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Material for MkDocs uses the sponsorware release strategy, which means that new features are first exclusively released to sponsors as part of Insiders. Read on to learn how sponsorship works, and how easy it is to get access to Insiders.

A demo is worth a thousand words — check it out at squidfunk.github.io/mkdocs-material-insiders

How sponsorship works

New features first land in Insiders, which means that sponsors will have access immediately. Every feature is tied to a funding goal in monthly subscriptions. When a funding goal is hit, the features that are tied to it are merged back into Material for MkDocs and released for general availability. Bugfixes are always released simultaneously in both editions.1

Don't want to sponsor? No problem, Material for MkDocs already has tons of features available, so chances are that most of your requirements are already satisfied. See the list of exclusive features to learn which features are currently only available to sponsors.

How to become a sponsor

You can become a sponsor using your individual or organization's GitHub account. Just visit squidfunk's sponsor profile, pick any tier from $10/month, and complete the checkout. Then, after a few hours, @squidfunk will add you as a collaborator to the super-secret private GitHub repositority containing the Insiders edition, which contains all brand new and exclusive features.

Important: If you're sponsoring @squidfunk through a GitHub organization, please send a short email to sponsors@squidfunk.com with the name of your organization and the account that should be added as a collaborator.2

You can cancel your sponsorship anytime.3

  Join our awesome sponsors

Exclusive features

The following features are currently exclusively available to sponsors:

New features are added to this list every few weeks, so be sure to come back from time to time to learn about what's new, or follow @squidfunk on Twitter to stay updated.

Funding

Goals

Following is a list of funding goals. When a funding goal is hit, the features that are tied to it are merged back into Material for MkDocs and released to the public for general availability.

$ 1,500 – Bhut Jolokia

$ 2,000 – Black Pearl

$ 2,500 – Biquinho Vermelho

$ 3,000 – Caribbean Red

$ 5,000 – Aji Panca

Future

  • Material for MkDocs Live Edit
  • Improved search result summaries
  • List of last searches
  • Table of contents follows active anchor
  • Table of contents auto-collapse
  • Table of contents shows which sections have search results
  • Native lightbox for (inline) images
  • New layouts and styles (e.g. vertical)
  • ... and much more ...

Goals completed

$ 500 – Madame Jeanette

  • Improved search result grouping
  • Improved search result relevance and scoring
  • Missing query terms in search results

$ 1,000 – Prairie Fire

Frequently asked questions

Compatibility

We're running an open source project and want to make sure that users can build the documentation without having access to Insiders. Is this still possible?

Yes. Insiders is compatible with Material for MkDocs. All new features are implemented behind feature flags; all configuration changes are backward-compatible. This means that your users will be able to build the documentation locally with Material for MkDocs and when they push their changes, it can be built with Insiders (e.g. as part of GitHub Actions). Thus, it's recommended to install Insiders only in CI, as you don't want to expose your GH_TOKEN to users.

Terms

We're using Material for MkDocs to build the developer documentation of a commercial project. Can we use Insiders under the same terms and conditions?

Yes. Whether you're an individual or a company, you may use Material for MkDocs Insiders precisely under the same terms as Material for MkDocs, which are given by the MIT license. However, we kindly ask you to respect the following guidelines:

  • Please don't distribute the source code of Insiders. You may freely use it for public, private or commercial projects, fork it, mirror it, do whatever you want with it, but please don't release the source code, as it would counteract the sponsorware strategy.

  • If you cancel your subscription, you're removed as a collaborator and will miss out on future updates of Insiders. However, you may use the latest version that's available to you as long as you like. Just remember that GitHub deletes private forks.

  1. You may ask yourself why you should pay for something that is Open Source. Doesn't that contradict the ethos of Open Source software? Yes and no. Yes, some features are locked behind a monthly subscription, which means they are only accessible when paying a small amount of money. No, the features are only exclusive for a short time until specific funding goals are hit. Making an Open Source project sustainable is exceptionally hard: maintainers burn out, projects are abandoned. That's not great and very unpredictable. The sponsorware model ensures that if you decide to use Material for MkDocs, you can be sure that bugs are fixed quickly and new features are added regularly. ↩

  2. It's currently not possible to grant access to each member of an organization, as GitHub only allows for adding users. Thus, after sponsoring, please send an email to sponsors@squidfunk.com, stating which account should become a collaborator of the Insiders repository. We're working on a solution which will make access to organizations much simpler. To ensure that access is not tied to a particular individual GitHub account, create a bot account (i.e. a GitHub account that is not tied to a specific individual), and use this account for the sponsoring. After being added to the list of collaborators, the bot account can create a private fork of the private Insiders GitHub repository, and grant access to all members of the organizations. ↩

  3. If you cancel your sponsorship, GitHub schedules a cancellation request which will become effective at the end of the billing cycle, which ends at the 22nd of a month for monthly sponsorships. This means that even though you cancel your sponsorship, you will keep your access to Insiders as long as your cancellation isn't effective. All charges are processed by GitHub through Stripe. As we don't receive any information regarding your payment, and GitHub doesn't offer refunds, sponsorships are non-refundable. ↩