sphinx-multiversion

What it is and what it does

sphinx-multiversion is a Sphinx extension designed to automate the building and hosting of multiple versions of documentation from a single repository. Instead of manually managing separate documentation builds for each release, it integrates into your Sphinx workflow to generate versioned docs that can be served together, with a clean UI for switching between versions.

The package depends only on sphinx and aims for a minimal, non-invasive implementation. However, it has been abandoned since 2020-08-12 and has not received updates. This means it was last tested against Sphinx versions from that era, and compatibility with modern Sphinx releases is uncertain. If your project uses a recent Sphinx version or relies on newer Sphinx plugins, this package may not work without modification.

Use it for:

• Hosting documentation for multiple released versions of a library or framework on a single domain with version-switching UI.
• Automating doc builds for each git tag or branch to avoid manual version management across releases.
• Building self-hosted versioned docs when you cannot or do not want to use external services.
• Maintaining stable, development, and legacy documentation versions in parallel from a single repository.

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

Sphinx extension that builds and serves multiple versions of documentation from a single repository, enabling self-hosted versioned docs without heavy customization of Sphinx internals.

No, unless you are locked into an old Sphinx version or have no alternative. The package is abandoned (last release 2020-08-12) with no maintenance, bug fixes, or compatibility updates. Modern alternatives or other versioning solutions are more reliable. If you must use it, verify compatibility with your Sphinx version first and expect to maintain it yourself.

Install

sphinx-multiversion on PyPI

pip install sphinx-multiversion

uv add sphinx-multiversion

poetry add sphinx-multiversion

Installing sphinx-multiversion

Before you install

Low install friction with a single runtime dependency on sphinx. However, the package is abandoned—last release was 2020-08-12, over 2193 days ago—so expect no maintenance, bug fixes, or compatibility updates.

License in practice

BSD license (permissive) means you can use, modify, and distribute this package freely in commercial and private projects, provided you retain the license notice.

Quickstart

pip install sphinx-multiversion

In conf.py, add to extensions:
extensions = ['sphinx_multiversion']

Then run: sphinx-multiversion -b html docs/ build/html/

Requires sphinx as a runtime dependency; compatibility with Sphinx versions released after 2020-08-12 is uncertain due to abandonment.

Verify before relying

• Whether this package remains compatible with current Sphinx versions.
• Whether the extension's approach to avoiding Sphinx internals has held up as Sphinx has evolved.
• Real-world success stories or known limitations with modern documentation workflows.

Package facts

Evidence: sphinx_multiversion-0.2.4-py2.py3-none-any.whl; sphinx_multiversion-0.2.4-py3-none-any.whl

Tags

More Sphinx packages