GitBook is a hosted documentation platform. It's convenient — but it comes with monthly costs and vendor lock-in.

Docusaurus is the open-source alternative. You own everything.

Here's how to migrate.

Why Migrate

	GitBook	Docusaurus
Hosting	$8–$50/month	$0
Ownership	Platform-locked	100% source
Customization	Limited	Full
Search	Built-in	Pagefind (free)
CMS	Built-in	Decap CMS (free)

Docusaurus saves you $96–$600 per year.

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Step 1 — Export GitBook Content

1. Open your GitBook space
2. Click Settings → Export
3. Choose Markdown
4. Download the .zip

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Step 2 — Organize Content

Move the Markdown files to your Docusaurus docs/ folder:

mkdir docs/
mv gitbook-export/*.md docs/

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Step 3 — Fix Frontmatter

GitBook uses --- frontmatter. Docusaurus does too. But some fields differ.

GitBook	Docusaurus
title	title
description	description
---	---

Most frontmatter carries over unchanged.

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Step 4 — Add to Sidebar

Edit sidebars.ts:

{
  type: 'category',
  label: 'Guides',
  items: [
    'getting-started',
    'advanced',
  ],
},

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Step 5 — Deploy

Push to GitHub, deploy to Cloudflare Pages.

See Deploy Nocturne → for details.

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What About GitBook Features?

GitBook Feature	Docusaurus Replacement
Search	Pagefind
CMS	Decap CMS
Analytics	Plausible
Comments	Giscus
Versions	Docusaurus versioning

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Get Nocturne

Get Nocturne on Gumroad — $145 →