Hubql goes Open Source - Alpha Release

As we welcome the new year, we're excited to go fully Open Source.

Hubql is a documentation-first DX platform designed to elevate developer workflows and redefine the way teams build, document, and collaborate beyond coding.

Our goal is to help make documentation a first class citizen in your team and for your API consumers improving the developer experience in AI-native workflows.

Why

With our previous product for schema visualization we have already touched grass with the challenges in documentation and collaboration. Over the past few months we have been working with various APIs and supported other teams building APIs.

We have been a long-time invested in GraphQL and getting back deeper into the world of REST APIs has opened up a revelation for us with a lack of tooling and inefficient workflows in teams in what suppose to be a mature space.

Some of the pain points we have seen across teams and user interviews in the past are:

Outdated documentation creates miscommunication and slows development.
Seat-based pricing limits collaboration, forcing costly workarounds.
Lack of beauty and interactivity in documentation reduces usability.

Why now?

We tried to ignore AI as much as Linus Torvalds does but we cannot deny the impact on software development.

In fact, AI Code Editors are rising and very much adopted by teams but still lack proper and consistent output.

Developers increasingly rely on AI tools, but without better documentation and workflows, these tools are limited in their effectiveness.

2025 is shaping up to be the year of AI agents, with APIs and documentation playing a central role in enabling their functionality. As the speed of coding accelerates, everything else—from collaboration to documentation—must catch up.

Developers spend only a small amount of time coding, while the speed of coding accelerates, everything else has to catch up.

Documentation is the backbone of requirements, translation between humans and LLMs and it needs better tooling.

We see the future of software development in documentation as a center of collaoboration, context and orchestration be it for coding, testing, automation or agents that rely on APIs.

What

With Hubql, we are building a toolset to solve common pain points in API development workflows one by one.

We are aiming to focus 4 main areas of API lifecycle:

Hubql Grid (Alpha) for Input & Context generation

Generate Markdown code summaries optimized for AI tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot.

Hubql Ref (Soon) for OpenAPI Documentation

Beautiful, always-up-to-date API docs powered by OpenAPI specs.

Hubql Client (Soon) for API Testing

Test APIs instantly without manual collection management.

Hubql Lens (Soon) for Schema Visualization

Simplify and share API documentation through diagrams across teams with seamless sharing and tools.

Hubql is modular: Use one, all or any of the product that are launched with our CLI, or available standalone as plugins, or components independently — or when you combine them for an end-to-end platform.

Our role model here is very much Supabase-like approach.

We are opening up the platform not only to the community but also eventually for and as plugins into existing frameworks or for you to use with tools that may do a better job.

How

We are launching with an Alpha version of the platform that includes:

CLI: A file watcher that launches a local application called Hubql Studio to access the platform.
Hubql Grid: Automate and guide your to generate LLM-friendly code summaries for AI tools like Cursor and GitHub Copilot.

As an Alpha release, expect some rough edges, but we’re actively building and welcome your feedback and contributions.

Why Open Source?

Inspired by our personal open-source role models Supabase and Xyflow, we believe the future of developer tooling should be open, transparent, and community-driven. Open source enables innovation and collaboration while fostering trust in tools that interact with your code.

We also see the future of software is likely and should be more open especially if we consider tools that interact/read/translate or inspect code.

Open source is not a business model; it’s a commitment. Our goal is to create a sustainable ecosystem that benefits the community, contributors, and our team.

We will rely on subscriptions and also share the funds with the community through collectives and incentives for issues and contributions. We are currently evaluating solutions such as Open Collective and Polar at the moment.

How do you fund the project?

Hubql is a self-funded private company.

We are dedicating time and resources to the project and so are open to sponsorships.

We’re inviting 5 companies to become Founding Partners — exclusive early adopters who’ll gain lifetime access to our Business Plan, public recognition, and direct influence on our roadmap.

Interested in shaping the future of API DX tooling? Apply to become a Founding Partner today →

Besides we are offering an optional subscription plan for teams using Hubql commercially and help fund the development.

This model is inspired by our friends at Xyflow.

What's next?

We are actively working on getting to the first release to cover crucial workflows to safe your time generating docs and sharing them.

Also, a couple of tutorials and improved documentation (yes our own documentation) are under-way.

You can try Hubql today by either visitng our quickstart guide: https://www.hubql.com/docs/quickstarts/get-started or by installing the CLI:

Install the CLI

npm install -g hubql

Run the CLI to launch Hubql Studio

hubql dev

Stay tuned for more updates and announcements as we continue to build the future of with you. You can join our Discord to stay updated and give us feedback. And follow on GitHub: https://github.com/hubql/hubql

Thank you.