Co-Founder, Arc53
Spotted an error? Request a correction and we will fix it and update the date.
See DocsGPT on your documents
A 30-minute demo on your use case, or a free on-premises review with an engineer.