For us it comes down to one thing: Mintlify charges you to use the AI in your own docs. We don't! Let's go over how Mintlify works and their AI pricing. First, Mintlify AI is based on a credit system, which, to our chagrin*, is becoming more common with token based system. This means every AI usage costs a certain number of credits. For example, if a user initiates an AI Chat, that is 23 credits or if you fix something in your docs with AI that could be 241 credit. To gain entry past the AI red-velvet rope, you're required to be on the Mintlify Pro plan ($540 a month), which comes with 10,000 monthly credits. A single AI assistant answer at about 23 credits, so that's roughly 430 answers a month. If you need more credits, packs start at $145/month for another 25,000.
And that 430 assumes chat is all you touch. Agent runs are ~115 credits each, and the automations that fix your docs for you eat 180 to 913 credits every time one fires: 330 to catch typos, 235 for a style review, 913 for a translation pass. Turn a few of those on watch either your credits go to zero or your bank account. In other words, the more your readers actually use your docs AI, the more you pay. That always struck us as backwards and complicated.
Jamdesk is $29/month, flat. AI Chat, AI Analytics, AI Score, and AI Build Fixes (it auto-suggests a fix when a docs build breaks; I haven't found anything like it on Mintlify) are all just included. There are no credits to ration, no per-question overage, and no surprise end-of-month bill.
To be fair to them, Mintlify's a genuinely good product. It's polished, it's everywhere, and the ecosystem is big.
But if you're choosing a docs tool today and you'd rather lean on the AI than watch a meter, $29 flat versus $540-and-up metered is the difference worth weighing. That is one of the reasons that Jamdesk is better than Mintlify! And of course there is more on why Jamdesk is a great Mintlify alternative. Happy to answer anything in the comments.
***** Token tracking is so opaque and/or requires you to monitor the minutiae of your usage, well, it just makes it feel like a second job. That is why we said no for Jamdesk. We don't like this AI token/credit tracking, so we're not going to make our users do it.