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Plugin recommendation

MkDocs boasts a rich ecosystem of plugins that can satisfy a wide range of user customization needs, this is also one of the main reasons why the MkDocs is so popular.

category groups most plugins by category. Below, I will select practical ones for recommendation based on the following criteria:

  • Practical and concise
  • Good performance
  • Actively maintained (updated within the last year)

Contributions and PRs are welcome.

External plugins

External plugins are developed by third-party developers and require manual installation.

Graphics & Charts

mkdocs-glightbox - click to open the image as a lightbox

mkdocs-drawio - embed interactive drawio diagrams in documents 

<!-- Add a drawio file like a normal image -->

![](../assets/images/git.drawio)
mkdocs-mermaid2-plugin - renders mermaid text into diagrams (built-in) 
%%{init: {'theme': 'default', 'themeVariables': {'fontSize': '12px'}}}%%
flowchart LR
    A(1.Front Matter)
    B(2.Cache File)
    C(3.Git Timestamp)
    D(4.File Timestamp)
    A -.Creation date.-> B -.-> C -.-> D
    A -.Last updated.-> C
```mermaid
%%{init: {'theme': 'default', 'themeVariables': {'fontSize': '12px'}}}%%
flowchart LR
    A(1.Front Matter)
    B(2.Cache File)
    C(3.Git Timestamp)
    D(4.File Timestamp)
    A -.Creation date.-> B -.-> C -.-> D
    A -.Last updated.-> C
```
mkdocs-markmap - create interactive mind maps from markdown and embed them in documents

Usage: use markmap fence blocks to enclose markdown content

````markmap

## Mind Map

### Fence Block Enclosure

- That's great. Anything

### Formatting and Lists

- **strong** ~~del~~ *italic* ==highlight==
- `inline code`
- [x] checkbox
- Katex: $x = {-b \pm \sqrt{b^2-4ac} \over 2a}$

### Code block

```js
for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    console.log("value", i);
}
```

### Table block

| Header1 | Header2 |
| --- | --- |
| item 1 | 1\. one<br /> 2\. two |

### Image

![](../assets/images/favicon.png)

````

Built-in plugins

Built-in plugins are installed automatically along with MaterialX.

Optimization

  •   Built-in optimize plugin

    The optimize plugin automatically identifies and optimizes all media files that you reference in your project by using compression and conversion techniques.

    Your site loads faster as smaller images are served to your users

  •   Built-in offline plugin

    The offline plugin adds support for building offline-capable documentation, so you can distribute the site directory as a .zip file that can be downloaded.

    Your documentation can work without connectivity to the internet

Content

  •   Built-in search plugin

    The search plugin adds a search bar to the header, allowing users to search the entire documentation, so it's easier for them to find what they're looking for.

    Your documentation is searchable without any external services, even offline

  •   Built-in document-dates plugin

    The document-dates plugin adds date and author to your documents. It's 20-500 times faster than git-authors and
    git-revision-date-localized.

    Manual date configuration is no longer required for any feature

  •   Built-in tags plugin

    The tags plugin adds first-class support for categorizing pages with tags, adding the ability to group related pages to improve the discovery of related content.

    Your pages are categorized with tags, yielding additional context

  •   Built-in blog plugin

    The blog plugin adds first-class support for blogging to MaterialX for MkDocs, either as a sidecar to your documentation or as a standalone installation.

    Your blog is built with the same powerful engine as your documentation

Multiple instances

Several built-in plugins have support for multiple instances, which means that they can be used multiple times in the same configuration file, allowing to fine-tune behavior for separate sections of your project. Currently, the following plugins have support for multiple instances: