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apidex vs Redoc: playground or pure reference?

Redoc is famous for its elegant three-column API reference. apidex adds the missing piece — a real interactive playground — and removes the need to host anything.

Two different philosophies

Redoc is a beautiful static reference. It excels at giving readers a quiet, confident view of an API — the kind of docs you link to from a marketing site. But it's read-only by design; if you want a playground, you'll reach for the paid tier or another tool.

apidex treats the playground as a first-class citizen. Endpoints aren't just listed — they're executable, with OAuth2, API keys, and bearer tokens built in. And the entire experience is hosted, so a shareable link is one click away.

Feature comparison
Capability
Apidex
Redoc
Hosted, no setup required
Yes
No
OpenAPI 3 support
Yes
Yes
Interactive API playground (free)
Yes
No
OAuth2, API keys, bearer tokens
Yes
Partial
Shareable link with one click
Yes
No
Password-protected sharing
Yes
No
Three-column reference layout
Partial
Yes
Command palette navigation (⌘K)
Yes
No
Self-hostable (open source)
No
Yes

When to pick Redoc

Pick Redoc when you want a polished, static, read-only reference and you're happy to host it yourself. It's a great match for marketing-site-attached API docs where the playground lives elsewhere.

When to pick apidex

Pick apidex when reading isn't enough — when you want your teammates and integrators to actually try the API while they're reading about it, all from a single shareable URL.